Modest living can be rich in many ways. Lifestyle habits - good or bad - have a huge impact on the planet. We can all make our own personal footprints smaller often while improving our quality of life.

We encourage you to consider some of the following to reduce your own environmental impact.

Live close to your work and daily activities. You will have more time for your family and leisure and you will help build stronger neighbourhoods. Communities with shops and services within walking distance promote social engagements, safer streets and improved health. Your impact on the planet will be greatly reduced with less car use. Eliminating an extra car saves you money that can be invested in a less distant home location.

Buy locally produced organic food. This reduces the contribution shipping/trucking makes to global warming and helps create a market for organic, locally produced food. It also ensures our food security by maintaining viable local agriculture.

Drink tap water instead of bottled water. You reduce transportation and packaging and force governments to maintain a healthy water supply. To avoid running your tap excessively keep a supply of drinking water in the fridge.

Ensure that your money is invested in companies that are environmentally and socially responsible.

Cut down on car journeys, especially short ones. Combine trips, carpool & car share to save money and to help the environment. Your health will improve too.

Only travel by air when necessary. Aircraft are the fastest growing source of greenhouse gases emissions. If you have to fly, consider planting a tree for each journey you take. The full life of a tree offsets the greenhouse gas emissions of a typical single passenger flight.

Try to reduce the amount of meat you eat. Every kilogram of beef consumes 50,000 to 1000,000 litres of water, enormous amount of energy, 10 kg of grain, 145 kg of top soil and 200 mg of antibiotics. It produces 40 kg of manure, 11.5 kg of CO2 equivalent and a range of pesticides. Other meats leave large environmental footprints too. Every little bit you cut down on meat, helps the environment.

Composting is an amazing way to transform kitchen scraps and yard trimmings into a rich soil booster. It also reduces the volume of waste to be trucked away and dumped in landfills.

Always buy recycled paper products.  Besides saving the forests that reduce global warming, you are helping to create a market for the paper you recycle.

Avoid plastic and foam take-way packaging. Encourage your favourite take out places to reduce and/or use biodegradable packaging.

Rather than buying CD’s, DVD’s and books. Rent them, lend them. Use the library.

Use energy saving light bulbs. Do not leave lights on unnecessarily.

Switch your household electricity supplier to a renewable supplier where possible.

Set computers, photocopiers, etc. to energy saving modes. Switch them of when you leave your home or office.

It is easier to heat fresh air than old damp air. So it is a good idea to flush the air in the house once a day by opening windows wide and turning on exhaust fans to bring in fresh air and exhaust old stale air.

Maintain temperatures above 15C in all rooms. Allowing rooms to become too cold causes condensation and mould problems.

Place furniture or items at least 2 -3 inches away from exterior walls to allow airflow.

Use a natural drying option rather than a tumbler dryer if possible. Dryers are one of the highest energy consumers among domestic appliances. Hang clothes outside if you can or provide a vented drying room.

If you use a dryer, make sure the exhaust vent is free of lint. Vacuum the back of the dryer periodically to keep it lint free.

Check that the clothes dryer ducting is as short and straight as possible and that any joints are well sealed so that no air can re-enter the home.

Turn on exhaust fans when showering and cooking. Check kitchen and bathroom exhaust fans to see if they are working by holding a tissue up to the fan while it’s running. If it holds well, it is removing old stale air. If it falls to the floor or barely hangs on, the fan may require cleaning or replacement. Ensure that kitchen range hoods are not just blowing air back into the room from the top. Check to see if fans are ducted to the exterior, either through the roof with a dampered roof vent or through the wall. Make sure the vent is allowing air to pass trough.

Don’t buy too many white clothes and bed linen. These need very high temperature to get them shining white and often require environmentally damaging bleaching which colors do not.

Use the appropriate temperature on your washing machine. Too high a temperature not only wastes energy but also fades colors faster. A wash at 60 uses over 30 per cent more electricity than a wash at 40. Water that is at a temperature of 30-40 is more than warm enough for colored clothes.

Ensure your washing machine and dish washer are full before using. Why waste up to 70 litres of water and a kWh of electricity to wash one garment.

Fill the electric kettle only with the number of cups of water that you are likely to use.

Avoid buying clothes that need to be dry cleaned. The solvent used in most dry cleaning establishments is toxic.

Buy refilled printer cartridges, and recycle your old ones.

Use environmentally friendly household cleaners.