Tips for a sustainable lifestyle
Written by Moniek Dams
There is a lot of inspiration for a sustainable lifestyle. You can be sustainable with your job, choose sustainable clothing, make sustainable choices with food, make your home more sustainable, etc. But what other lifestyle choices can you make to live more sustainably? Jobboard Greenjobs.nl shares tips for a sustainable lifestyle.
Why a sustainable lifestyle?
For me, a sustainable lifestyle started with conscious eating. I met someone who ate vegan and that was the first time for me that I really started to think about what I ate myself. She inspired me and I stopped eating dairy products and then meat. It was a long process in which I started making more and more sustainable choices step by step. I started thinking about other areas in my life. For example, how durable are the shoes I wear? How sustainable and responsible are the clothes I buy? Do I want to work for a company that is not sustainable or does not make a positive contribution to society in any way? That was my start to a sustainable lifestyle and the reason I now work at Greenjobs.nl. The whole process was intensive at times, because it is never finished and can always be better and more sustainable, but it also brought me a lot of happiness and gratitude. For example, I am much more aware of the fact that I can choose where I spend my money and whether I give a large multinational even more money or whether I support a small company that needs it much more.
Of course, sustainability is not only conscious consumption, but also consuming less and not everyone has the financial position to make the most sustainable choices. But every small step you take contributes and some more sustainable choices actually save you money and are good for the planet.
Get inspired by sustainable lifestyle blogs
There are a lot of nice blogs about sustainability. Some focus on vegan food, others on sustainable fashion, but there are also sustainable blogs that focus on a sustainable lifestyle, sustainability in several areas.
Groengraag.nl is a sustainable lifestyle blog with tips for sustainability, such as reducing plastic or saving energy. The blog is from Lisanne Moreau – Poelstra, married to Remco and lives with their two children in Zaltbommel. On her blog she offers, among other things, online courses for saving energy, for example. Which is not only good for the planet but also for your wallet.
Elkedaggroener.nl is Ageda Venema's blog, and her dream is to live energy-neutral. On her blog you will find tips on everything related to sustainability. How you can reuse certain products instead of throwing them away, for example, coffee grounds are also good to use as a scrub.
Switch to a sustainable bank
According to the Fair Bank Guide, a platform of organizations such as Oxfam Novib and Milieudefensie, there are two leaders in sustainable banking in the Netherlands: Triodos Bank and ASN. Triodos is independent and was founded in 1980. ASN is a former trade union bank and part of the nationalized Volksbank.
Sustainable banks actively choose what they want to invest in, with a view to a positive impact. With traditional banks it is quite a quest to find out exactly what your money is used for, this is different with the sustainable banks. Both ASN and Triodos have an overview on their website of the companies and projects in which they invest their customers' money.
Between 2013 and 2016, large Dutch banks such as ABN-AMRO, Rabobank and ING together invested around 9 billion euros in the fifteen most animal-unfriendly meat companies in our country, including chicken factories. Research has been done into the investments of these banks in the areas of weapons, climate and labor rights. ING scores worst in all areas.
To switch banks is easier than it seems. It sounds scary and a lot of work, switching banks and changing all your financial personal details, but it's done in no time. For example, you have a transfer service that ensures that your incoming payments on your old accounts are transferred to your new account for 13 months and your new account is passed on to companies that debit money from your account by direct debit. The first step is to create an account, then request the switching service, and then you can already use your new account.
Sustainability in the bedroom - Sustainable sex products
If there is one place you don't want to use chemical junk, it's your most intimate zones. Greenjobs.nl has listed some tips for sustainable condoms, lubricants and vibrators that contain as few chemical additives as possible and are made in a fair way.
Chemical-free lubricant: If you use lubricant and find it important that it is vegan, you can check the ingredients. Ingredients such as cera alba or cera flava are other names for beeswax and are not vegan. You can also pay attention to nasty chemicals, silicones or many synthetic substances. Take a look at the following lubricant brands: Cobeco Bio (vegan and 100% natural), Aia (vegan, cruelty-free, silicone-free) and Bonk lube (organic ingredients, based on aloe vera).
Vegan and Fairtrade condoms: Many condoms contain a dairy by-product (casein) and are therefore not vegan. Some condom brands also test on animals. The vegan variants often use thistle extract as an alternative to animal products and are almost always cruelty-free. It is of course great that a vegan condom is not tested on animals and does not contain any animal products, but that does not necessarily make it sustainable. If you want to know for sure whether a condom is sustainable and fair, you can check how and what the condom is made of. For example, most condoms made from natural latex come from the rubber tree. It is important that the workers who work on a plantation with rubber trees are paid fairly. You can know this by checking whether it has the following quality marks: Fair Rubber Association and Fair Trade. A few sustainable and fair condoms: Mein Kondom (vegan & Fairtrade latex), Glyde (Vegan, rubber latex and thistle extract) and Releaf (vegan and Fairtrade natural latex).
Sustainable vibrator: Many sex toys contain nasty chemicals, such as phthalates, BPA, melamine or parabens. Rather skip the cheap plastic vibrators (especially those made of PVC) that you don't know what chemicals they contain and invest in a more durable one. You have the following sustainable vibrators: Je Joue vibrators (100% non-toxic silicone products, from €65), Womanizer Premium Eco (made of bioplastic, replaceable battery, from €139.00), POM flexible vibrator (made of medical silicone, founded by two women, from €95).
Read more? VanafHier has written more about sustainable sex products.
Get inspired
Whether it's saving energy or throwing away less food, it all contributes to the planet and your wallet. There are a lot of steps you can take for a sustainable lifestyle, but you don't have to do it all at once. Give yourself time and take the time to delve into sustainable topics. The above lifestyle blogs or sustainable books. Talk about it with your friends and family and share tips and that way we create a more sustainable planet together.
Do you have any sustainable lifestyle tips for us? Or is your sustainable lifestyle blog not yet listed here? Let us know by emailing us at team@greenjobs.nl!
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