Bring green and sustainable into your every day behaviours and activities - scroll down for ideas on what we're buying, watching, reading and listening to ...
What we're Buying
Check out the following sustainably-focused brands and retailers:
Reuzi – A minimal waste shop based in Foxrock, Dublin, raising awareness of the environmental problems caused by single-use materials. Reuzi’s products range from health and beauty to food storage and sustainability kits.
Reusable Eco Laundry Egg from Reuzi
Jiminy – An online toy shop for eco-friendly toys and gifts for kids, such as eco-paints and plush toys. There’s also a home-school section for entertaining kids in lockdown.
Big Colour-in Cardboard Castle from Jiminy
Bambooth – a biodegradable bamboo toothbrush company, showing the benefits and encouraging use of bamboo as an alternative to plastic. Available from various Irish Stockists.
Bambooth Toothbrush
Green Outlook Ireland – A zero-waste shop which is based completely online (would usually operate some market stalls) selling everything from sustainable sanitary products to ethically sourced oral care. Every product is plastic free and uses as little packaging as possible.
Palm Free Soap from Green Outlook
What we're Watching
For something informative, insightful and different from the normal viewing:
Activists, scientists, farmers and politicians turn to regenerative agriculture to save the planet's topsoil.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3-V1j-zMZw
Before the Flood (IMDb rating 8.3)
Documentary where Leonardo di Caprio meets with scientists, activists and world leaders to discuss the dangers of climate change.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyjr_3YnL_8
Cowspiracy (IMDb rating 8.3)
The shocking, but humorous, journey of an aspiring environmentalist as he seeks to find the real solution to urgent environmental issues and true path to sustainability.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vpLVA0xNME
The True Cost (IMDb rating 7.7)
Filmmaker Andrew Morgan travels around the globe to see the peopl who make clothes for the world's fashion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPMU1VHgmEo
What we're Reading
Well worth your time:
"How to Save Your Planet One Object at a Time"
by Dr Tara Shine (Change by Degrees)
User-friendly guide which takes you from room to room and occasion to occasion with practical, eco-friendly solutions, backed by science.
"Braiding Sweetgrass (Finding a Way through Environmental Despair) by Robin Wall Kimmerer
One woman's journey teaching us how native cultures understood nature and one another, contrasted with today's current, short-sighted society. Portrayed through a collection of essays about plants and animals, indigenous and scientific awareness, and our tenuous relationship with nature.
What we're Listening to
Not everyone has time or access to book shops these days, so why not add these sustainability themed podcasts to your playlist. (Watch this space for when we set up our Podcast Club in the coming months!)
The following Podcasts can be listened to episode by episode, so no need to follow the shows from the beginning:
Each episode breaks down one part within the extremely broad field of "sustainability" through an educational lens. This is a great podcast to fill a gap of knowledge you might have.
This radio show-cum-podcast gets a bit more in the weeds with sustainability topics by taking deeper dives through more intersectional lenses, assuming a more substantial degree of knowledge of the listener than Sustainability Defined.
The hosts of sustainability podcast, "Ol and Dave," tackle current environmental news to get behind the greenwashing and PR.
A collaboration among Shareable, Post Carbon Institute, Transition US, Upstream Podcast and NewStories, this podcast does deep dives into how different communities respond to natural disasters. With the increasing frequency of extreme weather events, it's an important topic. The series treats the subject with sensitivity to tell the stories of the people on the ground, many of which were ignored by more mainstream media narratives.
The Guardian's 12-part series on climate change
This series follows the editor-in-chief of the Guardian as his team takes up the fight against climate change. It's a cool podcast because they're not just talking at you after the fact. Instead, they're talking in real time about how they can effect change in their personal lives and how they can leverage the power of the institution they're a part of, and what responsibility they have as being a part of an institution in the media.