World Earth Day & The Green Reset

With Earth Day only a week away (22/04/2021), we have decided what better way to embrace this event than for everyone to get involved in some new ‘green habits’ for 1 month in the spirit of myenergi’s very own Green Reset.

For ourselves and many others every day is Earth Day. This years theme is “Restore Our Earth” and we wanted to share 10 easy ways in which you can get involved in our green reset, make a few simple swaps and start living a greener life and help to restore our Earth.

myenergi and #TheGreenReset: Your guide to eco-friendly living

It’s no secret that our modern lifestyles put significant pressure on the environment. But while making positive, meaningful changes, it is also fairly easy to put them off. That’s why we’re launching #TheGreenReset – a national initiative challenging householders worldwide to swap their wasteful ways for environmentally friendly alternatives.

Set to launch on World Earth Day (22 April 2021), the initiative aims to demonstrate just how easy it can be to make a sustainable difference. As part of raising awareness, we’re hosting a competition to win a selection of eco-friendly smart home tech gadgets. Join lifestyle influencers Coral Golding, Dean Bartle, Grace Beverly and share your eco changes on social media, remembering to tag us when you do!

Don’t know where to begin? From small steps like ditching single-use plastics and shopping local, to larger changes such as investing in solar panels for your home or switching to an electric vehicle, here’s ten suggestions to get you started for you and your family:

1. Energy saving hacks

Turning off household appliances rather than leaving them on standby, flicking the light switch off when you leave the room and getting to grips with your thermostat are just a few simple ways you can conserve energy. As summer is on its way, why not try some of these for 1 month during #Thegreenreset, not only will this reduce your environmental impact, but also your monthly electricity bills!

  Turn off standby appliances

• Turn appliances off at the plug can save an average of £30 a year. Turn off to save up!
• Invest in plug sockets that can be turned on and off and monitored via your phone, this is also a great way to make sure your family are safe at night without having any plugs left on.

Turn down your thermostat

• Over a third of the money spent on energy bills is goes towards heating and hot water costs.
• Turning your heating down by just 1 degree could save up to £80 a year – why not go wild and turn it down by 2 degrees!
• Dare we suggest it… yes we do! Turn your thermostat off for the summer. On those chilly evenings you can grab an extra cosy jumper, snuggly blanket or cuddle up with a loved one when it gets chilly.

Insulate Your Home

•    Insulating your loft and cavity walls is an effective way to shave around £135 off your annual energy bills. Especially so, If you live in a home with numerous external walls such as a typical semi-detached house and even more so if you’re living in a detached house, seeing a faster return on investment.

If you’re feeling inspired by all these money saving tips and want to go bigger, why not spend this week looking into grants and schemes available from the government such as the Energy Company Obligation (ECO). The Energy Company Obligation is a government energy efficiency scheme in Great Britain to help reduce carbon emissions and tackle fuel poverty.

2. Upcycle and recycling projects

Step away from them screens for a few hours and get your creative juices flowing! The age old saying ‘one mans trash is another mans treasure’ can be a great way to save money and take something thats unloved and transform it into something new and improved.

Get the kids involved with smaller crafty projects and see where your imaginations can take you. Or maybe you’re feeling inspired and want to use the 4 weeks of the green reset to try something more complex?  It’s always nice to know that you have something that is completely unique, maybe you’ll learn to love the little parts of it that didn’t quite go to plan. The sentimental values and the great memories these upcycled pieces can create is something money can’t buy.

Ontop of all the skills you will learn and memories you will make, the environmental benefits of upcycling are huge!  It can dramatically reduce the volume of discarded materials and waste being sent to landfill each year, it also reduces the need for production using new or raw materials which means a reduction in air pollution, water pollution, greenhouse gas emissions and often a conservation of global resources. Some project ideas you could try below:

• Wash out old tin cans, decorate with paints, collage or by making holes in them to create pencil pots, plant pots or a little money tin for a rainy day.
• Have a fun day out at the beach or in the woods looking for drift wood, sticks, seaglass or anything else which you like the look of, using a glue gun you can make them into wild magnets for your fridge, revamp a photo frame or string together to make a cool piece of art for your garden.
• Scout out some furniture in the house or on a marketplace that needs some TLC, give it a sand down, change the handles, try painting it a different colour, or maybe even multi coloured!

3. Reduce food miles & minimise waste

There are a number of reasons why buying local produce is great for you and the planet. As well as supporting the local economy, there’s normally a lot less packaging involved and the produce is often fresher! What’s more, there’s a notable reduction in food miles, so you’re getting higher quality food while reducing the use of fossil fuels. What’s not to like?

It’s estimated that UK households waste 4.5million tonnes of food every year, which creates greenhouse gases 21 times more damaging to the environment than CO2 when left to rot in landfill. So to prevent food waste from being damaging to your pocket and to the environment, follow these tips:

• Buy less – By reducing the amount of food you buy, you reduce the amount you throw away.
• Make somethings from your leftovers – There are so many different recipes to follow that use leftovers. From soups and stews to stocks and broth, the possibilities are endless! get inspired here with 60 recipe ideas for left over food.
• Cooked too much? Use it to your advantage and place that extra portion in a reusable container, pop it in the freezer and save it for another day. Cut costs, cut waste and saves on washing up!
• Plan your meals – Go to the supermarket with intention. Rather than buying on the day, plan your meals, write a list and stick to it!

4. Invest in sustainable products

As more of us become aware of harmful industry practices, we are striving and searching for more sustainable alternatives. As many of you may have found, our society isn’t built to support these ‘green habits’ such as going plastic free, eating a vegan diet or trying to lower your carbon emissions. By making little changes like bringing our own bag to the super markets, choosing a bar of soap over a bottle of shower gel, refusing a plastic straw or investing in our own reusable coffee cups, it sets a standard that will help push companies to follow.

Below are some ideas, tips and swaps for eco living:

• Don’t throw away all your plastic items in your home in the pursuit to go plastic free, this is just contributing to the problem, instead, try to use what you have for as long as possible until it needs replacing.
• Bags for life… For LIFE, lets be honest, we have all seen someone use a bag for life as a bin bag *head in hands moment* these types of carriers are more durable if they get into the natural environment taking up to 1000 years to break down into micro plastics which continue to absorb toxins and pollute the environment. So to tackle this problem, make your own tote bags out of old clothing, curtains, or buy from a company who supports something bigger such as surfers against sewage, Check our their tote bags here
• Swap defuser sticks which can trigger respiratory problems or be poisonous for your animals for natural candles such as Ebb and Flos Wellness Candle  which you can find here.
• Take a reusable coffee cup to your favourite local coffee shop. We recommend Chillys – take a look here
• Use Bars of soap without plastic packaging instead of shower gels.
• Next time your toothbrush has served its time, try swapping to a bamboo toothbrush, ones with charcoal claim to help make your teeth whiter too.
• Remove single use plastic products from your cleaning routine and swap to to a cleaner way of cleaning with Ocean Saver Products

When we collectively support responsibly manufactured products, fair-trade standards, and be more mindful with our investments, we are pushing those that are still implementing environmentally-harmful and dishonest practices to make the necessary changes in their company culture. Simple changes amongst the masses encourages big changes across big industries.

5. Grow your own

With summer on the horizon, think of how much fun you could have with the kids, grandkids or even a little healthy competition between friends growing your own fresh fruits and vegetables! There is something magical about planting seeds in some dirt and waiting to see the little babies start to sprout up into a wild array of stems, leaves and shoots. Besides being extremely proud of your handywork, there will be no plastic packaging, you won’t have to travel to the supermarket and they will always be ‘field fresh’! You could even gift your family and friends with any quirky extra produce.

If you don’t fancy yourself as a green fingers or haven’t got a garden space, why not treat yourself to some low maintenance, easy keepers like succulents or air filtering plants. Every home looks great with a burst of green here and there and air filtering plans such as the resilient spider plant is the perfect choice. It battles toxins such as carbon monoxide and xylene, a solvent used in rubber industries and printing textiles.

Succulents are easy to keep and are great to have around the home. Aloe vera alone has many wonderful benefits from healing burns, reducing acne and nourishing dry skin, this remarkable plant contains enzymes, antioxidants, vitamins A and C which means you can save money and look great without even leaving the house!

6. Travel Green!

Cycle, walk, skip, piggy back (pag if you’re from the North East). Now that spring has well and truly sprung, its the perfect opportunity to up your step count, get your heart beat up and swap your car for alternative travel methods. Or if you need your car have a read about some of the benefits of going electric:

Did you know the cost of electricity required to charge an electric vehicle (EV) is around 40% less than the cost of petrol for driving a similar distance? By choosing to drive an EV you are reducing the amount of harmful emissions being released into the atmosphere.

To take it one step further, at myenergi we have designed the world’s first solar compatible EV charger – zappi. Alongside operating as standalone plug and go charger, it has the ability to utilise 100% green energy generated from your solar panels. Complete with a whole host of carefully-designed features to give you complete control of your charging experience, it can be paired with the myenergi app to utilise economy tariffs, deploy a boost function as well as provide insightful monitoring data. Amazing right?!

7. Be Mindful When Buying Clothes

Clothing waste in the United Kingdom and around the globe is at an all time high. Our throwaway mindsets, lack of care and education when making new purchases is having a negative ripple effect on people and the planet. From the early farming processes right through to manufacturing and packaging, the fashion industry is now known as the second most polluting industry in the world.

Buy less, choose well, and make it last. For the green reset starting 22nd April 2021, challenge yourself to try to shop second-hand or mend clothing that needs a little TLC. Upcycling existing resources means that we don’t have to use any new raw materials in the production process. 80 Billion garments are produced each year and on average we only wear each item 7 times before it ends up in the bin.

Cotton covers just 2.4% of the world’s cultivated land but uses more of the world’s pesticides and insecticides than any other single major crop. Did you know that it takes 2,700 liters to produce the cotton needed to make a single t-shirt? and the pesticides used are some of the most harmful to our health and environment… go organic!

• Bag up clothes that you don’t wear anymore and pass it around family and friends before taking it to a charity shop.
• Invest in better quality items that will last longer and you will love wearing.
• Check for industry standards labels such as ‘fair trade’ or ‘organic cotton’.
• Research ways in which you can mend or repair the clothes you have, here are some ideas to get started

We have teamed up with Zebedee Management the specialist talent agency that increases the representation of people who have until now been excluded in the media, including people with disabilities or alternative appearances and trans/non binary. In spirit of #TheGreenReset, Zebedee showcased beautiful sustainable pieces in a fashion shoot in the Peak District with the help of myenergi. Using #TheGreenReset we can all find new ways to live eco friendly lives and Restore Our Earth™. Sustainability is about durability. 

8. Care For Our Ocean

The ocean is a delicate Eco system of undiscovered depths which covers 71 percent of the earths surface. Recently media and organisations are shining a spotlight on some of the most poignant problems the globe is facing, and a lot of it starts with our oceans!

Surfers against sewage are making sure the government recognise the importance of a thriving ocean, for the planet and people, and to utilise its capacity as a solution to the climate crisis.

2. IMPLEMENTATION OF HIGHLY PROTECTED MARINE AREAS (HPMAS)

We want to see the implementation of HPMAs to fully protect marine species from human disruption and to allow ecosystems to recover. We need marine areas where deep sea mining is banned, commercial fishing is prevented, oil and gas exploration is ceased and pollution inputs are tightly regulated.

Other hot topic in the media is the new Netflix documentary Seaspiracy, experts claim that fishing takes 2.7 trillion fish from ocean every year. Marine biologist Dr Sylvia Alice Earle shares that the ocean will be empty – and soon if fishing continues at the rate it is currently at. “The estimate is by middle of 21st century if we keep taking wild fish at the level we are today there won’t be enough fish to catch,” predicting virtually empty oceans by by as soon as 2048,” she shares.

As well as over fishing, ship slavery and bottom trawling, this sheer amount of innocent marine life and coral that is destroyed cannot continue, as many as 50 million sharks are caught every year and are categorised as ‘bycatch’, which is a term used to described fish and mammals that are unintentionally caught in the process of mass fishing.

At the end of the documentary statements were made about how you can help.

If you feel passionately about our climate crisis you can start making a difference straight away by signing the petition below:

Sign the Ocean Climate Petitions Here 

9. Switch to renewables

Installing renewable generation technology is a great way to make your home more sustainable, reduce your carbon footprint and lower your energy costs. A couple of simple solutions include:

• Solar – PV panels installed on your roof convert sunshine into electricity. Not only will solar panels improve your sustainability, but you could save c.£400 per annum on your electricity bills!
• Wind – Domestic wind turbines are a great way to generate electricity. They can either be freestanding or attached to your home. Either way, it’s a great solution to offset reliance on mains supply with renewable resources.

To make the most of your renewable generation, the myenergi eddi is the perfect solution. Rather than exporting excess power to the grid, our intelligent device diverts energy to your heating systems – maximum consumption, minimum waste!

10 Choose Local

Aw we are such big fans of our local business’s. Choosing to shop local and supporting the community around you has many benefits from a climate perspective and also from an economic one.

When purchasing locally, you are choosing to support someones dream and strengthen your own community. Local sourcing of food for example, could mean buying your meat from a local butcher, your vegetables from grocery stores, your milk from the milkman and your bread from a baker. Choosing to support your local business keeps wealth circulating in your area instead of going to far-away corporations or retail giants.

Every time you support small or buy locally, the person who receives your custom is guaranteed to smile. As well as the economic benefits, buying locally reduces your carbon footprint. Being able to walk to your corner shop not only increases your daily step count so you can eat more ice creams this summer. Plus why buy and eat food that travels hundreds of “food miles” if we can have fresh, local options which are on our doorsteps?

So, whether you start small or go all out, everything you do counts towards a more sustainable future. And don’t forget, the myenergi team is here to help! If you take part in our #TheGreenReset competition, don’t forget to tag us and use our GIF on Instagram stories. We look forward to seeing what steps you take first!