10 Sustainability Goals for 2020

Who is ready to start thinking about 2020?! New year, new decade, new job, new hearing!!! I am so excited to up my sustainability game in 2020! It is the time! I've been working hard on a more sustainable things this year and am excited to share them with you PLUS as my sustainability goals for 2020!

1. Grove Collaborative. I'm beginning to replace cleaning items in the home for eco friendly items. I just did my first order from Grove Collaborative and they have me hooked! They wrote "thanks Megan" on the outside of my package! Now that is what creates brand loyalty! Plus I got so many free gifts for my first order and of course cleaner items for the house. I'm hooked!

2. Reduce, Reuse first. I want to try to see if I can go without purchasing new clothes or shoes (I don't need undergarments or accessories really either) for the full 2020 year. I DO want to buy a new purse for my birthday! Plus I will need new running shoes for the 1/2 marathon in March. But I should be good to go without anything else. PLUS you know how much I love thrifting!

3. We don't need anything for the house! So let us see if Spencer and I can go all year without buying too much stuff for the house. I think it has exactly everything it needs right now, but stuff always comes up. And if we can get anything second hand I will try! I also want to look into a smart sprinkler system to cut our water consumption and solar panels!

4. Sustainable food products. I've noticed Trader Joe's wraps a lot of its items in plastic. I want to do my best to cut that type of waste from my life. I want to work on being more aware of packaging of products in general. If that means shopping some where else or taking more time while shopping in the store, I'm excited to try that. Every little bit helps!

5. Garden and compost. Spencer has been composting for three years now and we have a brand new garden space at the new house. Last year he wasn't able to garden during the move, but the prior two years he did. So I'm excited to use our compost and new space this year + grow things we are both excited about and cut out the middle man!

6. Gifts. Experiences not things! I'm practicing this for Christmas this year and hoping to continue it on through 2020. There are so many great things out there to do and experience and I hope I can find that something special for the people I love instead of consuming mindlessly. That includes gifts for me if anyone is reading this who cares! LOL

7. "Refuse, then reduce, then reuse, then recycle" - via Denver Sustainability Project. I LOVE this idea. I've refused a lot of items, I'm reducing my purchasing and hopefully product package consumption. I'm working on incorporating more re-useable items into my life and we recycle more than we throw away. Spencer didn't even put out our garbage can this week because it wasn't full. That felt like a really big win!

8. Always carry with me: reusable straw, silver wear, water bottle and coffee cup and use what I already have. Which I have them all. The straws I got off of Amazon, silver wear I just use what we already have, water bottles from races and to-go coffee cups a plenty! I do have a Stojo which is convenient because it is collapsable. But also making a little sustainability basket in your car would work! Some of you might not carry a large purse like me!

9. Clean up and keep laptop and phone for one more year of use. My laptop is from 2015 and my iPhone is from 2017. I just cleared up some space on my laptop, next up the phone.....OK real time...not sure if I can do that. I just spent the last 30 minutes scrolling through old photos. There are some I can delete from late 2014. But I just LOVED seeing them. They make me so happy. So maybe mid year is a better estimate on this front. Let's see if I can keep them both for ONE more year!! When it is time to move on from them, I will re-sell them (done that before) or trade them in.

10. Vegetarianism. For all of November I've been doing very well and happy with being a vegetarian. Spencer has helped a lot with that. He's such an amazing chef and supportive partner. I do still love my chicken hot dogs from Trader Joe's and have been craving Chick fil a, but other than that I've been veggie and happy! I hope to continue to do better in 2020 and see if I can find a replacement for hot dogs! LOL

All of those things seem very reasonable to me. Especially since I feel like I've ease into it all. What about you?! I'm sure there will be temptations throughout the year, but I'm excited to push myself towards something bigger! Share your thoughts, comments and questions below! I'd love to hear what you think or are working towards in 2020! xx Meg