Crystal: I’m Crystal DiMiceli and welcome to the Forces for Nature Show.

Do you find yourself overwhelmed with all the doom and gloom you hear of these days? Do you feel like you as just one person, can’t really make a difference? Forces for nature cuts through that negativity. In each episode, I speak to someone doing great things in sustainability, conservation, or animal related issues.

We talk through the problem they’re addressing the solution they have found. How it relates to you, and we leave you with practical action tips so that you too can become a force for nature.

For the past few years I’ve been following today’s guest, Jen Gal. I discovered her through her podcast, sustainable ish, and was immediately drawn to how welcoming and genuine she seemed. When you come across someone who prides themselves on being eco-friendly, you might find that they often wield what Jen calls a big green bashy stick, but that’s not Jen.

She carries her warmth through all the resources that she has created to help us all become a little more sustainable with a focus on progress and not perfection. This was one of my favorite conversations to date because she’s just so relatable and down to earth. I think you’ll feel the same way too.

Hi, Jen. Thank you so much for joining me on Forces for Nature. It’s so great to have.

Jen: Thank you so much for asking me,

Crystal: so let’s dive right in. When it comes to sustainability, climate change, being eco-friendly, it’s so easy to feel overwhelmed and paralyzed because you don’t know where to start. Have these topics always been something that you thought about?

And what got you on the path that you are on today?

Jen: Oh, I’d love to say it’d always been on my radar. I think I always thought we were pretty green. We did our recycling and kind of that’s, that’s the message we were getting in the nineties, wasn’t it? Like, do your recycling. And I think even now, to a certain extent, Most, all the poles and things when people have asked what’s the best thing we can do for the planet or to be environmentally friendly, most people will say Recycling and recycling’s great.

And it’s a great place to start, but it’s also, um, Lindsay, who has a blog called Tread My Own Path. She says it’s a great place to start, but a bad place to stop, you know? So I thought we were pretty green, we were doing our recycling, and then I randomly decided that we would spend a year buying nothing new.

So this was 10 years ago with the family. It just opened a whole can of worms. It just kind of really forced me to look at the relationship between what we were buying and the impact it was having and what we were buying and the waste we were producing, and all those sorts of things that I think had just been.

Not maliciously or deliberately, but sort of looking away from before, assuming that there wasn’t really anything much we could do about it other than our recycling, do you know like who am I to be making these changes? Or who, who am I to be having an impact? Like how can I possibly have an impact as just one little person and one little family?

Surely it needs the government to be acting. Surely it needs the businesses to be acting, and obviously it does, but we’ve also got a massive role to play as well. Well, speaking

Crystal: of what kind of impact can one person actually have on such immense

Jen: issues? Yeah, that’s, and I think that’s exactly, like you said just a minute ago, that sense of overwhelm, I think is something that really stops us even getting started.

So there was a report that came out couple of weeks ago now in the UK from the House of Lords that looked at. The changes that we need to make in order to hit our net zero goals here in the UK for 2050 and 33% of them were dependent on individual behavior change. So we can make a huge difference. And that really mirrors up to another project called A Take the Jump, and they looked at the six most impactful things we could do as individuals to have an impact.

They again found that that would account for 27% of the changes that we need to make. So, you know, yes, we need government, yes, we need businesses, and that will make things much, much quicker. But also, I think the really important part of our role, or the role that we can play as individuals is it’s not just making those changes and those cuts and emissions, but also talking about it, sharing.

Saying how easy it can be. Having those conversations is so, so important because we know that the vast majority of us are really worried about this, but maybe some of us aren’t doing much about it because we don’t know where to start, or we feel overwhelmed. And then actually, if we suddenly see a. Bob at work is doing this and we’re like, oh, hold on a minute.

Bob can do it. Maybe I can have a go. And that’s super important.

Crystal: I’m really interested in what you were saying about those studies that just came out between, I think you said 27 to 30% or something that we can have a direct impact on. That’s huge and that is really empowering in that we could actually do something about this and not wait on all those bigger guys to do so.

Which, speaking of there’s cop going on right now, and so let’s see if, if those big guys are gonna start moving or moving faster, but it might, it just might be on us

Jen: to, yeah. I literally just tweeted this morning saying I’m not sure that my mental health can cope with following cop 27 after, I think last year was probably the first cop that I’ve really paid attention to because it was so hyped up because it was here in the uk.

And just that feeling of like, oh, nothing’s really changed. And now a year on nothing’s really changed. And, and, and I tweeted and I said, what, anyone got any suggestions or ideas for how we get through this? And somebody said, and it’s a great point, is like, Look for the stuff that’s happening locally to you.

Look for the stuff that you can get involved with, the stuff that you can do, because obviously we can’t influence high level government negotiations and we can’t get together and be banging heads together and all that sort of thing. But there is a huge amount of stuff we can do on our own, in our families, in our households, and lots to get involved in locally as well.

And I think that that’s where a lot of the change and the demand for change, and I guess the mandate that governments need to create, the policies that we need will come from.

Crystal: Exactly. I love that. Look locally and once you do start looking locally, then your local politicians and the companies will start to listen because that’s what they’re paying attention to anyway.

Jen: Well, hopefully, hopefully they’ll start to listen hopeful. But even if they don’t, again, there was another, I feel like I’m just referencing studies left, right and center, but there was another study done in 2017 that asked MPS in the UK why they weren’t taking more action on climate. And they’ve, vast majority of them said it was cuz they weren’t hearing from their constituents that it was an issue.

So I know it feels like the dullest most grown up, most potentially futile thing to be doing depending on which side of the fence your, your MP is on. But if we are not letting them know that this is important and asking questions and we can do it in a really nice polite way, they can quite feasibly turn around to their party HQ and say, well, my constituents don’t seem that bothered about it.

Whereas if they’ve. one, 10, a hundred letters in the last month. Then they’re like, Ooh, probably ought to be this, this copy and paste reply we’re sending out is getting a lot of, , is doing a lot of heavy lifting .

Crystal: That’s such a great point. Well, let’s, let’s move along. So there’s always room for eco improvement.

For example, for example, I like eco. Yeah, ego improvement. , for example, I’m very conscious in what I do, but about a year ago, my husband challenged me to shut off the shower water while I soaped and shampooed up. It has taken me a year to make it a habit. So do you have any tips on how to make a change in one’s habits, whether they’re an eco beginner or someone who’s already an eco veteran , for lack of a better

Jen: putting it.

Yeah, I know that’s a great question because so many of the changes we have to make are those behavior changes and I think. Partly why It can sometimes seem like it’s really hard because there isn’t to some extent we, well to, to a full extent. We can’t buy our way out of this. We are going to have to physically change the things that we are doing, and we all know that behavior change is hard.

If we’ve tried to get fit or lose weight or anything like that, it’s. It’s hard work, right? Our brains always go for the easy option and like to keep us in those habits. So I guess, you know, trying to break it down into what’s the, what’s the smallest steps, you know, if ultimately you want to be predominantly plant based, well, let’s start off with meat-free Monday.

And actually let’s even start off with asking our friends if they’ve got any great veggie or vegan recipes that they can share with us that they would recommend. And let’s just do that one thing and. Then I think, and, and depending on what kind of change it is, I guess you want to make some of them can, you know, some of those kind of habit tracker type things can be really useful.

So you, you kind of keep the chain going, if you know what I mean. So it might be that you want to try and not use the car as much as possible. So you see how many car free days you can do in a month or. Some people in my, in my membership in the sustain ish clubhouse, they set themselves a kind of mileage challenge each month to try and like stay below.

And then I think the other thing that also really helps with any kind of behavior change is having some people on board with you. So you have that little bit of kind of accountability from your other half. So it is the same, you know, if you say that you, you’re gonna run a marathon or something sort of publicly declaring it and then keeping people up to date with where you are at and all that sort of thing.

Really. See you when, when you’re thinking, oh, it’s raining outside and I don’t wanna go, but I told all those people, I’m gonna do this marathon and they’re gonna be, you know, I’m gonna let them down if I don’t do it. So I think any little habit, any little ideas or tools that we might use for any other behavior change type things, we can absolutely use them in this scenario as well.

Speaking

Crystal: of accountability, that just reminded me that you have a bike ride coming.

Jen: I’ve just done it. I’ve just done it. I did it. Oh, you just finished? Yeah. Yeah. Oh. Um, it was a four day bike ride, but I just did the last two days. So the whole bike ride went from Swanzi in Wales to Westminster in London for Cop 27 last year.

They did it for the first time and they went from London all the way up to Glasgow over seven days. And obviously it was too far to cycle to Charmel Shake in Egypt. So this is, this is the ride that they came up with. And the idea was that instead of asking people to sponsor you in the traditional way with money to raise money for charity, you asked people to sponsor you in terms of carbon saving pledges.

So it was with this great platform called Donation, and you sort of went on there and there’s about 60 different pledges. I think. You know, anything, everything from big stuff like, oh, I’m gonna transition to an electric car, or I’m gonna get solar panels right through to, I’m gonna watch two climate related documentaries over the next two months.

Or I’m gonna have some conversations with people, or I’m gonna adjust the settings on my laptop so it’s more energy efficient. There was literally something on there for everyone. And so the idea was that, like I said, instead of getting money, you got pledges. Um, and it just struck me as such a brilliant way of getting people engaged and on board and opening some conversations about this cuz so many people were like, oh, even with my audience who are pretty on board and engaged in doing lots of stuff, there were still ones that people would go, oh, I hadn’t thought of that.

And yeah, I’ll do that. And that’s great. Well, congratulations. That’s, that’s quite the feat, . So yeah, just my little bit of it. My two days was 135 miles, I think over two days. So yesterday was very much a rest day, .

Crystal: Oh yeah, I imagine. Good for you. So now one of the complaints about sustainability is that it could be expensive.

Is being eco-friendly

Jen: a luxury? It’s one of the, exactly as you said, one of the common refrains we hear is that it’s more expensive, but, and there are undoubtedly some things that are more expensive. So organic food, often if you’re looking for plastic free options with food, if you are looking for sustainable fashion and things like that, but, I think part of the issue is that we live in such a consumer society that our automatic reaction to I want to be more eco-friendly is Right, what do I need to buy?

Whereas actually the most eco-friendly thing we can do is not buy, and that’s where the money savings come in. So, In the UK and I think probably most, I don’t know, is it most of Europe? How are you guys getting on with energy prices Crystal, but energy prices have gone bonkers in the uk so loads of information in the media at the moment about saving, you know, using less energy to save us money.

But obviously the knock on impact of that is that it saves us a huge amount of carbon as well. So anything we can do to save energy will be more eco-friendly. Food waste is a massive issue and that’s, It costs us money as well. So the stats are, the average family wastes about 700 pounds in edible food over the course of a year.

So if we can, and food waste is a really big issue because it wastes all the energy and resources that have got into the food, but also when it goes to landfill, it just sits there and ferments and releases me things. So if food waste was a country be the third biggest IIT of greenhouse gases behind the USA and China, so this is something that we can.

Play a part in, and actually the, the latest figures for the UK suggest that about 70% of food waste occurs in our homes. So again, this is one of those ones. Individual action is hugely important. We don’t need to wait for government, we don’t need to wait for businesses. This is something we can have a really big impact on and it will save us money.

And then I think the third big one would be looking to try and find as many things as we can. Secondhand you will be amazed at the, the, the stuff that you can find sometimes without even paying for if you use sites like Free Cycle and Frugal and Olio and things like that. But you know, I think with a little bit of.

Which sometimes can be hard in our very fast paid society. But you know, buying less, buying better, buying secondhand is definitely another thing that will save you a lot of money.

Crystal: Absolutely. And there’s, I’m finding that there’s just more and more websites that offer these secondhand options and you can find, like you said, you can find some really great things and.

Like a lot of things are like new or even new with tags, which is insane.

Jen: So yeah, I’m mildly addicted to vintage. No. Yeah, I just found that one just two items off of it. Yeah. Last year I bought loads of the kids presents and you know, I think they both wanted a onesie or something, managed to find them onesies on there and all sorts of different things.

So, yeah, and you know, it has that convenience of. Let’s say Amazon or something like that. But you know, you know that everything on there is, is secondhand. And as you say, you, you can buy some, find some stuff on there that is pretty much new or even new with tags and you’re like, wow, for much less than you would’ve paid for if you’d bought it new.

Yeah, it’s been, it’s been a fun find for sure. ,

Crystal: you mentioned a little while ago, you have a husband and two sons. I believe they’re teenagers now, if I’m, if I’m not

Jen: mistaken. Yeah. 14 and 11, so yeah.

Crystal: Okay. Right, right. At that age, what do they think of all this? And my, I’m, I’m getting to the core question of, of how can someone get their family and housemates on board with sustainable choices?

Jen: Yeah. My husband is actually really. Supportive. That sounds like a really rubbish way of saying it. He is really great and he, he was never, cuz like I said, we started with a year buying nothing new 10 years ago. And I think he was like, really? What? Like, what is all this about? But he doesn’t, he’s not a big buyer.

He doesn’t buy loads of clothes or even, um, Especially now you can download music and things like that. He doesn’t really buy very much, but he’s been great at really embraced kind of, you know, fixing things when the white goods go wrong or the electronics or all those sorts of things. So he’s been absolutely brilliant at fixing things.

And the fabulous thing I think with that he’s done is he’s been able to, Just chip away at his workplace. So his workplace isn’t a sustainable job or anything like that, but he’s, uh, slowly, slowly chipping away at them and got them to just in the last few months, sign off on a massive solar panel array on top of their warehouse and battery storage and all these sorts of things that would never have happened in that organization.

So it’s so great to see like, Sometimes we might feel like our husbands aren’t really listening to us or that, you know, we are dragging them along. But then to see that he’s gone out and been so proactive with the changes that he’s been able to persuade his work to do has been absolutely fabulous. And then the kids, I don’t know, I just, I think I naively thought after our year buying nothing new and they were literally like three and one that I’d have these kind of, you know, full on little eco warriors after it.

And obviously they were far too young to really kind of take it on board. But I. You know, they see what we do as kind of normal. And then maybe start to realize that maybe it’s not, I mean, I don’t think we are in any way extreme. I don’t think somebody would see us walking down the street and go, oh, there they go.

You know, they’re the green ones, but then they go to other people’s houses and you know, and I think especially when they start to talk to friends about holidays and things like that, and people have been jetting off here, there and everywhere. It has prompted a few difficult conversations, but they’re kind of generally on board.

Resistance around things like trying to walk some of the shorter journeys rather than just jump into the car, or certainly some resistance originally around some of the sort of veggie meals I was trying to serve up and things like that. But generally they’ve been happy to kind of. Well, I think we’d need to ask them, but they, they kind of go along with most of it, but they’re certainly not, you know, full on engaged and kind of starting up eco clubs at school and going on school strikes and all that sort of thing.

I think they just, I dunno if they just think like, oh, that’s Mum’s thing. She’s over there dealing with it. I don’t need to do anything about it. And to a certain extent, I feel like with kids, We need to let them come to it in their own time. I don’t feel like it’s my job to put my climate anxiety and worries for their future onto them and kind of make that their problem and their anxieties when they’re at the moment.

Kind of, you know, dealing with growing up and being teenagers and everything else that comes with that, and that all the, the usual things that they should be concerned about at their age rather than, you know, existential dread of the

Crystal: future. But it’s clear that you’re having ripple effects because of what your husband did with his job.

I’m sure that they, they’re absorbing more than you think. Quick, quick side note, I have a 18 year old stepson. His, the three, his three parents are all in like the environmental or wildlife field. And he grew up saying, I’m not gonna do what you guys are doing. I’m never going into the environment field.

I’m never going into conservation. He’s applying to colleges right now. And he’s like, you know what, I’m really interested in environmental economics. And the three of us were like, what , where did that come from? ?

Jen: So, so it’s, and it’s, it’s like a Sydney though, sometimes. And this is completely stereotyping things, but you know, sometimes with husbands you’ll sort of be saying this and saying this and saying this, and then suddenly when it’s their idea, they’re like, oh, wow, this is all somebody else tells them.

And you’re like,

Crystal: yes. Yep. And you’re like, yes, honey. That’s great. , what a brilliant idea. Where did you ever come up with it? ?

Jen: Yeah. But I think general tips in terms of getting other people on board. I mean, first and foremost, and this is a tip, a step, I think I completely skipped and maybe we haven’t ever even sat down and talked about it.

And you don’t need to sit down and have a big, you know, like intimidating conversation, but maybe just saying to your housemates or your other half, oh, I just listened to this podcast and they were talking a little bit about conversations and, and you know, actually, I. Quite worried about the climate crisis.

How do you feel about it? Because maybe we’ve never even had that conversation. We assume that our partners are privy to, well, thankfully they’re not privy to all our inside voices and all those sorts of things, but you know, sometimes I think we assume that they’re on the same page as us, or that if they’re not doing anything, then they’re completely not on the same page and not worried about it at all.

Whereas, like I did earlier, most people are worried about it, but just maybe don’t know what to do. And so if you can have a convers. Based around how you’re both feeling about it. That can be, you know, a really, really great starting point. And then also thinking about what are the, the things that you think might motivate them.

Because surpri, I’m always surprised that there are apparently people who aren’t completely motivated in the same way that we are. But lots of these things, like we just said, will save us some money as well. So can you kind of. Frame it in that way. And, and oh by the way, we’re also saving some emissions and things like that.

But trying to think about what are the, the things that, that they enjoy and that will appeal to them and therefore what different slightly ways there might be of getting people on board with it.

Crystal: Good suggestions. Now, sustainability is a journey and your whole brand is sustainable. , which I think is a brilliant way of putting it.

What’s your biggest ish at the moment? Oh, .

Jen: What are you working on? Oh, so many, so many. Um, I wrote a blog post a few years ago about the. The, the 10 things I still do that make me really crap environmentalist, and I think it was one of the most popular ones I’ve ever written. Like people just, oh, that’s, you know, good one.

Um, I mean, we are a, we are a two car family. One’s an electric car, the other’s hybrid and is a fairly chunky car because we’ve got caravan and, and we need to be able to tow it. And, but it just makes me wince every time I get in it. We’ve got a dog, you know, some would argue that that’s not hugely environmentally friendly.

Um, the. Yeah, because they have their own little carbon paw print and eating lots of meat and all those sorts of things. So we feed ours on um, YRA, which is an insect based food. So she seems to quite enjoy that. But, you know, there’s lots of arguments as well that, that potentially owning pets, you know, it, it helps our mental and our physical health and also it might reduce our own footprints in that we tend.

Maybe take shorter holidays or, you know, not fly so often or so far because we don’t wanna leave the dog behind and all those sorts of things. So it is a bit of a, a sort of swings and roundabouts thing. And then, yeah, we are not, we’re not vegan. We’re not even like Winston. I’m saying this completely veggie, like I’m pretty much kind of there, but the kids would happily eat sausages and spaghetti will and chili all day long and, and I think invariably choose the meat option when they’re at.

When they’re having school dinners. So loads of things and exactly as you say, it’s, it’s a journey. And certainly when you’re trying to bring family along with you, it is about embracing those compromises and. Being okay with that. You know, there’s, there’s no point. This being something that makes everybody miserable and resentful and, you know, making a rod for our own backs because this has to be sustainable in every sense of the word and has to be something that we are okay with carrying on with.

And if it’s making everybody miserable, and that’s not really sustainable. It’ll never work if

Crystal: that were the case. Yeah. Yeah. So it’s, it’s the trying, that’s the,

Jen: well, is that important? You know, there’s that, that phrase isn’t there about not letting perfect get perfect, get in the way of good and you know, really just looking for progress over perfection.

And I think as well, Being aware of what are the big impact things we can do and what are the smaller impact things we can do. And although we’re, you know, I’m sustainable ish and all about imperfection, I think we do need to look at some of those big impact actions. Like, I dunno, flying or eating meat or, but, but.

It’s not saying, oh my God, you can never fly again. You, everybody has to be completely vegan. It’s like, okay, how can I reduce this? How can I, you know, what’s my first step on this ladder for this rather than being all or nothing about everything, because you know that way failure lies, I think. mentioning

Crystal: your brand, sustainable ish.

You have a plethora of really awesome resources for people who want support in this, who wanna get started, who wanna keep on their journey strong. Can you tell me a little bit about what kind of resources you have

Jen: available? Oh gosh. Yeah. So I’ve got on the website there’s a blog, which I’m very, I was really good at when we did our year buying.

Nothing new. I blogged every day for a year, but that, that’s definitely slowed down in, in the last couple of years, but probably been overtaken by the podcast. So I release a new podcast episode every week and the podcast is called Sustainable Ish, and I try and make that. Like really accessible. Well, I try and hopefully make everything really accessible that, you know, somebody who’s just dipping their toe in could try and could think and come and listen and be inspired for something to have a go at hearing about all these different amazing projects that are happening all around the country, all around the world.

Different things that people are doing, and I’m always so inspired when it. We think, oh, just one person. What difference can I make? And all of these people I speak to are just one person that had an idea and that ran with it, and they’re just making amazing stuff happen. So I love doing that. I’ve written a couple of books.

I’ve been lucky enough to have a couple of books published. So there’s the Sustainable Ish Living Guide and the Sustainable Ish Guide to Green Parenting. You can get them both wherever you normally buy your books, or obviously ask your library most sustainable version. Ask your library if they have them in stock or can get them in stock for you.

And then I run sort of short courses and do quite a lot of speaking for businesses and organizations, but just actually about to release my crap free Christmas course, which is a. A course that you can work through with, hopefully, I’m just frantically sort of scrolling through it, trying to make sure I’ve got everything in there.

But, you know, ideas for, I dunno, Christmas crackers, Christmas dinner cards, presents, all sorts of different things for how you can do Christmas with a bit less impact. And finally, I do carbon literacy training, which is an eight hour course, which sounds a bit meaty, but it’s, it’s sort of chunked up. And that’s all about the basics of kind of climate science.

Dive off a little bit into climate justice and looking at the changes that we can make, and then everybody has to make two pledges at the end of it. An individual pledge and a group pledge to reduce carbon. And I’ve been running that since about March this year, and that’s just been an absolute joy to see people’s pledges coming in and the things that they’re going to do off the back of it.

Oh, and I forgot to mention . Yeah, no, please do. I forgot to mention the social media. So, um, I’ve got a Facebook group, sustainable ish with Jen Gal, and that’s got, I think about 18,000 people in there at the moment. And, um, really try to, Keep it on the straight and narrow, if you like, in terms of, you know, embracing that ish and, cause I think there’s a temptation on social media to sort of, people get their big green batty sticks out and sort of, you know, if people aren’t doing things quite the way they think they should be doing, they can be quite forthright about it on social media.

So, you know, really trying to embrace those imperfections and it to be a safe space for people to come and to learn and to, to find out different ideas and different options. So that’s like a group. And then there’s the usual kind of Instagram and Facebook pages and all those sorts of things as well.

The

Crystal: Facebook group is a really welcoming space and it’s, it just has so many great ideas flowing through it. Everybody just is so supportive of one another and they answer your questions and give you ideas and help, help move you along in your sustainable journey. So that, that’s another really great resource.

So I’m gonna include all of these in the show notes so that people. Can have a link to them and can learn more all about that.

Jen: Amazing. Thank you. Yeah,

Crystal: absolutely. And before we sign off, you have mentioned some really great things that individuals can do, but at the end of every episode, I like leaving people with a few ideas on what they can do.

So what would you say are some. Biggest impact things that an individual can do to help make a change for a better world?

Jen: I think, and I’m probably a bit biased saying this, having done a year buying nothing new, and we’re in the middle of another one now as a sort of 10 year celebration, but I genuinely think reducing consumption is one of the most impactful things that we can do.

There was a study that I found when I was writing the first book that said that 60% of global greenhouse gas emissions are a result of household consumption. So that’s stuff that we can change. That’s, that’s stuff that we are buying. That’s the food we’re eating, that’s the clothes we’re wearing, that’s how we’re traveling, how we’re heating our homes, all those sorts of things.

So we absolutely can have an impact on that. And I think. You know, a year buying nothing new is probably quite extreme for a lot of people. So nobody’s expecting anybody to kind of dive into that. If you do, I would absolutely recommend it. But could you have, I don’t know, a fast fashion fast? So you say, well, I’m not gonna buy any brand new High Street fashion for the next month, or I’m gonna try and source 50% of my clothes secondhand for the next six months.

Or, you know, I’m gonna have a go at, I’m just gonna do a month of not buying anything new and see how it goes. And I think just having. Intention really helps to slow it down. But I think the other thing that could be really helpful is, and I, I used to do this with the kids when they were little, just sort of, not without really thinking about it, but you know, I’m sure we can all imagine the scenario where you’re in a toy shop with a small child and they’re having a complete meltdown because they want X, Y, and Z and like, you know, okay, I’m gonna take a picture of it on my phone.

Or, you know, we do the usual, I’ll put it on your birthday lists, put it on your Christmas list. I’m gonna take a picture of it on my phone and if you still remember in a week that you wanted it, then we can have a look at where to find it. And that whole breathing space thing works equally well for us as grownups.

I think we still have a little bit That’s true. Toddler mentality of like, I see it, I want it, you know, and if we’ve got the, the financial wherewithal, we just go and get it and then, or we order it on online and by the time it survived, we kind of forgotten that we ordered it so, Making a little list of the things that you see that you want or taking a picture on your phone or putting it in your basket and then getting up and walking away.

Do you know? So that and, and then whether you give yourself, I dunno, a day, 24 hours or three days or a week or whatever it might be. But I think that’s just such a useful way of trying to, to slow us down and removing some of that kind of knee jerk, almost toddler level, you know, buying that. I think probably most of us, myself included, are a little bit guilty.

That’s so true.

Crystal: I mean, I’ve, I’ve noticed even with myself, if there’s something I wanna purchase, I say, okay, if I’m still thinking about this 24 hours from now, then maybe it is something I want. But more often than not, I completely forget about it, which,

Jen: Tells you everything, this email pops into your inbox from those, from those people.

So that, that’s why sometimes unsubscribing from all those emails can be a really good Oh yeah. Um, really good tactic as

Crystal: well, which is, as a matter of fact, another way to have a positive impact is unsubscribing, because believe it or not, well, you know this I’m sure, but the, um, storing all of those emails actually has a carbon footprint and.

Unsubscribed emails to reduce your carbon

Jen: footprint? Yeah, definitely. So then they’re not being sent, which has a carbon footprint and they’re not sort of sitting, cuz I’m awful at, you know, I’ve never, the thought of inbox zero just completely blows my mind. But, you know, it’s quite, it’s quite a, almost a therapeutic thing to sit there in front of the tele and just delete, you know, to go through deleting all your stored emails that you no longer want and unsubscribing we.

I periodically run a kind of five day challenge, and one of the steps on there is to, to delete your emails, and I think there were about. Five, 600 people signed up for the challenge. And between everybody, we deleted about a quarter of a million emails, which like what, you know, that’s suddenly, you know, somebody’s, and it’s really addictive.

Someone was like, oh, I’ve done 20. And then someone was like, I’ve done a thousand, I’ve done 50,000. Like what? Like how is this? But that’s a quite a useful, like I said, quite cathartic exercise to do as well. And the same with photos on your phone. Like one of my youngest just loves grabbing my phone and just turning it into selfie mode and just pressing hold.

So I’ve got like a hundred shots in his face in various contortions , which, which is is lovely. Obviously , but you know, start taking out days in the cloud. So .

Crystal: My phone has a terrible amount of storage, so I’m constantly having to delete. So even though it’s a pain for that reason, it’s also a benefit in, in regards to cloud storage, , there’s just not enough space in my phone to take up too much cloud space.

Yeah. Jen, this has been great. I’m so happy to have had the opportunity to chat with you. I’ve been following sustainable ish for a number of years now, so it’s been lovely and thank you so much for all that you do. You’re making a difference. Oh, thank

Jen: you. And thank you for inviting me on, and thank you for all that you do as well.

It’s, it can sometimes feel like a bit of a thankless task kind of, and that you sort of think is, is the, you know, is anybody listening? What is happening here? Is this making a difference? And then you just get one email of somebody you’re like, oh yeah, no, this is worth it. So thank

Crystal: you to you

Jen: as well.

Crystal: I’ve been feeling increasingly annoyed with governments and companies because of their slowness in action or outright denial of the need for more sustainable systems. Chatting with Jen today has helped to remind me just how much influence we as individuals can have on the bigger picture. And it always helps to have a cheerleader in your corner, a rich supply of practical ideas, and a tribe to support you.

Jen has created all of that. Go check out the links in the show notes. You’ll undoubtedly find something for you.

Do you know someone else who would enjoy this episode? I would be so grateful if you would share it with them. Hit me up on Instagram and Facebook at becoming Forces for Nature, and let me know what actions you have been taking. Adopting just one habit can be a game changer because imagine if a billion people also adopted that.

What difference for the world are you going to make today?