Sustainability in the home: the kitchen

Perhaps you’re trying to kickstart your green journey, or simply just searching for new ways to transform your home into a more sustainable and eco-friendly environment. Either way, we're here to support you and provide you with the ultimate tips and tricks for achieving your goal.

The heart of an eco-friendly house, a sustainable kitchen truly has the power to impact your home for the better. By making a few quick swaps and rethinking your grocery shop, your kitchen can become the sustainable and environmentally friendly place you'll love.

Simple and easy sustainable food swaps

The food you purchase and consume can have a great impact on the environment and so an easy way to becoming more sustainable in the kitchen is to eat more plant-based foods.

Compared to meat-based diets, plant-based diets are substantially more sustainable because they use less natural resources and are less taxing on our environment, emitting 30%–90% less greenhouse gas than conventional meat.

Don’t want the commitment? Simply swap out one of your meat-based meals for a nutritious, plant-based alternative once a week. One of our favourites? It’s Vegan’s Coconut Chickpea Curry. So yum.

To go one step further and reduce the environmental impact of the food you’re eating, shop locally. Head to a local market or grocery store, and purchase goods that are produced in your local community.

Sustainable cleaning products

Choosing natural, eco-friendly cleaning products can eliminate damage to you and our environment. Many conventional cleaning products are laced with harmful chemicals (including ammonia and trisodium phosphate) that are released into the atmosphere, which both contribute to the destruction of the ozone layer and the global climate crisis, and may hurt your health as you inhale the toxins. Go green with your cleaning products by choosing B-corporation brands to support, like our friends at the Bio-D company:

“It's a little-known fact that many traditional household cleaning products contain ingredients that have the potential to harm the environment and our wildlife. Look for green cleaning companies like ours that use plant based and naturally derived ingredients to create powerful, ethical cleaning products without compromising the planet."

Choose reusable

Leave one-use products in the past, and choose reusables. Both saving you money in the long-run and enabling you to reduce your environmental impact, reusable products help your kitchen to become that bit more sustainable. Our must-haves include beeswax wraps - a great alternative to cling film - and reusable kitchen towels, which can be washed over and over again.

Invest in energy star appliances

The kitchen continues to be one of the major contributors to greenhouse gases. With so many appliances consuming large amounts of energy that costs both you and the environment, experts frequently advise on investing in Energy Star approved devices. A government-backed program, Energy Star identifies home electronics and appliances that have superior energy efficiency in order to save money and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. By investing in these energy-efficient tools, you’ll find that your utility bills will be lower, saving you money, energy, and the planet.

Repurpose and upcycle

Our final tip can help you to minimise your carbon footprint and save you money. So many products today are quickly replaced and thrown out after they’ve served their purpose - plastic products, containers, old kitchen tools - but by repurposing, these products get to live a second life serving a new purpose.

Loved our Balancer Oil-to-milk Cleanser slightly too much and you’ve already run out? Why not bring the glass bottle to the kitchen, thoroughly clean it and use it to mix salad dressings or sauces in? Perhaps you’ve got a few plastic containers hanging around from the weekend’s food deliveries; don’t throw them out, use them again for keeping leftover food fresh, and enjoy the next day. By repurposing, you’re minimising waste, your carbon footprint and saving yourself money.

By Sarah