Top Conscious Home Choices for Sustainable Living

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Sustainable living has more benefits than simply attempting to do your part to save our beloved planet.

Yes, there’s more focus on climate change and global warming, with around 140 countries announcing they will achieve or are considering net-zero targets. That’ll cover close to 90% of the world’s global emissions. But the benefits transcend the future – they improve our present, encouraging a healthier and more conscious lifestyle in everything we do.

Back to our homes. The average household emits 2.7 tonnes of CO2 each year. As many of us know, those emissions pack a punch on the purse. We’re also one of the largest consumers of toxic pollutants – from food to paints on the wall.

So, what can we do to make the little differences? Conscious living and home choices that make a difference.

Let’s explore.

From Top To Bottom

Let’s give you a top-to-bottom rundown of your home. You can apply this to almost every room – we’ll keep it non-specific and think of things you’ll find all around your home.

From The Top – Lighting

A top-to-bottom scan will help you identify the things in your home that you can change to consciously live greener and sustainably – if not now, in the future. Look up, lighting. Lighting (and leaving the lights on when they shouldn’t be) is one of the dominant ways we waste energy in the UK.

Thanks to modern-day technology, there are tons of energy-saving bulbs that emit a better light and specialist energy saving lighting options like UFO LED lighting for example – what we mean by that is, they’re not the harsh fluorescent lights of the past. Think Hygge, people, a soft light is better than the brightest light, and who likes having the big light on, anyway?

Look Down A Bit – Paint and Wallpaper

Look down, what do you see? The walls and windows. Paint contains harmful chemicals that can linger in the air for up to 4 months, but you won’t realise the particles are there. When the next redecorating schedule arrives, consider using recycled wallpaper. The manufacturing, application, and usage are far less harmful to you and the environment. Plus, recycled wallpaper is much cheaper.

The windows – they’re often the big energy drainer. When it gets to Autumn, do you need to put the heating on in September or October? Even with the heating on, do you find yourself turning it up high to get warm? Have you put ten layers on and two pairs of fluffy socks? Maybe it’s time for new windows. An investment, yes, but you can now get triple-glazed (move out the way, double-glazed) windows that save around 15% a year on bills.

Look All The Way Down – Flooring

Now to the floor, and yes, the floor can impact the environment. Not necessarily once it’s installed, but everything that happens to get it to the installation stage. Manufacturing and the materials used in flooring types like carpets are unbelievably harmful to the environment. Laminate isn’t. Oak laminate flooring, for example, often uses recycled materials and can itself be recycled after use. Creating that luxurious wood-like effect, being easy to clean, and having a lifespan of 15-25 years, it trumps alternatives – check out woodfloorwarehouse.ie for examples.

Accessories? Recycled material has you covered again. They use a soft and sustainable fibre with the look and feel of wool. You really can’t tell the difference. They’re often made of materials like recycled plastic bottles and home waste – hundreds of plastic bottles go into making a rug. Fear not. The finished product is as soft and luxurious as the real wool deal.

There you have it, a top-to-bottom rundown of most of the rooms in your home – bar the bathroom and kitchen, but that’s for another episode. For now, look around your home and see if you can see any other sustainably conscious living changes you can make.