Ready, Set, Action!
Solutions for the environment and sustainability
Ideas to Jumpstart Your Thinking
You can move mountains in other ways besides activism. We can’t change the world without actionable steps and tools to help us along the way. Technology, inventions, and policy can support our goals of creating a greener Earth. What exciting new pathways, behaviors, or innovations are potential solutions that help the environment and sustainability?
Although the world faces major environmental problems, solutions exist. The United Nation’s Sustainability Goals are a call for action to promote protecting the planet. They include goals such as affordable and clean energy, recycling, biking & public transportation to create sustainable cities & communities, planting trees to help protect the environment, and avoiding plastic bags to keep the oceans clean. Check out some of the solutions people are creating to support these goals.
Facts
- Replacing disposable items with reusable items, and recycling waste to conserve natural resources are examples of solutions.
- Reusable plastic containers (RPCs) emit 60% less carbon dioxide than single-use cardboard boxes when used for packaging, storing and shipping fresh produce.
- 11% of all global greenhouse gas emissions caused by humans are due to deforestation.
- Over 1/3 of all food produced globally goes to waste.
- 267.8 million tons of municipal solid waste went to landfills instead of being recycled, up-cycled, composted, or used for something else in 2017.
- Tropical forests are incredibly effective at storing carbon, providing at least a third of the mitigation needed to prevent the worst climate change scenarios.
- Natural climate solutions such as restoring degraded forests could create as many as 39 jobs per million dollars spent.
- Sustainable living is a general term used to describe lifestyle choices that contribute less to environmental problems.
Example Topics For Your Film
- Recycling waste to conserve natural resources
- Conservation policy and techniques
- Thrift shopping to reduce clothing waste
- Growing native plants across rooftops
- Hydroponic equipment used to support local communities to grow nutrient-rich foods
- Community Gardens
Helpful Tips
Check out this year’s Pritzker Emerging Environmental Genius Award candidates and see all the innovative practices and solutions they are utilizing.