Can consumerism and global sustainability ever truly be reconciled? It's a tall order granted that the vast majority of products on the market are manufactured from materials unsustainably harvested or mined from the earth's dwindling cache of resources. Add in the prevalence of
disposable, poorly designed, and planned-for-obsolescence products saturating store shelves, and the situation looks grim. Fortunately, there's a ray of hope - over the past few years an array of smart services, resources, and applications have emerged that can
shine a light on the environmental impact of the products you buy, and help you make more informed purchasing decisions. Without further ado, read on for our top 5 ways to green your consumption!
The first step to making more informed purchasing decisions is educating yourself on the provenance of the products you purchase. This information is rarely forthcoming from manufacturers, so turn to third-party resources like
Sourcemap.org to get the full scoop. Sourcemap is a free, open-source software project that allows you to track the origin of all the materials that go into the products you buy, enabling you to consider the scarcity of available resources as well as the carbon footprint incurred by products and materials.
3. Buy less, borrow more Any way you cut it, the most earth-friendly way to green your consumption is to simply consume less. One way to reduce your consumption of new goods is to borrow ones that already exist - and thanks to technology, this endeavor that has never been easier. There's a burgeoning crop of online collaborative consumption services that allow you to rent, borrow, or trade a wide range of goods. Get familiar with product sharing sites like
Neighborrow,
NeighborGoods, and
Freecycle, and check out services like
Netflix and
BookMooch for media. Rather than buying a new car, consider signing up for a car sharing service like
Zipcar or
City Car Share.
There are few things that we purchase more regularly than food, so weighing the carbon footprint of your next meal is a surefire way to reduce your impact upon the environment. Check out
Locavore, which makes it a snap to find local, in-season produce - it even takes you from farm to table by showing the location of nearby greenmarkets and offering seasonal recipes. Even better, consider sourcing your produce from your own backyard - there's a bounty of
gardening applications out there that can give anyone a green thumb.
It's practically impossible for even the most dedicated sustainable shoppers to learn the ins and outs of every product by rote, which is why
Goodguide is a great addition to your smartphone's toolkit. The ingenious smartphone application lets you scan products as you shop to determine their green credentials. Simply take a photo of the product's barcode and Goodguide will search its database of over 100,000 products to provide you with detailed ratings for safety, sustainability and social responsibility.
What do you do to tread lightly with your purchases? Let us know below.
See
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Top 10 Green Gadget Gifts for 2010Top 10 Energy-Saving LED Desk LampsGet in Shape While You Work - 5 Exer-DesksTop 7 Solar Powered BagsTop 5 Green Gadgets To Save You Time & Money5 Apps To Stop a Temper Tantrum in its TracksGreen Tech to Help You Relax
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Inhabitat is an online magazine devoted to the future of design, tracking the innovations in technology, practices and materials that are pushing architecture and design towards a smarter and more sustainable future. Written by a young tech-savvy team designers and design journalists, Inhabitat delivers fresh content daily, showcasing emerging work from the cutting-edge of the global design community. Mike Chino is a writer, researcher, and musician based in San Francisco. He left sunny UC Santa Cruz with a B.A. in French and Modern literature and delved into publishing through a stint at ReadyMade Magazine. Inspired by the impact that forward thinking can have on the present, he has cultivated a voracious appetite for developments in sustainable architecture, design, and technology. Mike likes to bike, blog, and build things, and in his spare time he also cooks, produces music, and rocks out.
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