Setting Your Eco Goals for the Year!

By Katherine Tellock, Co-Founder of Chicago Environmentalists

Welcome to our new blog! With the new year, I wanted to kick off the blog with one of our favorite topics: setting Eco Goals. American culture tells us to set New Year’s Resolutions to better ourselves, but what about ways to better the planet by reducing our environmental impact? Every person has some level of control over what they consume and how they consume it, and can make significant reductions in their own environmental footprint over the course of a year. Additionally, personal changes go along with broader activism-- how would it make sense to hold polluting industries accountable when you are still regularly supporting them with your dollars?  

One thing we really believe at Chicago Environmentalists is to set yourself up for success in living a more sustainable lifestyle. We push progress over perfection– that is, it is better for most people to make SOME major sustainable changes than for a few people to reach “perfection.” I won’t be able to live in a shack in the woods where I grow all my own food and make all my own clothes anytime soon, and neither will most Americans. But there are still LOADS of changes we can all make to reduce our household’s environmental impact. If you are just getting started, I personally find this Eco Footprint Calculator to be a good place to start. It doesn’t just take your fossil fuel usage into account- it’s a much more holistic assessment of your greenhouse gas and waste production as well.  Be sure to “Add Details to Improve Accuracy”- it helps you get a better result. In the last 8 years, I have decreased my Eco Footprint by nearly 50%, and I find that having this data to track your progress is really helpful.

But setting Eco Goals isn’t just about changing your personal habits. We’re proponents of the “both/and” mentality - that is, we believe that both personal and political changes are vital to making our culture more sustainable.

Massive policy changes are absolutely needed and large corporations need to be held accountable, but because these things can take years of activism and lobbying, we suggest including them as longer-term goals.

This year, we challenge you to make some lifestyle changes that can reduce your environmental impact in the short term, while also getting more involved in the larger political changes needed to stop climate change. You could pick a particular policy issue and join the campaign to support it, volunteer for a candidate whose platform includes passing environmental legislation, get involved with educating kids (or adults) on sustainability issues, and MANY more options.

To the right (or above, if you’re on your phone) is the spreadsheet I made of my goals for each year. I find this setup helpful because I can phase in each change over time, as opposed to trying to do everything at once.

In many cases, you have to use up the things you already have before you can switch products. Additionally, larger changes, like your transportation mode or household appliances/utilities, will take more time and planning.

If you do decide to make eco goals, be sure to share them in our Facebook group so we can all learn from each other!

Know Your Power!

- Katherine Tellock

ARTICLE WRITTEN BY

Katherine Tellock, Co-Founder of Chicago Environmentalists