#7BillionDreams: World Environment Day 2015
Seven Billion Dreams. One Planet. Consume with Care.
This is the theme for World Environment Day 2015, and we couldn’t be more in agreement with it. If you aren’t familiar with World Environment Day (WED), it is the United Nations Environmental Programme’s annual campaign to encourage worldwide awareness and action for the environment, and each year features a different focus on the importance of taking responsibility for how our actions affect our planet.
Like the UNEP says, every action counts.
Living sustainably can seem like a big undertaking, but what we want to highlight is that even the smallest individual actions contribute to a larger collective movement towards a healthy future! Shifting consumption patterns towards more sustainably produced goods, less resource intensive amenities, and more environmentally sound choices we will get one step closer to a healthy planet!
We’re going to focus on three topics that the Freight Farms team feels strongly about: food, transportation, and waste. We highlight small choices that we make (and you can too!) in an effort to reduce our footprint. We welcome you to please share different ways that demonstrate how you consume with care!
Food
The various stages of production, transportation, processing, and consumption within the food supply chain are incredibly resource intensive. Using large amounts of land, fertilizers, water, fossil fuels and more, each stage has a significant impact on the environment. Recently, it has become even more apparent that something must change. The food movement has been gaining more traction over the past few years, and we’ve seen the power consumers have on the food industry as a whole as they become more interested and invested in learning more about the food that’s on their plate. With the number of farmers markets increasing significantly, it’s now much easier to use your dollars to support more sustainable, local food systems. At Freight Farms we are striving to make local, fresh food accessible in places that simply can’t support its growth because of climate or land restraints.
Hannah, in charge of Freight Farms community engagement, shared her excitement for the Boston Public Market to open this July,
“Being a North End resident, I can’t wait to bike home from work and pick up fresh produce for dinner in one fell swoop, knowing that everything was grown locally and being able to meet the farmers who grew it.”
Transportation
According to the US Department of Transportation, transportation accounts for 28% of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. That’s a lot. Fortunately, more individuals are shifting their habits to greener means of transportation like biking, car sharing and using public transportation. As more and more people make these changes, cities and municipalities are adapting infrastructure to make it safer and more accessible. Shifting to greener forms of transportation reduces traffic congestion, decreases consumption of fossil fuels and can increase your own health mentally and physically!
Being headquartered in Boston, most of our team members have found it more efficient to navigate this urban center using 2 wheels instead of four. Dan, our Head of Operations says,
“On a bike, there’s no such thing as traffic, which means I get to save money on gas, get to work in the same amount of time as driving, and get the added benefit of exercise and stress reduction. I guarantee bikers are happier when they get to work than anyone that drives.”
Waste
Did you know the 1.3 billions tons of food are wasted worldwide annually? That’s ⅓ of the food produced in the world for human consumption. As consumers we need to be more cognizant of the amounts and quality of food we purchase, and how we dispose of the waste. A great perk of purchasing food produced locally is that you’re getting it within hours or days of harvest, as opposed to buying produce that has traveled thousands of miles over the course of a week or two. Fresher food means less waste! And for any food spoilage that does happen, there are more options for residents to compost organic materials themselves or schedule a service to pick it up on a weekly basis.
Dedicated to lessening her impact on this earth our Farm Assistant, Jaime, says,
“Composting is a way of transforming what we think of as waste into something that nourishes and sustains the earth. As a gardener, I know I can use this “waste” to nourish my plants, and as member of my community, I know I am reducing my contribution of what ends up in a landfill.”
Like the UNEP states, it starts with an individual action, that leads to collective power…and translates to exponential impact! If you want to learn more about World Environment Day head to the UNEP website, and if you’re interested in hearing some of the #7BillionDreams or sharing your own click here!