Sustainable Practices For Earth Day – And Everyday

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As we celebrate Earth Day 2025, we all have to acknowledge the chaotic political climate that threatens democracy, offers regressive thinking, and seems a stranglehold on climate action. Yet we as leaders can help each other to understand the nuances of the major social and environmental issues of our time. We can take this day that celebrates and respects the planet to strategize and advocate for climate action and to suggest ways to diversify the environmental movement.

Our Earth Day call-to-action should draw attention to the importance of sustainability and renewable energy, of rebuilding our Earth’s balance and seeking a waste-free world. We can support companies that follow through on pledges to do business with eco-friendly practices as core values. And we can recognize the power of conservation psychology, seeking to inspire behavioral changes that promote environmental protections.

As the Earth Day Foundation suggests, we can hold sectors accountable for “their role in our environmental crisis while also calling for bold, creative, and innovative solutions. This will require action at all levels, from business and investment, to city and national government.”

Here are some important ways to step up your sustainability lifestyle so that you, as an individual, become a model for real power and influence as a consumer, a voter, and a member of a community that can unite for positive change for our planet.

Strategies for Earth Day — and Everyday — Sustainability Engagement

Eat fewer water-intensive foods: The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimates we need 2000 to 5000 liters (2113 to 5283 quarts) of water to produce the food consumed daily by one person. Food systems account for 72% of freshwater withdrawals worldwide. For example, the water footprint of beef is 7,007 liters (7400 quarts) per pound, more than 50 times greater than the water footprint of potatoes (130 liters/ 137 quarts per pound).

Advocate for a plant-based diet — it’s ethical: We can all contribute by reducing food wastage and consuming more plant-based meals. Kassam and Smith remind us in a recent article in the Future Heathcare Journal that “the intertwined crises of poor health, climate change, biodiversity loss, and social injustice demand urgent action.” With so much evidence about how diets high in animal products and ultra-processed foods are leading causes of chronic ill health and environmental degradation, the authors argue that “embracing plant-based diets is now an ethical imperative, with benefits spanning individual health, environmental sustainability, equitable resource distribution, and global health justice.”

Support for the normalization of default plant-based options over high-impact animal products can arise, they say, from promoting and educating people on the benefits of plant-based foods, offering plant-based catering for events and meetings, endorsing the Plant Based Treaty, lobbying decision makers to support a plant-based food system, and divesting from companies that support animal agriculture.

Delete emails and photos: Whaat? Yup. Deleting unnecessary emails and photos reduces our own digital carbon footprint. Every document, photo, and email – even every “like” or comment on social media – travels through multiple electricity-hungry layers of internet infrastructure, including computer servers housed in mindbogglingly large data centers. Data centers consume water for cooling in systems such as chillers, cooling towers, and liquid cooling systems,and indirectly through electricity generation that often involves water-intensive processes like steam generation. Data center operations come with other significant environmental costs, particularly regarding materials and energy.

Reject plastic whenever possible: Because fossil fuels are the main feedstock for 99% of plastics, they have greenhouse gas and climate impacts similar to other fossil fuel-based industries. More than 16,000 chemicals are used in manufacturing plastics, and at least 4,200 of these have been identified as hazardous to human health and the environment. Thousands more chemicals used in plastic production have never been tested.

Many of these chemicals migrate out of plastic packaging into our foods, drinks, household products, and bodies. So we must buy in bulk whenever possible. Remember to bring our reusable bags to grocery stores. Give parties where single use plastic is not on the menu. Order smaller portions out so there’s no need for a plastic to-go container.

Protect ecosystems: We need to create habitat for pollinators, restore wetlands, fight back against deforestation, and highlight nature-based solutions to everyday problems. Nature-based solutions increase the resiliency of ecosystems, safeguard biodiversity, and improve human health. When ecosystems are healthy and well-managed, they provide essential benefits and services to people, such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions, securing safe water resources, making air safer to breathe, and providing increased food security.

Go organic whenever possible: Organic farming reduces pollution, conserves water, reduces soil erosion, increases soil fertility and health, and uses less energy. Going organic fights the effects of climate change. USDA certified organic foods are grown and processed according to federal guidelines that address the following factors:

• Animal raising practices: no antibiotics, growth hormones, or animal byproducts in feed
• Pest and weed control with natural ingredients only
• Biologically based farming methods including regular crop rotations
• Reliance on natural substances, without most conventional pesticides, bioengineering, ionizing radiation, or genetically modified organisms (GMOs)

Save our soil: We must do what we can to prevent prolonged droughts, which are increasing in a warming world. If we don’t reinvigorate soil moisture, its current trajectory points to the Earth’s soil drying even more, which will jeopardize crucial food stocks. One method that works to sustain soil is planting a cover crop, which produces biomass, puts down roots, and feeds the soil by capturing nutrients and carbon.

Because the type and quality of soil play a large part in what crops farmers can grow, we can support research that helps farmers analyze their soil, calibrated specifically to their region, such as is being offered at the University of Vermont’s new Soil Health Research and Extension Center (SHREC).

Support small-scale agriculture: Resilience has become a guiding principle for farmers who gross $30,000 or less annually. To these small holder growers, true resilience is built upon biodiversity and interconnectedness—the things that keep a system and a community healthy and strong, as described in The Bite. A lot of small farms have been touched by funding freezes, canceled grant programs, and dramatic pronouncements that call their very reason for being into question. “We — the consumers, the backyard gardeners, the people who donate and volunteer and show up to city council meetings –,” the authors at The Bite continue, “are a part of that resilience. too.”

Speak up with agency and enthusiasm: Whatever your method is for living a more sustainable life, it’s important to connect with others and organizations that are pursuing climate action. There is no one approach that is best; instead, we can recognize different cultures and their traditions and knowledge and develop strategic action plans that feel tangible to nourish the planet on this Earth Day. When people collaborate to solve problems like climate change, hope emerges.