Happy New Year friends, and welcome back to one5c! Resolution season is the perfect time to embrace the small climate actions you can take on every day, but it’s also the right time to remember that nobody can be perfectly sustainable all the time. Aspiring to quit meat or bike to work no matter the weather are excellent goals, but taking small bites and forgiving yourself when they don’t go as planned can be just as important. So we’re kicking off 2025 with a menu of actions that are just as easy to start as they are to re-start if you slip up.
Is one of your 2025 goals on our list? If you’ve got your eyes on a different prize, we’d love to hear about it! —Sara Kiley
THESE NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS MAKE CLIMATE ACTION SIMPLE
By Sara Kiley Watson
There’s a certain thrill to setting a New Year’s resolution—be it actually taking advantage of that gym membership or learning a new skill. But in reality, we aren’t super great at keeping those promises we make to ourselves. According to a 2023 Forbes survey, most resolutions hardly make it past March; only 1% of respondents kept their resolutions until December, and just 6% of resolution-keepers were still holding on to past goals at the time of surveying.
We feel this so hard. Big goals make for big pressure, and the end result isn’t always worth the stress. That’s not our style here at one5c, where we know that small changes can have outsize impacts, especially if you keep ’em up. We’ve got a few suggestions for miniature resolutions that anyone can take on—just make sure to allow yourself the occasional cheat day. Nobody can live a perfectly sustainable life, but we can all make small shifts in our routines that get us a little bit closer.
Bring your water bottle (or reusable mug) everywhere
One of the biggest challenges in terms of both climate change and overconsumption is the world’s dependence on single-use plastic. It’s a dilemma in terms of fossil fuel use, pollution, ecosystem destruction, human health, and more. According to the U.N., 1 million plastic bottles are purchased every single minute across the world, and half of all plastic produced is used just once and then thrown away.
The easiest thing we can do right this moment is make sure to grab your water bottle or coffee cup whenever you leave the house. You never know when thirst will strike, and bringing your own container no matter the destination takes away the need to buy something you’ll just toss when it’s empty—a win for both your wallet and the planet.
Consider ditching Coca Cola or Pepsi products
Most of the single-use plastic on shelves and in landfills across the world can be traced back to just a handful of companies. According to Break Free From Plastic’s 2023 audit, the big baddies are Coca-Cola Co., Nestlé, Unilever, PepsiCo, Mondelēz International, Mars Inc., Procter & Gamble, Danone, Altria, and British American Tobacco. While it’d be pretty much impossible to avoid all of these companies on your trips to the grocery store, you can probably drop one, right?
Coca-Cola has held the top spot for largest polluter of plastic for six years in a row, but PepsiCo comes in second. The easiest way to voice your objection to this is to not give them your money.
Resist the urge to crank the HVAC
Residential energy use accounts for around 20% of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., and appliances that handle heating and cooling (which includes water heating) account for around 43% of that footprint. But there’s a lot we can do to stay comfortable and healthy even in unseasonably cold or warm weather. The Department of Energy estimates scooting your thermostat back 7 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit from its normal setting for 8 hours a day can save 10% a year on heating. The World Health Organization recommends keeping your home at around 65 degrees F in the winter, but if that’s still too chilly for your taste there’s a handful of ways to stay warm with minimal energy use. On the other hand, on hot summer days, anything from peel-and-stick window protectors to creating a cross breeze can make a home significantly cooler without pumping the AC.
Air-dry everything
There’s nothing quite like that fresh-out-of-the-dryer feeling, but our laundry routines can become climate menaces. This is especially true of the dryer, which accounts for about 4.3% of a home’s electricity consumption. Luckily, leaving your linens and clothes out to dry on a rack or clothesline is completely climate neutral and actually beneficial in terms of making your textiles last longer without breaking down. Of course, you’re going to need your dryer sometimes, but keeping it unplugged is an easy way to slim down your energy use in 2025 with very minimal impact on your day-to-day life.
Make your own broth
Veggie lovers and carnivores alike both run into the dilemma of what to do with food waste. Making your own broth is an easy and delicious way to turn scraps into liquid gold. In many cases, it’s as easy as boiling those less-than-yummy bits of veggies—think onion ends, kale stems, peels from carrots and squash. Just keep your leftovers in the freezer, then boil over the stove or in your slow cooker. For the omnivores among us, making a broth with leftover bones from your holiday turkey or Super Bowl wings is just as straightforward. This trick will save you money, keep methane-emitting food waste far from the landfill, and seriously up your soup game.
Get on the Meatless Monday bandwagon
Giving up meat can be difficult, but it’s one of the most impactful things that anyone can do to lower their personal carbon footprint and send a bigger message about sustainability in our agricultural system. If you’re just getting started on your plant-based journey, going cold turkey can quickly lead to a late-night Five Guys order. (Ask me how I know.) The easier way? Start with a one-day-a-week meatless routine. We’ve got a pretty much endless supply of delicious veggie-filled options over at Cool Beans, and who knows, maybe you’ll find that you prefer crispy mushrooms to bacon bits.
Skip driving one day a week
Most people who live in the United States simply can’t give up their cars and rely solely on public transit; there just isn’t enough infrastructure. This is a huge bummer considering how much energy and carbon emissions we can save by relying on our cars less. But could you do it for a day? Give it a try. To get started, check out what public transit exists in your area, condense your chores so that you won’t need to run to Target or the grocery store every day, and reach out to friends, neighbors, or colleagues to see if you can get a carpool going.
Join a climate action community
One of the most effective climate solutions? Community. Committing to attending a regularly scheduled meeting, like the weekly hours of action hosted by Climate Changemakers, is an easy way to get involved in larger climate action no matter where you’re located. (They offer in-person and virtual meetings.) If that’s not your thing, use your green thumb to volunteer with your community garden, keep an eye out for local protests, phone bank with the Environmental Voter Project, or even start your own group via 350 or Extinction Rebellion. The climate crisis is bigger than any one of us, and one of the best things anyone can do is put all of our brains together to get the work done.