Promoting an Eco-Friendly Culture
The terms ‘Eco-friendly’ and ‘earth-friendly’ mean the same thing. They describe the act of doing things that are not harmful to the environment and would help protect the environment. In times like this, our major goal is to achieve sustainability. This means we need to maintain and support the earth in a way that generations after us can conveniently survive and thrive. The best way to accomplish this goal is to adopt a way of life- a culture that promotes Eco-friendliness.
It’s great that you and I understand the importance of Eco-friendliness. Our actions matter a lot but sincerely, it’s not enough. Eco-friendly people need to go beyond understanding and practicing an eco-friendly culture to motivate others to adopt it. This is one of those many times when the phrase “the more the merrier” is valid. How do we promote an eco-friendly culture?
Educate others
Sometimes harmful practices are done out of ignorance and not with the intent of causing destruction. While ignorance is not an excuse, we shouldn’t leave any gaps in our strive to achieve sustainability. Educate your children, your friends, your colleagues, your social media followers, and even your enemies. It’s no harm if you adopt an eco-friendly hashtag on your social media posts. You need to be polite but aggressive about teaching others. If we truly understand the need for eco-friendliness, we wouldn’t have much trouble spreading the word to all and sundry.
Practice It!
Following our need to educate is the need to practice. If you’re preaching it, then you should practice it! Practice starts with a detailed self-evaluation, then elimination of harmful items or habits and adoption of earth-friendly ideas and practices. By all means, avoid wastage; buy only what you need, recycle, upcycle and dispose of waste items properly. Upgrade to green electronics and reduce emissions by turning them off when you don’t need them. Save water, drive efficiently, eat healthily, wear only eco-friendly clothes, reduce your carbon print, and plant trees. For effectiveness, a practice needs to be consistent, or else people would query your actions and that’s not progressive.
Support the Vision
Eco-friendly people need to be supportive of each other’s efforts. If there’s an eco-friendly campaign, you should make time to attend and participate. You can make donations to organizations promoting this course. Donations can be in cash or used items like clothing, electronics, furniture, etc. Instead of sending these items to the trash where they can cause harm, give them to people who need them. Eco-friendliness should be a major factor in your investment considerations. Investing in Eco-friendly business investments would not just promote the culture but also make you richer. You can show your support through social media likes, shares, and following eco-friendly posts and platforms.
Volunteer
Volunteering is one way to boldly declare your stance on promoting eco-friendliness. There are many groups like REES Africa that support and promote eco-friendliness. Some are involved in cleaning the environment, planting trees, installing eco-friendly infrastructure like solar panels; educating others, and advocating a change. Volunteering helps you to meet like-minded people with whom you can discuss trends and develop strategies to promote the culture. It’s one of the surest ways to stay motivated to the purpose and goal.
Patronize Eco-Friendly Shops
There are several businesses selling eco-friendly products. Without your patronage, they cannot thrive. When you shop for unfriendly stuff, you are betraying the eco-friendly team. Eco-friendly shopping ditches the unwanted plastic bags for paper or cloth bags and recyclable packaging. Buy from retailers who show much regard for the environment, that’s quite easy to spot. Patronise thrift stores- it saves you money and saves the energy that would have been used to produce new items. Buy organic and natural products to encourage companies to stock more of these products. You should always evaluate the environmental impact of every product you purchase.
Encourage Workplace Eco-friendliness
If you’re a leader, you have an invaluable opportunity to make eco-friendly decisions in your workplace. If you’re a younger staff, you can equally include unique eco-friendly measures in your winning pitches and ideas. Have you considered ways to minimize resource use or wastage and reduce your company’s carbon print? How about patronizing the green-friendly suppliers? Do you know that placing plants in the office will not only beautify but also cleanse and uplift the atmosphere to higher productivity levels? You can also minimize your paper use- print only what you need. This may require a huge overhaul but it is worth it.
Conclusion
Culture can be lost along the line when it is not passed down to others. We wouldn’t want all our efforts to make things better to go to waste. You and I need to be more intentional about promoting this life-saving eco-friendly culture we have embraced. It’s not easy but it is very beneficial to live and promote an eco-friendly culture. So, the golden rule of this campaign is: DO NOT GIVE UP! Let’s all keep up the good work, get others to board this train, and, keep the earth happy and efficient.
#ecofriendlyculture#
Author: Christiana Ugbem
Photo credit: REES Africa
