A Greener Future: Not as Distant as You May Think (If You Want It)
While environmental news reports often focus on the negatives and how a cleaner, better world is still out of our reach if we don’t do more, we are closer than we think to achieving certain sustainability goals. The key is not to look at what we do as individuals in our own homes and daily lives but to focus on what is being done on a larger scale by communities, businesses, and governments.
It’s still essential for individuals to do their part, but it is the larger organizations and companies that are often responsible for the most significant contributions to greenhouse gases and carbon emissions. This means they can affect change on a larger scale and in a shorter amount of time if they put in the effort. Larger companies and organizations need to adopt more sustainable practices to give us the green future that we are hoping for—and they are.
There are certainly still a lot of changes that need to happen. The world won’t magically heal itself overnight. But if communities, businesses, and governments can come together to tackle environmental issues now, securing a sustainable future is not as unattainable and far off as we might think.
Sustainable Practices Now For a Greener Tomorrow
With advances across all industries and increased community efforts, we are taking bigger steps towards a greener or towards a greener future tomorrow. There are still some industries that need to play catchup, and even homeowners can do more than they are to reduce their energy use and waste production, but the more of us that lead the way and set an example, the more others will start to follow.
Governments across the globe are even working towards a sustainable future by requiring businesses more and more to meet certain “green” standards. There are no laws or rules in place across the board, but again, the more we push and show that this is what we want, and the more changes that are made, the sooner everyone else will follow. The key is not just to show that we want it but that we demand it. If we want a greener future, we can make it happen.
Below are some of the ways communities, businesses, and governments are already making an effort and how others can follow their lead:
Community Clean-ups
Community clean-up organizations have a significant impact on local communities and the environment as a whole. In many ways, their efforts are more successful at cleaning up local communities than their own local governments and municipalities. This is because community clean-ups are nonprofits that operate with the help of passionate volunteers that turn out in large numbers, enabling them to achieve more on a larger scale with fewer resources.
There are a number of activities that community clean-ups participate in depending on the needs of their local area. Some of these activities include trash clean-up, urban recycling projects, waste and resource recovery, habitat restoration, education and awareness events, and care of marine environments.
Zero Waste Materials
The development of sustainable materials is one way that certain industries are making strides towards creating a zero-waste economy. For example, chemical researchers recently invented something called bio-petroleum in their efforts to develop materials that are less harmful to the environment. This liquid substance can replace fossil fuels which are needed to “make everyday products like plastic containers and bags, automobile parts, lubricants, and soaps.”
Materials engineers are also continually looking for ways to develop and utilize materials to cut down on waste consumption. They often work together with chemical engineers and other scientists to discover and design new and useful materials for products in ways that eliminate the need for so much waste as cutting down on our use of resources is necessary to achieve sustainability.
Environmental Remediation
Large corporations are some of the biggest contributors to environmental pollution. Toxic chemicals, particulate matter, oil spills, plastic waste, greenhouse gases, and more all come from big companies and end up contaminating the air, soil, and water. However, government entities like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have enacted federal regulations, such as environmental remediation, to stop this large-scale pollution from continuing.
Environmental remediation is when the law requires companies or organizations guilty of contaminating the environment to remove those contaminants. Often, this involves large-scale efforts and specialists to spearhead the cleanup. However, this takes time and resources, meaning that—as mentioned above—organized community clean-ups are often needed to step in and help.
The Benefits of Adopting Sustainable Practices Now
We can all benefit from embracing sustainability and making more of an immediate effort to reduce our negative impact on the environment. If we really want it, we can achieve the green future of our dreams now. And not only does developing sustainable habits now benefit the environment, but it can benefit a number of other things, including:
- Our health: Everyday sustainable practices can include using fuel-powered transportation less and being mindful of the foods we consume to reduce carbon emissions. Developing these practices will naturally improve our health as we will walk and bike more and eat healthier foods.
- Cost of living: Using green energy products and sustainable materials to build homes will help cut down on energy bills and the cost of materials, meaning the cost of living overall will decrease.
- Self-sustainability: Planting our own gardens as a food source and using renewable energy sources such as water and solar power can also cut costs as well as teach us to live more self-reliantly and depend less on outside resources.
Final Thoughts
Sustainable practices are on the rise and growing in popularity each day. Individuals, residential communities, large corporations, and government organizations can (and should) all do their part to reduce waste and minimize the use of natural resources—especially if we want to effect change and see a greener tomorrow sooner rather than later.
When you think of what you are doing solely as an individual, it might seem impossible that we will one day achieve full-scale sustainability. This can be especially hard to imagine when reports continually show the negative impacts we are having on the environment. However, while there are massive steps that we still need to take as a society, if we partner together and combine our efforts to make sustainable changes, we can more quickly achieve the greener future of our dreams.
