What is it to be environmentally aware these days? It seems that there is no such direct answer. A few years ago recycling, using public transport and buying Organic would’ve qualified you as an environmentalist in most UK homes. Nowadays, as the threats of Climate Change become ever more apparent, we can see that all our day-to-day actions have ramifications.
This little revelation, as obvious as it is, has shocked most of us into not only considering our own activities within an ecological world but also valuing the work of others. And it’s true: almost everything has a Green edge. That is, from your next door neighbour down the road, to the top-end business corporations, everybody can see that it pays to be Green. Businesses sink or sail under this gust of fresh air. And consumers too – having built themselves the supermarket ceremony of digesting the back of product packets in order to contents-check what it really is they’re buying – recognise the relevant eco-activities and are impressed by governed Green Seals of approval.
And so it seems that to be environmentally aware today is to question the effects you’ll have on tomorrow. Whether we choose to see the worth in this new culture is entirely up to us. But it is up to us. Questioning the real ‘value’ of our everyday products and services is key. And sometimes the simplest changes are right in front of our noses. Did you know that switching energy tariffs is a sure way to support the shift we need away from fossil fuel consumption? It’s true: as a result of growing concern over the earth’s finite fossil fuel resources, energy companies have designed green energy tariffs to meet the demands of an ever-emergent environmentally aware market.
Did you also know that it costs just as much to change energy tariffs from your traditional ‘grey’ suppliers to a ‘green’ one; but now with the added bonus that next time you switch-on you’ll be safe in the knowledge that you are minimising the carbon impact on our environment whilst encouraging others to source their power from renewables too.
It’s a cyclical pattern: the consumer demands that at least a portion of their energy is sourced from renewable sources (solar power, wind farms, water turbines etc); power suppliers recognise this demand and align their business service accordingly, investing in the generation of ‘clean’ energy; other competing firms notice this developing market and bustle for market space, creating further services, again making further investments into renewable sources, and attempting to under-cut the prices of the leading tariffs. This cycle repeats and renews itself until the market is fully developed to meet all the needs of its Green market. And why? Simply because we ‘read the back of the packaging’ and made the quick calculation for whether or not it is sustainable.
Isn’t that brilliant? And it doesn’t have to stop there: checking your tariff (which you can do now by clicking the ecotricty link below) is the perfect place to start questioning the services you have in place right now. Just as scanning the ingredients of the food we put into our bodies has become instinctive, so will our ways of valuing, or, if you like, ‘calculating’ the sum of our day-to-day activities for tomorrow: this will become a second nature we can all invest our pride in.
