As we collectively turn our attention to the environment this Earth Day, 2015, it’s important to remember that there are many things we can do as individuals to help improve our own living conditions and impact on our local environments as much as the Earth itself. Perhaps we are all guilty of spending too much time on the data and finger-pointing to simply consider our own individual impact on our environment. Sure it doesn't move the needle much on the entire Earth’s scale, but it certainly moves the needle in our building, our neighborhood, our town, and so on. If we all just gave a bit of ourselves, perhaps we could start to move the needle in a big way.
It’s not our mission to tell you what you should do. Or tell you what you’re doing wrong. But we can highlight some of the things we have done at Simon’s Agency as we moved into our new building and perhaps if we work by example and share our own story, you might find something in this that can work for you as well.
Here are eight examples of things we have done:
These are things we have been able to accomplish by planning for them months ago, before we began construction on our new building as well as moving toward these measures as an organization. While the environmental rewards may be small on scale, what hasn't been small has been our monthly savings on our utility bill! If our employees and neighbors can take one or two of these and apply them to their homes and lives, perhaps we can all contribute to a positive yield come Earth Day 2016 (not to mention saving a few bucks along the way).
As we remember Earth Day this year, let’s all continue to improve upon our impact such that our Earth Day efforts extend to every day of the year. For it is what we do every day that will cumulatively affect the kind of Earth we leave to our future generations.