How you can help address climate change
Learn about the simple actions you can take in your day-to-day life to address climate change.
Ride green
- walk, bike or take public transit to get to work, school or to pick up a few groceries
- if your workplace is too far to walk to, consider carpooling — if just 100 Ontarians carpool to work with even one other person, we can save 60 tonnes of GHG emissions/year
Live green
Food
- buy local food where possible — it doesn’t have to travel as far which reduces GHG emissions from transportation
- compost food scraps, use your organic food recycling bin or ask your condo or apartment building property manager to provide organic food recycling
- take a reusable shopping bag to the store
Energy
- adjust your thermostat (2 degrees lower in winter, 2 degrees higher in summer) while sleeping or away from home
- unplug electronics when you’re not using them
- try doing your laundry or running the dishwasher before or after peak hours of 7 am and 7 pm
- fix leaky faucets and upgrade to low-flow toilets
- if you live in a house, use a rain barrel to collect spring rainfall to water the garden
- take shorter showers – keeping them under five minutes can save up to 3,500 litres of water per month
- replace bulbs with longer-lasting energy-efficient LEDs
- replace insulation
- purchase energy efficient appliances and products
- switch out older, polluting wood stoves for newer electric or ultra-efficient wood pellet stoves
- install energy-efficient heating and cooling systems
Waste
- consider new ways of using unwanted or old items
- recycle – recycling just 1 aluminum can saves enough energy to run a TV for 3 hours
- buy products with little or no packaging
- clean with non-toxic, environmentally-friendly products – a simple vinegar and water mix will work on most surfaces
Work green
Conservation
- turn off computers at night
- start a coffee club with other employees by bringing in a large coffeemaker and recyclable or biodegradable filters – for $5 to $10 a month per employee, enjoy premium coffee of your choice at a fraction of the cost. And you can use your own mug
- where possible, use natural light from windows instead of artificial lighting
- consider not printing documents and circulating them electronically instead
Meetings
- consider teleconferencing, videoconferencing or other remote meeting options to avoid unnecessary travel
- choose a meeting location that is easily and quickly accessible by public transit
- make your meetings paperless by using a laptop and a projector
- use whiteboards instead of flipcharts for brainstorming
Updated: August 16, 2021
Published: June 02, 2016