Village Sustainability Newsletter January 2025
A more sustainable new year?
What about using our annual urge to improve not for half-hearted New Year’s resolutions, forgotten by February, but to boost our commitment to sustainability?
The following isn’t original; I have no idea where it comes from but it’s well known.
“First, it is an intention. Then a behaviour. Then a habit. Then a practice. Then second nature. Then it is simply who you are.”
It’s so easy to think that our one crisp packet, for example, makes no difference, and we may be right – though that may be the crisp packet that, incorrectly disposed of, suffocates a hedgehog or chokes a calf. But the more of us who reduce our single use plastic, say, the bigger the impact and - to use another familiar phrase - do we want to be part of the problem or part of the solution? And I believe firmly that the more we act on our convictions, the more we (deliberately or inadvertently) influence others. That’s leverage, whether on a personal level, affecting those in our families and communities, or maybe a national or international level, if we think big. What impact could our attitudes have?
So is this the year to…
- Finally read the council’s online guidelines and get a grip on putting the right things into (and keep the wrong ones out of) our recycling boxes? (15 mins!)
- Give regularly – maybe join The Wildlife Trusts or set up a standing order to another charity that protects the environment or provides support to parts of the world where climate change causes disaster and ruins lives?
- Get better informed? Pick up one of the books in Chieveley Church’s eco library and have a read, or subscribe to a sustainability podcast – there are LOADS to choose from!
- Research an electric car or solar panels on our homes? It’s not cheap but easier than you think – do share information with your friends and neighbours who have done similarly.
Explore what we eat? Can we cook one more meal a week form scratch, plastic free, or one more meat-free?
Think creatively about what meaningful sustainability changes you could make in your own life, or the influence you might have on those around you. Who knows; this time next year you might be a whole new you! And who knows who else’s actions you may have affected?
Happy new year.
Julia Hoaen