Today’s eco snapshot👇🏽
How To Live A More Sustainable Lifestyle
Startup of The Week: AirForestry
5 Sustainable Brands I Recently Discovered
News That Lifted My Spirits This Week
3 Ways I Can Support Your Sustainability Journey
How To Live A More Sustainable Lifestyle
One thing that often gets missed in sustainability discussions is reducing our consumption.
🧣 Reducing the clothes we buy.
🧸 Reducing the toys we buy for our kids.
🛋️ Reducing the stuff we buy for our houses.
👟 Reducing multiple other impulse purchases we make.
Social media and e-commerce have made everything very accessible.
With just a few clicks, you can order almost anything.
And it can be delivered to your house in a few hours(sometimes even in a few minutes!).
And with the same ease, we can return the items.
So we don’t really think before we buy.
Since we know that we can return it later.
We end up ordering things that we don’t need.
The thin line between wants and needs starts to disappear.
And that leads to overconsumption.
Even if you buy from the most sustainable brand, it’s not as sustainable as not buying it at all.
Since everything we buy, needs raw material extraction, production, and transportation.
All of these activities emit greenhouse gases.
That leads to more emissions.
I am not asking you not to buy anything new.
But we need to retrain our brains.
So that we can separate the wants from the needs.
And stop this overconsumption drive.
Because this has no upper limit.
I wrote this article Sustainability Starts with Buying Less recently.
It has some practical tips to help you get started.
If you’ve tried something and would like to share, feel free to drop a comment below.
⌛ Time for the quiz of the week
Answer at the end of the newsletter. No one (including me) can see your response so feel free to vote 😉
✨ Startup of the week: AirForestry
This Swedish startup is harvesting trees using drones.
Timber Tending…There are trees in the forest that maybe sick or deformed. They need to be removed to allow the other trees to grow larger, healthier, and more valuable. This is called tree thinning. It also slows down the spread of wildfire and the removed trees can be used for converting into different products or fuelwood.
Tree-mendous Trouble…But this thinning is performed using 15-ton machines. These are transported on vehicles that require access roads to get around in the forest. To create these roads, several other trees and vegetation have to be removed. On top of that, these machines and trucks use diesel which causes more emissions.
AirForestry is taking a top-down approach to solve this problem. Instead of the ground, it’s harvesting the trees from the air with high-capacity drones.
Here’s how the drone works:
Its harvesting drone flies out to the specific tree, grabs the top, and cuts off all the branches, letting the fir needle with all the nutrition fall back into the soil.
At the bottom of the tree, the tool cuts off the trunk and the drone carries the tree to a specified location.
This allows the company to harvest in any harsh and remote terrain, including swamps and steep slopes, without any damage to the soil, roots, or nature.
Check out the video below that shows how the drone operates:
Drone to be Wild…This provides an automated, non-invasive, and sustainable alternative. The drone approach also helps to harvest in any harsh and remote terrain, including swamps and steep slopes, without causing any damage to the soil, roots, or nature.
✅ 5 Sustainable Brands I Recently Discovered
Ecotank: Building a sustainable way to fill windshield washer fluid
Intuitive AI: Using AI to help people segregate their trash effectively.
Nutshell Cooler: Using upcycled coconut fibers to make outdoor coolers.
Planetary: Leveraging antacid to solve the climate crisis.
Voltpost: Retrofitting street lamps so that they can act as EV chargers.
😹 News That Lifted My Spirits This Week
🎓 Degrees of Change: UC San Diego introduces mandatory climate change courses for graduation. Starting fall 2024, students must complete a class with 30% climate content, covering scientific foundations, human impacts, mitigation strategies, or project-based learning. This initiative aims to prepare graduates for real-world climate challenges.
🐢 Shell We Protect?: Panama adopts Saboga Wildlife Refuge, protecting critical sea turtle habitats and upholding nature's rights. The Pearl Islands Archipelago, a biodiversity hotspot off Panama's Pacific Coast, hosts four sea turtle species, sharks, whales, and diverse coral. Despite threats from illegal fishing and development, the new refuge safeguards nesting grounds for 41 bird species and vital marine migration routes. This Leatherback Project-supported initiative preserves endangered species, and ecosystems, and ensures long-term food security and biodiversity.
🌿 "Volt-face" in Mexico's Energy Policy: Mexico's new president, Claudia Sheinbaum, pledges to revive the country's climate change efforts. Departing from her predecessor's fossil fuel focus, she aims for 45% renewable energy production by 2030. This bold target, announced in her inaugural speech, signals a major shift in Mexico's energy policy and environmental commitment.
💁🏼 3 Ways I Can Support Your Sustainability Journey
Do you want to be featured in this newsletter and on LinkedIn, where I write impactful stories (almost) every day? Submit your story
If you’re a planet-friendly brand, I can help you with your blogs, newsletters, case studies, and whitepapers. Here’s some of my recent work (Booking for March 2025 onwards)
If you would like to chat about anything related to sustainability and climate change, you can book a free call
Give that 💚 a little tap if this edition helped you learn something new about sustainability and climate change.
Taking a break from work next week to be with my family. So see you in two weeks :)