'I'm sick of feeling anxious about the climate, I want to feel optimistic instead.'

‘Our future looks bright’ may not be the message we’re used to seeing within a climate crisis. But it’s the message I need to hear to get off the couch and into action. 

Buoyed by optimism, I’ve spent the last two decades helping people reduce food and fashion waste while upgrading their lifestyles. Whether that means kick-starting a global clothes swapping movement or helping people transform their fridges from overstuffed to orderly, I believe both the big and small waste-saving things all add up. 

Not only do these actions save the environment, but they also save your time, money and relieve your mental load of the clutter of consumerism. 

For many of us, it’s easy to be caught up in the busyness of everyday life or become paralysed by the scary nature of climate change. It can feel like Armageddon is looming round the corner. I’m certainly not immune. Despite having a PhD in sustainable living, I find myself overwhelmed by the bigness of the problem and questioning my own powerlessness sometimes – especially when I choose the convenient option over the sustainable one whilst juggling my chaotic family life!

I find that when you try to do the right thing, it’s easy to become baffled trying to work out the good stuff from the greenwash. With eco-anxiety on the rise (and affecting women more profoundly than men), taking small yet sustainable action is the most effective way to keep it in check. 

And I should note that women definitely hold the power to create change, as they control over 70% of the household consumption. 

This World Environment Day, it’s time to change the narrative from fear mongering to something more inspiring. 

Instead of thinking that climate change action is obligatory, often inconvenient and, at worst, necessitating the deprivation of things we love (like remembering your annoying reusable cup or for-going your morning coffee when you forget), we can think of sustainable living as an opportunity to redesign the way you want to live and improve your lifestyle.

It can be a pleasurable challenge to find new, creative ways to live more with less to tread lightly on our Earth. 

I share this view with Tamara Di Mattina (founder of Buy Nothing New and The New Joneses) who hasn’t bought anything new in two decades and thrives being thrifty. She recently told me, “Buying second hand, you put money into the pockets of people who don’t need what they're selling anymore and it’s more likely that the money will go back into the local community.” So, the flow on benefits of buying second hand stuff are huge. 

In Australia, we spend over $10.5 billion on stuff we don’t even use every year according to clever folks at The Australia Institute. So, there’s plenty of under-used bits and bobs you can buy secondhand instead of new. 

As my collaborator Kirsten Frederick’s from The Clothing Exchange explains, “many of the garments donated for swapping still have the new tags attached!” No doubt many of these are impulsive online buys gone awry. 

Buying secondhand can be just as easy as buying new stuff—without the risk of wasting. As Tamara says, “whatever you need you can buy it secondhand, you can pick up your phone and find it.” 

Listen to Mamamia Out Loud talk about climate change below. Article continues after podcast. 

I just bought a gorgeous 1950s blue velvet couch myself on Marketplace. It was easy peasy, saved a bundle of cash (rather handy in a cost-of-living crisis), spared me endless hours of pain-staking shopping and it helped save the planet too. That’s a win-win-win!

But even more than clothing, the thing that us Aussies waste the most is the food we put on our plates—or, more accurately, what we scrape off them into the bin. We waste an average of 300kg of food waste for each of us every year. 

On one hand, we have farmers being impacted by drought struggling to produce our food. And on the other, we’re unintentionally wasting a lot of that very same food. 

I found clarity on this by talking to farmer and author of ‘Our Sunburnt Country’, Dr Anika Molesworth, who explained that “we are all part of the food and farming system and what climate change does is change what we can produce and where we need to produce it.” 

Dr Molesworth suggests the best ways to reduce our food waste is to pay a fair price for produce so farmers can afford to adapt their farming methods to the climate and we can reduce our food waste at home, which sounds like a fair deal to me. 

What we need this World Environment Day, is to create an enticing vision of our bright future and work together towards it. 

Watch: Greta Thunberg speak at COP24 below. Article continues after video. 

As cultural anthropologist, Margaret Mead, said: "never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed individuals can change the world. In fact, it's the only thing that ever has." 

As a parent, in decades to come, I want to be able to look my boys in the eye and say I did everything I could to combat climate change and secure a better, brighter future for them. 

Dr Kate Luckins has curated 7 x 30-minute interviews with the most inspiring sustainability visionaries and doers (including those featured in this article and more!) for ‘Our Future Looks Bright’ for UNEP World Environment Day. You can watch online here.  

She is currently seeking to interview women who are every-day eco heroes, in the trenches, trying to make sustainable changes within their busy, everyday lives for her book ‘Live More with Less,’ so please email kate@sustainablelife.style if you’re at the early or medium green stage of sustainable living. 

Image: Darren James.