Eco friendly home design
With climate change so high on the agenda today, most of us are looking to become greener and more eco-friendly in how we live our lives.
At the same time, we want our homes to be pleasurable to live in and up to date in meeting our needs. It’s absolutely possible to achieve both! Here are five ways to introduce eco-friendly design to your home.
1. Reduce your energy use
This is perhaps the most important priority in creating a greener home. To tackle climate change we all need to use less energy. The biggest energy saver is a fairly simple one – to replace all the lights in your home with LED bulbs. This will both reduce CO2 emissions in lighting your home and save you money on your electricity bill.
The second key step is to turn your thermostat down – just by a degree or two. Reducing the set temperature for your heating saves £80 a year and 330kg of CO2, according to the Energy Saving Trust. You can also adjust individual radiators in your home so that each room is at a comfortable temperature. Don’t forget to set the bathroom radiator!
2. Switch to green energy
While we’re on energy, do look at switching energy providers. There are many green energy suppliers today that guarantee to supply energy ONLY from renewable sources like wind and solar power. Switching away from fossil fuels is an important step in being more eco-friendly.
3. Reduce waste with upcycling
Today’s society relies too heavily on buying new products and throwing away the old ones. It’s much more eco-friendly to reuse and recycle things that are already in your home. So if you’re updating a room, don’t bin old furniture. Mend it, paint it, replace the handles… you’ll fall in love with it all over again!
If you really do need to replace an item, advertise the old one on a local community website to give it a whole new lease of life.
4. A greener home – literally
The best way to deal with rising CO2 levels is to increase the number of trees and plants on the planet – and we can all do our bit. Don’t pave your garden: plant grass, trees and shrubs wherever you can. Add window boxes and indoor house plants – they absorb both CO2 and air pollution. And instead of putting food waste in the bin, start a compost bin to return the nutrients to the plants in your home.
5. Park the plastic
When updating your home, try to think sustainably. Add a water filter to your kitchen tap and there’ll be no need to buy mineral water in plastic bottles. Avoid plastic as much as you can – buy metal products that can be recycled or natural materials that will biodegrade when you no longer need them.
Sometimes it can feel that it’s difficult to make a difference – but if everyone takes steps to live a greener life, the bigger the impact will be. For more information about what you can do to address climate change, see https://friendsoftheearth.uk/