‘It’s the small changes that make a big difference’

You don’t need to live in an eco tree house to be green, says author and eco warrior Sheherazade Goldsmith. Each and every effort counts

The most annoying thing about being ‘green’ is having to constantly dispel the myth that all things green are far too time consuming and expensive to bother with. Besides, how can the efforts of one single individual living on a street with gas-guzzlers and non-recyclers make a difference?

Like most discerning novice environmentalists, my own shade of green has depended largely on the practicalities of being eco friendly within a young and – if you include all our pets – fairly large family. So giving up my washing machine or buttered, non-organic marmite crumpets has been out of the question. However, providing my children with a relatively chemical-free home and diet, and finding energy-efficient alternatives that do exactly the same job as their energy-consuming counterparts has been a pretty effortless task.

In most cases, reducing your eco footprint is simply about re-thinking the way you shop and, more importantly, how you perform the most mundane day-to-day tasks. Even something as simple as the way you throw away your rubbish can have a massive impact. Recycling may not sound like planet-saving stuff, but when you consider that for every tonne of paper recycled, 15 trees are saved, or that recycling one glass bottle saves enough energy to power a TV set for an hour and a half, it soon becomes a worthwhile exercise.

The more you look at the implications of the daily choices you make, the more obvious it becomes that making a greener choice brings with it a whole load of personal and environmental benefits.

Take energy efficiency for instance. Going the full hog by installing some underground heat source pumps or solar panels, no matter how environmentally efficient and ultimately cost effective, is still prohibitively expensive for most. But switching to energy-efficient light bulbs that use 80 per cent less electricity and last much longer than normal ones or insulating your loft properly, can go a long way towards reducing your own carbon emissions and household bills.
What we eat and how we source it is equally important. One of the most pleasurable aspects of becoming a greeny is finding the very best homegrown products. Food is, I have found, the very best way to entice your offspring into going green – as nothing seems to inspire children more than making as much mess as possible in the kitchen or watching strawberries sprout.

Although most European foodies will turn their nose up at the notion that we Brits are just as capable of producing fantastic cheeses, sweet seasonal fruits, flavoursome vegetables and succulent organically reared meat, I say British is best. For those in the know, there is nothing like doing your weekly shop from a local farmers’ market or using specialist high-street shops that stock local or locally reared produce. Buying as directly from the producer as possible means you have a say in the quality of what you are buying and are not just dependent on often-misleading supermarket labels.

The good news is that being green is no longer about compromise. You don’t need to aspire to living in a self-made home, with a compost loo and no central heating. Going halfway isn’t a cop out. If there is one thing I’ve learned in my experience, it’s that collectively, the small changes we can all make to our daily habits can make a big difference.

Words: Sheherazade Goldsmith