This January has brought with it even more "fresh start" platitudes than a normal new year, with the added impacts of Brexit and a third covid lockdown. While I am not usually one for resolutions, it does strike me as a helpful time to take a step back and to review where I am, what I'm doing and how I got here.

More and more I find myself thinking about my impact on the environment and what I can do to reduce unnecessary (or over-) consumption. While I certainly believe in minimising my contribution to the climate crisis I, like many, probably think about this more than I actively take any steps to change my behaviour. So now is my opportunity to view my lifestyle through a green lens to try and identify areas where I can make improvements.

With this in mind I'm going to try to do one more "green" thing each month this year with a view to fostering more helpful and healthy habits into my usual routine.

January

I thought that I would ease myself in slowly and give myself a simple task for the first month. So for January I am going to start small, but hopefully with long term benefits: I've changed my web browser. On both my phone and laptop I've installed Ecosia, a web-browser that plants trees.

For those who aren't familiar with Ecosia is an add-in that you can use with Chrome instead of the Google interface. The company uses advertising revenue to fund tree planting projects and what's more it is a carbon negative company, so another big tick in my book.

I first found out about Ecosia while listening to How to Save a Planet. It's a great podcast that takes a scientific view on a number of environmental issues, and at the end of each episode the hosts suggest actions we can all take to improve our climate credentials. Here's a link to the episode featuring Ecosia if you'd like to give it a listen.

Pros: Trees! If I can contribute to getting more of the right trees planted in the right places I'm definitely in, especially if I can do my bit while idly scrolling.

It's very easy to install, literally only taking 3 clicks:

Cons: I have found that the functionality is not too different from what I'm used to. However, my phone does not permit me to remove the automatically installed Google search bar from the home screen (meaning that I now have an additional search bar on the second page of my home screen). This is fine, but I appreciate that having 2 separate search bars might not be to everyone's taste.

Verdict: This has been a really simple switch and it is good to go almost immediately with very little need to change my everyday habits. I use an android phone, so I don't know how well it would compare on an Apple, but it's a change that I'm sticking with, and since installing it on my phone I have already racked up an impressive 171 searches, equating to approximately 4 trees planted.

Next Month:

For February I'm going to tackle the washing up!

I'd love to hear your suggestions on other changes I can make, or ideas you've had to tread more lightly.