This last year has been particularly disheartening for those committed to sustainability and stopping global warming. It’s new year and a new chance to recommit to the things that you value most. If you hold sustainability close to your heart, this is the article for you.
It’s easy to aim high and to fail quickly at resolutions. That’s why so many resolutions are abandoned by the time February rolls in.
We’ve come up with some of the more over-the-top sustainability goals – that fail for various reasons. It could be that they’re simple too vague to succeed, or too ambitious to achieve this year. For whatever reason, they’re headed to failure. We want to help you make resolutions that you can actually achieve this year, and the steps to get there.
1. Stop global warming.
This resolution suffers from being both too general and completely beyond the reach of any one individual. In essence, this is a global problem that requires the cooperation of many nations to achieve, but also why it can be a source of frustration for many of us. We are not in a position to make a meaningful impact on global warming at the world stage – where the policy decision and commitment could alter the path we’re headed on.
So what can you do instead? Try narrowing your focus to your local community. One of our customers, Dennis Bauchwitz, started two green initiatives in his retirement living community. One was to spread the word about community solar and then other was to start an organic recycling program. These initiatives won’t stop global warming in and of themselves, but they will contribute to sustainable living in his community.
What is one green initiative that you can start in your community?
2. Go green all at once.
This resolutions simply asks too much of a person and can lead to paralysis. Or even worse, the “sustainable consumption paradox,” where too much information complicates the process of living sustainably. Once you start to dig into whether your coffee was actually sustainably sourced and you start to question if the coffee was harvested by people paid a living wage. These are all good questions, but this can negatively impact your ability to take action on your values.
Instead, start off with a list of changes you can make in how you live that would lessen your footprint. Now, out of the list select one or two that you can accomplish in the space of the next year alongside all your other responsibilities. We give you a few ideas below, but it’s best to make this small, achievable, and personally meaningful.
If you notice your electricity bill going up (and we all have this past year), think about making your home more energy efficient. Often your utilities or local governments will have programs in place to help pay for these changes. This is an easily achievable goal but also one that will have real, personal impact on your life.
What is one achievable change you can make in your life to transition to sustainable living?
3. Only use clean energy.
Many of us don’t have the option to only use clean energy, let alone clean electricity. One of the many modern achievements is that we hook into a grid that supplies us with the energy we need to live. I don’t think that we appreciate this enough. But it also limits the impact we have on the electricity mix. Apart from installing solar panels on your roof – many of us simply can’t for various reasons – there are some steps you can take to transition to clean energy.
One of the easiest ways to support clean energy is to sign up to community solar. You pay solar providers for the clean electricity they supply to the grid and you reduce your electricity bills.
Other options include replacing your furnace with greener options such as a heat pump. You can also revisit your energy usage habits and reduce the amount of electricity you use during those high demand periods. Peak energy use-times often coincide with utilities relying on peaker plants to cover the heavy demand. Peaker plants are notoriously dirty with heavy air pollution.
How can you support clean energy in your community and switch to clean energy sources in your home.
4. Eat only fruit that has fallen from trees to avoid cruelty to all living plants and animals.
We’ve purposely exaggerated this one to emphasize both the noble intentions but how unrealistic it can be even for people to switch to vegetarianism. Beef production does have an outsized impact on the environment from emissions to land use.
It has been estimated that beef emits approximately 10 times more emission per gram than chicken or pork and requires approximately 20 times more land. Specifically, cattle produce methane, a potent greenhouse gas, that can have a larger impact on global warming than carbon dioxide.
A 2024 study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research suggests that if we, globally, simply switched to a more sustainable, flexitarian diet, we could achieve global warming goals of 1.5 degrees Celsius without as many stringent CO2 restrictions.
What is a flexitarian diet? It features a wide variety of plant-based foods, limits the intake of livestock products and added sugars. In essence, what’s healthier for us is healthy for the planet. A flexitarian diet is certainly more achievable than completely cutting off certain food categories.
What do you eat that is high emitting? Can you reduce the frequency of eating high emitters?
5. Only buy locally grown produce and food products
Especially in the more Northern States, where the cold winter weather significantly reduces the local produce available at certain times of the year, this is both overly restrictive and may even have an impact on your health.
A fun exercise would be to identify any local produce and products by season and company. You can start to tailor what you eat to more closely align with the changing seasons. Finding and supporting local farmers through buying direct from them is another way to reduce your carbon footprint from what you eat.
What can you do to add more local food and food products to your meals?
6. Stop using plastics – completely.
Plastic is everywhere – it’s in our oceans, our food, and our bodies. While we appreciate the sentiment behind cutting out plastics, the ask is demanding for the average family. Just a quick glance in their fridge and you can see immediately how many regular items are in plastic. We can’t get away from plastics completely – but we can take some simple steps to reduce our reliance and mitigate our impact from waste.
One simple way is to carry a reusable bag with you for shopping. Some states and cities have single-use plastic bans already in place and the impact is significant. A report on plastic bag bans suggested that such bans could cut usage by 300 bags per person once adopted. The next step would be to advocate for a single-use plastic bag ban in your region if there’s not one in place already.
What is one way that you consume single-use plastics and can you reduce or recycle those?
7. Buy nothing to reduce fashion waste
Clothes wear out and bodies get taller, wider and thinner. While it’s laudable to want to reduce the amount you consume of fast fashion, it’s also not reasonable for many families. Especially those with growing children (and growing waistlines).
Secondhand and vintage fashion is experiencing something of a renaissance, and it can also be nicer on the pocketbook. Instead of buying for a special event you could also consider renting that tux or dress. It’s also worth looking at your credit card bills and seeing how many purchases you’ve made from notorious fast fashion places. A simple goal could be to reduce how much you purchase from those companies by half.
How do your shopping habits contribute to fashion waste? Can you reduce how often you buy from notorious fast-fashion companies?
Living more sustainably in 2026 doesn’t have to be overly ambitious or grandiose. Sometimes the simple changes we make are the ones we can keep. Making these resolutions specific and easy to do just adds to the likelihood that we will stay with the changes. We all feel better if the life we live aligns to what we value, even if we start with just one small change.
