Trying to improve your sustainability? With a few simple green lifestyle changes, you can reduce your carbon footprint and lead a more sustainable life!
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Sustainable Brands You May Not Be Aware Of
Over the past decade I have made a lot of changes in the way I live my life in order to reduce my carbon footprint. Some of those changes include buying organic produce, shopping at my local farmer’s market, recycling, and finding creative ways to reuse things instead of throwing them away.
While people often think of ‘green living’ as difficult to achieve, it really isn’t! Right now, Unilever is on a mission to improve their sustainability and at the same time improve the lives of people in this country who are struggling to feed themselves at all.
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Big Brands Make Small Changes
The Unilever Sustainable Living Plan incorporates three ideas:
Improving health & well-being: They estimate that they have helped 135 million people take action to improve their health and well-being.
Improving Nutrition: They will work to improve the taste and nutritional quality of all their products in order to help hundreds of millions of people to achieve a healthier diet
Reducing their Environmental Footprint: Their goal is to halve their water usage and greenhouse gas production by 2020.
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Unilever Helps Cross Off Hunger
These are all ideas that each and every one of us should consider incorporating into our own lives. When I shop, there are a lot of things I look for in the products I bring home for my family.
Many of the Unilever family of brands are in my shopping cart every week because they are healthy, convenient and I can find a way to incorporate them into my own sustainable living plan.
Lets face it, as a busy mom we all need to find a balance between what is quick and easy and actions that are good for our health and the planet! What are a few ways to reduce your environmental impact with Unilever products? Here area few suggestions:
Homemade Soup for Sustainable Living
1. Homemade Soup: While I would love to make homemade stock, I really just don’t have that kind of time. Instead of buying canned soups which are not only expensive but also create a lot of waste, use Knorr stock and skip the can! Use an assortment of leftover vegetables, meat, pasta or rice and have a nice pot of hot soup on the stove for a chilly Fall night! That little tiny plastic cup that the concentrated Knorr stock comes in is recyclable! Always look for the recycle symbol!
2. Recycle your packaging: It is important to look for the recycle symbol on all of the cans, jars, boxes, etc that you bring home. Reducing your personal trash output is a great way to go green. Every single item that you choose to throw away will be ending up in the landfill. Many towns have cardboard and paperboard recycling along with their household mail, magazines, newspapers, etc. I always recycle the boxes that things come in rather than toss them in the trash! Many Unilever products come in packages that can be recycled, whether it is the box that the Knorr stock comes in or the jars from Ragu spaghetti sauce.
3. Make Homemade Snacks: One way to eat healthier and reduce your packaging waste is to bake cookies, granola bars, etc from scratch. This is also a great way to reduce your consumption of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), artificial flavors, colors, preservatives, etc. My kids are huge fans of home made peanut butter cookies and I always buy the Skippy Natural because it has no HFCS or other artificial ingredients. Now that my daughter is a tween, she loves to help in the kitchen and teaching her how to cook is one way to ensure that she doesn’t starve when she moves out on her own! Last week, I made some delicious Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Brownies from scratch with my Skippy Natural Peanut Butter. What a delicious way to reduce our carbon footprint!
4. Reuse those glass jars! Whether it is a baby food jar or a Ragu spaghetti sauce jar, there are a ton of creative ways to reuse them around your house. You can organize nails in the garage, use them as candle holders or fill then with rice, beans and pasta for storage in your pantry. If you get into the mindset of asking yourself “What can I do with this besides throw it away?” you will find that your create a lot less trash!
5. Read your packaging! Reading the package that your food comes in can tell you a lot. If you look closely at the Lipton Tea box you will note the little symbol on the front that shows it is certified by the Rainforest Alliance. If you look at the bottom of your Wishbone salad dressing bottle, you will see the recycle symbol on it. Just becoming more aware of your food, it’s impact on your health, and the effects of packaging in the waste stream will make you a greener shopper!
Don’t forget that while you are working on living a greener life, there are others in this country who would love the chance to improve their own health and sustainability. As a part of their broad Sustainable Living Plan, Unilever has partnered with Feeding America to help improve the well being of others and Cross Off Hunger! Feeding America is the nation’s largest organization dedicated to fighting domestic hunger through a network of food banks. $1=8meals secured by Feeding America on behalf of local food banks. Unilever will donate $250,000…the monetary equivalent of a minimum of 2 million meals! This is a great way for Unilever to make a difference in the lives of the less fortunate in this country. Check out Unilever’s Making Life Better site for more information about their campaign. You can also check them out on Facebook and Twitter.
Remember, in your quest to live a more sustainable life that small changes can make a big difference. Just rethinking the way you shop, eat, and live can help reduce your carbon footprint quite a bit. While you are at it, consider taking a moment to help others that are less fortunate so that they, too, can lead a better life. Food pantries around the country struggle during this time of year and would love a donation of food, money, or even an hour of your time. Everybody can make a difference!
If you would like to see more of my shop and sustainable living actions, you can check out my Google + Album!
Disclaimer: I am a member of the Collective Bias® Social Fabric® Community. This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias™ and Unilever #CBias #SocialFabric
Diane is a professional blogger and nationally certified pharmacy technician at Good Pill Pharmacy. She earned her BS in Microbiology at the University of New Hampshire and has worked in cancer research, academics, and biotechnology. Concern over the growing incidence of human disease and the birth of her children led her to begin living a more natural life. She quickly realized that the information she was learning along the way could be beneficial to many others and started blogging and freelance writing to share this knowledge with others. Learn more about her HERE.
What a great way to give back. I love your jar lid tops. Did you make those?
Yay for giving back!
I always prefer making my own baked goods instead of buying stuff in the store. Great ideas in this post. I love the idea of reusing glass jars. My hubby is from the south, he has memories of his grandmother using her old jars as iced tea and lemonade glasses so thats what we use our for.
Really good tips, but I have to admit that the picture of the Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Brownies look so good that it’s hard to focus on the topic here :p~
I love those jars and what you did with the lids. I also think remembering your local food pantries throughout the year but especially during the holidays is very important.
you had me at brownie, lol