Changing our buying habits

Make your everyday purchases count toward regeneration

This action is about consuming in the following ways: choosing and using products and services with minimal impact; recognising the embodied energy gone into creating the product and using it to its fullest extent.

Our lifestyles and consuming habits are major contributors to global issues including climate change, biodiversity loss and inequality. Every product has an embodied energy that has gone into creating it, and this energy impacts the planet. Many of our purchases are unconscious and we don’t know their impact. We need to change that. This action is about consuming in the following ways: choosing and using products and services with minimal impact; recognising the embodied energy gone into creating the product and using it to its fullest extent. It invites the use of services that help shift the global consumption machine towards regeneration rather than degeneration.

There are more and more services appearing to help you make conscious choices.

Here are just a few we have discovered that may help you in your day to day. We are always looking for more, so please share them with us so we can share them with other Regenerators.

Reforest Now - track your footprint and reforest locally

Reforest now is a great tool to identify and track your carbon footprint, allowing you to log your purchases and see their impact while then being about to contribute to local reforestation projects to offset some of your impact.

Download Reforest now

Olio - Share more, care more, waste less

OLIO connects neighbours with each other and with local businesses. You can give away for free, borrow items from others, buy locally made and ask for things you need. One of the key benefits of Olio is for food. Items nearing its sell-by date in local stores, spare home-grown vegetables, bread from your baker, or the groceries in your fridge when you go away.

Good on you - buy from brands making a difference

Goodonyou is a service that tracks the sustainability of clothing brands. The reality is that almost no brands are regenerative just yet but many are doing much less harm than others. Goodonyou is a terrific resource. You can download the app or use the directory on their website.

Explore their directory

Thred up - buy and sell second hand clothing

Thred up are an online consignment service that allows you to buy and sell second hand clothing. The more we can use a product already created, the more we honour the embodied energy already gone into creating it.

ThinkDirty app - find eco-friendly cosmetics and beauty products

Think Dirty® app is the easiest way to learn ingredients in your beauty, personal care and household products. Just scan the product barcode and Think Dirty will give you easy-to-understand info on the product, its ingredients, and shop cleaner options!

Find out more about conscious consuming from many active in this space

There are many individuals and blogs talking about and finding ways to minimise the impact of their consumerism. Here are just a few. Let us know if there are more we should know of.

This action is part of a larger collective response to Make consumption choices that count. Explore more ways you can make a difference through the way you consume products and services.