Today (22nd April) is World Earth Day and “marks the anniversary of the birth of the modern environmental movement in 1970”. 50 years ago today, millions of people across America took to the “streets, parks and auditoriums to demonstrate against the impacts of 150 years of industrial development which had left a growing legacy of serious human health impacts” The protests included thousands of schools and colleges who were supportive of the overall movement and allowed their students to join the protests – unlike today’s School Strike for Climate movement made famous by Greta Thunberg (information on the UK movement on this link UKSCN)

The theme of World Earth Day is Climate Action which ties neatly to the UN Sustainable Development Goal 13 Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts

Due to the ongoing Covid 19 Pandemic and social restrictions that we all find ourselves living under, World Earth Day is going digital today with 24hours of action under the theme ‘Together we can SAVE the earth’:

• S = Speak Up – Share what you are fighting for and why, share what actions you are taking
• A = Act – Act and make changes on a personal level as well as campaigning for global change  
• V = Vote – Use the democratic process to tell politicians what systemic changes you want making, “human and planetary health must be the top political priority”
• E = Educate – Learn something new with all the online resources available and share your new knowledge with other people

Speak Up - I’ll be speaking up via the hkw_risk_management Instagram page to share what causes that I’m passionate about (other than cake and loo roll!) as well as continuing to use Linked In to share stories and information relating to the environment and my particular interest in waste management. 

Act - In my ongoing Sustainability Series, I’ve set myself 8 challenges (so far!) to take action on - I’ll be reporting back on these later this year:

1. Get rid of stuff responsibly, buy less stuff in the first place
2. Carry out a plastic audit – collect a week’s worth of non-recyclable packaging, identify the most common item and work out how to replace it
3. Manage fridge contents more carefully, plan meals more effectively and stop throwing away food that has now gone out of date
4. contact South Gloucestershire Council to clarify where our food waste goes
5. Time how long I spend in the shower and get a free 4 minute shower timer from Bristol Water
6. Twin our toilet!
7. Try Ecoleaf loo roll
8. Try some Plastic Free swaps in our Bathroom

Vote - I am registered to vote and always do, but I’m going to make more of an effort this year to take part in the democratic processes available to us (in the UK at least), I want to contact my local council and MP to raise issues that I am concerned about. 

Educate – I’m currently taking part in the online From Linear to Circular 10 week online programme run by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation I’m hoping to learn about the Circular Economy and to share this knowledge with my clients.  to see if they can change processes to contribute to the overall transition from the take, make, dispose system to keeping products and materials in use for longer. 

If you’d like to join in and make changes too, the World Earth Day website also has 46 tips to make a difference every day – after all, every day should be Earth Day!