4 Environmentally Aware Tech habits to Adopt this Earth Day
Earth Day represents a chance for all of us to raise awareness of the critical health of our environment and commit to actions and lifestyle changes that build toward a sustainable future. I am always looking for ways that I can incorporate sustainable habits in a technology-led lifestyle. Here are 4 habits I’ve adopted that I hope can be a small step in your journey as well.
1. Use a tree-planting search engine like Ecosia
I average around 50 web searches a day for work and everyday life, and each of those searches consumes energy in a datacenter somewhere in the world. Ecosia is a non-profit organization whose green search engine helps turn an everyday task like searching and channels it towards something positive for the environment, as they use the revenue from sponsored searches to plant trees where they are needed most around the world.
Ecosia has over 15 million users worldwide and runs on 200% renewable solar energy. They estimate 45 searches are needed to generate the revenue to sponsor a planted tree, and Ecosia users have planted over 140 million trees to date.
Visit Ecosia — the search engine that plants trees today and make tree planting a habit today.
2. Sponsor and adopt a tree anywhere in the world with EcoMatcher
My electricity provider recently added environmental impact reports with their monthly bills, showing the equivalent carbon emissions and trees needed to offset those emissions. Seeing an actual number of trees representing the power I consume has made me more conscious of my direct impact on the environment and of my responsibility to reduce and return what I use. EcoMatcher has become my standard for sponsoring tree planting around the world, allowing me to track planted trees, understand my impact, and spread a positive message by gifting trees to others.
EcoMatcher partners with tree planting organizations around the world, using their TreeCorder technology to record useful data about each tree, including its GPS location, the date of planting, the local farmers who helped plant it, and the amount of carbon sequestration through its lifetime. This allows individual and corporate sponsors to support local farmers and visualize the carbon impact of their contributions.
EcoMatcher also makes it easy to gift the trees that you sponsor, and recipients get full access to see their tree grow with Tree Tracker. Check out the sample tree here: Tree Tracker — EcoMatcher
EcoMatcher makes adopting trees an easy habit, and gifting trees even easier (Corporate Gifting — EcoMatcher). When I can attend an in-person event again, I would love to be gifted a tree at the end of the session instead of yet another lanyard.
3. Make tree-planting a part of paying bills with GCash GForest
COVID-19 accelerated the mass adoption of cashless payments in the Philippines, with Globe’s GCash becoming the dominant method to send money with no physical medium. I have been a GCash fan for awhile, and what has kept me loyal to their platform is their GForest “minigame”, which awards users with tree plantings for using their application.
GForest offers daily “green energy” points to users performing green actions, like choosing to walk rather than drive or sending payments through GCash. Once users have accumulated enough energy, they can select a newly planted tree to sponsor in one of several protected forests around the country.
If you’re in the Philippines, you can get started with GCash for free (even without a Globe account), and if you are elsewhere in the world, now is the time to find and support local businesses that offer eco-friendly bonuses.
4. Take ownership of your plastic consumption and disposal with Plastic Credit Exchange
Single-use plastics have risen significantly due to the pandemic, and plastics of all sizes have invaded even the most remote locations in the planet. It’s even invaded our bodies; recent studies have found microplastics embedded in people’s bloodstreams and body tissue. Taking control of how much plastic we consume and ensuring that we prevent new plastic from entering the wild is just as critical a task for our long-term survival.
Local organizations like the Plastic Credit Exchange make it easy for individuals to collect and recycle plastics through a series of collection points in Metro Manila (find yours here).
Plastic Credit Exchange also partners with corporations to better understand their plastic footprint, improve their processes to reduce consumption, and track their impact using blockchain-based solutions. Recently, they partnered with Microsoft to implement their credit registry on a Microsoft Azure-based blockchain.
Get started today by finding a Plastic Credit Exchange (or other local collection group) location near you and reducing your overall plastic consumption.
This is by no means an exhaustive list, but small actions at scale can lead to meaningful change. I would love to learn from you as well; if you have tips you can share with me on how to be more eco-friendly, please leave me a comment or message.
Remember: you may not be able to do all the good the world needs, but the world needs all the good you can do.
Looking for more things to try? Take part in an event like Microsoft’s EcoChallenge 2022 and see how your actions contribute to a greater movement!
Happy Earth Day!