9 Tips for Eco-Friendly Shopping

Climate Change and Eco-Friendly Shopping

Climate change threatens our entire planet, but your shopping habits can help in the fight against it. Many individuals, companies, and governments have begun to support social responsibility efforts, such as carbon footprint reductions, the growth of green technology like solar, and the promotion of eco-friendly goods and services. Today, businesses around the world now choose to create and stock sustainable products, as many mindful shoppers are considering a good’s impact on the planet before a good’s price.

However, going green with your purchases can be challenging if you don’t know where to start. Luckily, it’s easier to shop for earth-friendly products than you might think, and these nine green shopping tips will show you how.

1. Shop at Eco-Friendly Stores

It all starts with buying from retailers that actually care about the environment. To determine if you’re looking at a company that walks the walk with its green efforts, you should check the company's website.
To find the best eco-friendly products, we recommend checking the “about us” and “media room” pages to learn about its devotion to eco-friendly initiatives. You can also read a company's reviews to learn what other customers are saying about their products before you start shopping with them.

Some of the best eco-friendly brands and environmentally-friendly stores include:

These shops and eco-friendly websites stock a plethora of environmentally friendly products, and you can get almost anything you want from these stores, from biodegradable phone cases and cruelty-free beauty products to backpacks made of recycled billboards and refillable soap dispensers. Even if you love the convenience of online shopping, many eco-friendly online stores employ sustainable packaging so you can continue your sustainable shopping on the internet.

2. Buy Local

If possible, always shop environmentally friendly by purchasing your products from local companies and stores. Shopping local means you're buying items that were manufactured in your immediate area, which is an easy way to increase your eco-conscious shopping.

The logic is simple: When you ship products over long distances, the airplanes, trucks, and cars used in that transportation emit greenhouse gases that contribute to air and land pollution. In other words, an apple grown 30 miles away is usually far more eco-friendly than one that traveled 3,000 miles to reach your grocery store. If the products were locally harvested or made, the environmental impact is usually lower.

3. Buy in Season

Every season features a wide range of fruits, vegetables, and other produce that naturally grows during that time. For instance, berries in the U.S. are usually plentiful in June, while apples and acorn squash are abundant in September and October. Buying “in season” means that you get the best possible product, with the least environmental impact.

Buying in-season supports local farming while ensuring that you get the freshest fruits and vegetables. To get the freshest in-season produce, visit your local farmer’s market, or participate in a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. A CSA connects local producers to consumers in their immediate area, and you buy shares on a farm and receive weekly harvests in return.

4. Reduce Your Online Order Deliveries to Once a Week

Many people love online shopping because it’s convenient. However, shopping from an online retailer might be doing more harm than good to the environment because many retailers use shipping and packaging options that can harm the environment.

To be as eco-friendly as possible with your online shopping, you can reduce your orders to once a week and purchase in bulk. Making multiple small purchases means more shipments to your home in several boxes, but a larger single order can lessen the impact on the environment by consolidating the packaging and limiting the number of trips involved in delivering your products.

5. Purchase Recycled Items

When shopping online, look for retailers selling used, reused, and upcycled goods instead of brand-new ones. The best sustainable products are often more durable as well, and many used products look as good as new while also being cheaper than something “new-in-box”. Buying pre-owned items can save you money and reduce the waste and energy consumption involved in producing new items.

6. Avoid Impulse Buying

Impulse buying is a threat to eco-friendly shopping. It can easily lead to buying products that you do not need, which means they might end up in your local landfill quicker than you thought.
However, before buying anything, you should slow down, take a moment, and ask yourself a few questions:

Keeping the earth and your budget in mind at all times is a great way to reduce your impulse buying.

7. Bring Your Bag

Millions of single-use plastic bags are dumped in landfills each year, and many find their way into oceans and other natural resources. To be a more eco-friendly shopper, you should always bring your own bags and shop plastic-free. If those bags are reusable shopping bags, that’s even better! Many stores will even reward shoppers who bring their own eco-friendly shopping bags with discounts or other incentives.

8. Avoid Pre-Washed Groceries

Pre-washed produce like salad mixes or bags of lettuce might seem convenient, but they are not very eco-friendly. Instead, you can shop sustainably by buying regular produce that’s in season from a local farm and washing it thoroughly at home. Shopping this way helps the environment.

9. Choose Organic and Natural Products

Buying organic and natural products helps everyone because it encourages companies to create, stock, and sell more eco-friendly products. This includes organic foods as well as toiletries and cleaners made from natural materials, using sustainable processes and resources instead of strong industrial chemicals. The best products that meet these criteria are EPA Safer Choice Certified, which means they’re free of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), dyes, and bleaches.

It’s simple supply and demand in action. When your shopping cart is full of environmentally friendly items, you’re telling companies that you value the health of the planet, and you appreciate that they want to lessen their impact on the environment too.

How To Make Shopping Eco-Friendly

Eco-friendly shopping doesn't mean that you have to stop shopping. You can save money and save the planet at the same time! It just means that you need to be a little more careful about what you are buying, especially in terms of how it’s made and how it impacts the planet. Eco-friendly shopping encourages us to support ethical and sustainable consumption and the companies that support that goal.

Following these 9 shopping tips lowers your carbon footprint, helps save the environment, and increases sustainability. Look for eco-friendly places to shop around you, and if you can't find one, you can always opt for eco-friendly online shopping.