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