Lifestyle
Encouraging individual lifestyles:
giving each other mutual support in keeping up difficult choices in living more 'greenly',
offering tips in regular parish magazine articles,
doing a footprint exercise (see Module 10 on http://www.ecocongregation.org/englandwales)
Churches are a bit like mutual support groups for life. They can really encourage their members in some of the challenges of living more sustainably. This can be formalised through ecocell, a programme run by Christian Ecology Link. Group members monitor their lifestyles at meetings where they can also pray and read the bible together.
There are some grants available for energy saving in the home. Try contacting your local authority, the Energy Saving Trust, or Warm Front (see the government's campaign Act on CO2).
It is also worth looking at the Housekeeping pages of our site for ideas that can apply equally to households as to churches.
Very many organisations publish lists of things we can do as individuals and families. Here are just a few:
- For general ethical shopping consult www.ethicalconsumer.org and http://www.ethicaltrade.org/; perhaps use gooshing.co.uk
- A general site is http://www.greenchoices.org/
- There are several places to calculate your energy 'footprint'
- A very helpful book full of ideas and links is "Save Cash and Save the Planet" published by Friends of the Earth at £12.99
- Green tourism is an important challenge to jetting to foreign parts and keeping to tourist hotspots
- For several sites concerned with tourism see
- www.responsibletravel.com/
- www.toinitiative.org/
- www.abtamembers.org/responsibletourism/
- www.tourismconcern.org.uk/
- Also at home, e.g. the impact of boating: a joint venture initiated by the British Marine Federation and the Royal Yachting Association, www.thegreenblue.org.uk
- For offsetting CO2 emissions see http://www.co2.org/
- And reduce what comes into the home
- For example junk mail. To stop this contact all three of
- Mailing Preference Service for personalised letters www.mpsonline.org.uk
- Direct Marketing Assoication for non-personalised mail www.dma.org.uk
- Royal Mail for Door-to-Door Opt Out: mediacentre.customer.service@royalmail.co.uk
- Even by choosing an internet service provider you can make a difference, e.g. surefish profits go to Christian Aid (fish.co.uk) ; also GreenNet, the Phone Co-op and CharityDays
- The National Trust can help you achieve both small steps and big changes. If you’d like to make a pledge or you want to fi nd out more about Small Steps, Big Change, email mysmallstep@nationaltrust.org.uk
- Babygroe (Baby Green Recycled Organic Ethical) is a free information service supported by the Environmental Action Fund that promotes the use of environmentally sustainable baby care products and services. www.babygroe.co.uk
- Global Action Plan (www.globalactionplan.org.uk ) runs Eco Teams that work with groups of households on more sustainable consumption. They have a lot of useful information on their website.
- A good book to read:
"L is for lifestyle; Christian living that doesn’t cost the earth" by Ruth Valerio. Published by Inter-Varsity Press 2004 [ http://www.ivpbooks.com ] - The Women’s Environmental Network is concerned with home issues www.wen.org.uk
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