What does “eco-responsible” mean?

First of all, the word eco-responsible is the junction of two words.

The first word is “eco” for ecology.

Ecology is first of all the study of the environments where living beings live and also the relationships of these beings with the environment. Then, the word ecology refers to a better balance between human beings and the natural environment while taking into account the protection of the latter.

The second word is responsible.

This word has several definitions and those that interest us are first of all, the notion of being responsible for one's actions and even more relevant here: who measures the consequences of their actions, who has a responsible attitude.

The word eco-responsible therefore means one who demonstrates responsibility towards the environment. Who has a responsible attitude towards our living environment, the environment. Who minimizes the consequences of their actions on the environment.

Being eco-responsible in all areas of our lives is a big challenge. In order to facilitate the understanding and progressive integration of eco-responsible actions, we must learn to recognize their broad outlines to better target our actions.

What are the areas of eco-responsible action?

The human being is part of the environment, part of the ecology. It is utopian to think that it will have no impact on the environment. We breathe, we eat, we house ourselves, ... If only to meet our vital needs, we therefore have an impact on the environment. Now we have to choose to what extent we want our impact to be, what eco-responsible actions we want to take.

There is a great strategy to keep in mind when we want to adopt more eco-responsible behaviors. Do you know the 5R-C (formerly the 3R-V)? Here they are a little pictorially, to understand them easily:

• Refuse : Say no! No to single-use products, no to taking the car on certain occasions, no to imported tomatoes...
• Reduce : Meat consumption, car use, new clothing consumption, etc.
• Reuse : Avoid buying disposable or single-use products, go to thrift stores and buy second hand.
• Revalue : Give objects a second life when possible: ragged t-shirt, take your old paint to the renovation center near you if they revalue it, etc.
• To recycle : Recycle everything you can
• Compost : Use the composter provided by your municipality or even better, compost at home.

And in what areas of my life can I be more eco-responsible?

All of them! Except breathe haha! This remains true for other vital needs and all the little luxuries that we allow ourselves...

For alimentation :

• Avoiding food waste
• Eat less or no meat at all
• Promote local and seasonal food
• Promote a diet biological
• Avoid ready-to-eat

For the House :

• Declutter your home (a great way to understand that we always have too much!)
• Practice minimalism (mainly having that which meets a need, as opposed to a desire)
• Ensure your home is more energy efficient and water leak free.

• Encourage second-hand purchasing
• Promote local purchasing
• Practice a zero waste approach
• Buy less and buy better (avoid planned obsolescence)

• Promote green transportation: active or collective transportation
• Promote ecotourism

One step at a time, the best strategy

Obviously here, we don't just throw ourselves out there like crazy. The best way to progress towards eco-responsible change is to take one step at a time. We therefore target something that is accessible to us when making the choice. We will focus on the others eventually, or maybe not. We wrote a beautiful article on the Zero Waste approach: 6 simple, simple, simple steps to get there , the same steps can be applied to make our lives more eco-responsible.

By browsing our site you will find a multitude of blog articles to progress in an eco-responsible lifestyle. The same applies to all items for sale in our store . They have been carefully chosen to meet several spheres of life and easily reduce its ecological footprint.

Also, we have put together a nice interactive list of around a hundred eco-responsible actions that can be done. We make it available free of charge to all subscribers to our newsletter .