Rising climate anxiety
A recent study by the Lancet reported that nearly 60% of young people are extremely worried by climate change.
Lack of understanding
It’s really difficult to understand what we can do about the climate crisis. We’re all just tiny parts of a much bigger challenge.
The problem is, public messaging on how we can actually make a meaningful difference as been very poor over the years.
The good news is NetZero laws require governments and companies to change, so we will start seeing more environmentally friendly options in all areas of life.
But while we wait for that change, there are some proactive steps we can take that make a big difference.
What to focus on?
As with all things in life, we should focus on the biggest and most important things first.
Global warming is our biggest challenge. Carbon and methane emissions are the gases that are doing most to heat the atmosphere. This comes from the mining and burning of fossil fuels. So we need to reduce or eliminate the burning of fossil fuels where possible.
The big hitters in the UK for using fossil fuels are the things we do a lot of:
- Heating water: 30% - to heat our homes & office.
- Transport: 30% - to get our cars, vans & trucks from A to B.
- Food: 30% - often a surprise, but we do eat 3+ times a day after all! Emissions from the food system and methane from ‘ruminating’ animals (basically cows and lamb).
- The other 10% - they exist as problems, but really we should focus effort on areas 1-3 if we want to achieve impact.
“Doing fuck all is scientifically proven not to work”.
So what can we do?
For 1 - Stop burning fossil fuels ASAP. Clean electricity production in the UK is rising rapidly. Buying a ‘green tariff’ supports investment in clean energy and giving suppliers the confidence to invest more. Anywhere you use gas today - can you swap this for electricity? Grants are available to support the installation of Heat Pumps, or insulating your property to reduce the amount of heat you need to use.
For 2 - Reducing our car addiction helps. Prioritise; 1) active travel, 2) public transport, 3) electric cars. Cycle networks and ‘quiet cycle routes’ in UK cities have improved drastically and are a treat to use, but you dont see them from the busy roads you drive and bus down. Google maps and citymapper do a great job of joining up the A-B. Bike and train journeys give you reading & working time, and excercise for free, in the time that would be spent driving. There are some incredible electric bikes available now too that are great fun to use. Electric cars? It should be a criminal offence to buy a new petrol car over a new electric one.
For 3: It’s the diet one. We do really need to think about reducing beef consumption, followed by lamb. Our suggestion us to treat these as very rare treats, and phase out if you can. There are some graphs here that give you an snapshot of the environmental impact of different foods. Eating seasonally helps to reduce ‘food miles’ (the transportation emissions of getting food from far away to your door), and means the food you eat is more nutritious. The longer it takes to get from farm to plate, the higher the nutrient drop-off. (Frozen fruit and veg does a great job of locking in nutrients, ao a better way of consuming out-of-season favourites).
These changes might sound hard. But the hard truth is; this is a Climate Crisis, and a crisis requires big changes. Let's start making that change because it leads us to a positive place.
What about recycling?
The good news is most people recycle and we should all continue to do so. We should increase the amount of soft-plastic we return to supermarkets, and we should return all obsolete technology in our drawers to municipal recycling centres.
However, a negative consequence of recycling has been that it has enabled us to consume more single-use items because we think they are magically turned into something new. The reality 50% of the UKs collected recycling gets incinerated. Only 16% of waste globally gets recycled.
So the best course of action to take is to reduce the amount of products and consumables we need in our lives, thus reducing the amount we send to recycling.
Reduce, re-use and then recycle. In that order. :)
What about the politicians?
Reports suggest that the public are rightly concerned about climate change, but the message doesn't seem to be getting through to politicians.
Politicians react when public opinion becomes more visible. We suggest writing to your MP, joining climate protests and using your vote to support political parties with a positive manifesto for climate action.
What are Bebello doing for environmental sustainability?
Bebello are ripping up the playbook on business-as-normal of the past 100 years, by embedding the circular economy into everything we do. Circular Business models are fundamentally better for People and Planet.
This means:
- Bebello products last longer, are repairable and are intended to be re-used. This reduces carbon emissions from mining the materials needed to create products, manufacturing and shipping.
- Refurbishing, repairing and remanufacturing creates jobs in the local economy.
Bebello Washer reduces water use and associated emissions by up to 80%, from heating water used to hand-wash an equivalent load. With the average parent spending an hour per day hand-washing, that adds up to 180 hours, or 4.5 working weeks of cleaning, water use and energy over a newborns first 6 months.
What next?
As we grow over the coming years we want to become more visible and more active on climate issues.
But for now, let's not worry about the things we can’t control and get moving on the things we can; our behaviours, purchasing decisions and our votes!
We're keen you hear your thoughts on this, so please add comments or keep the discussion going on social media.