7 Tips for Green Home Living

You drive home on a gas-powered car, sleep in an air-conditioned room, and eat refrigerated or microwaved food. You may not notice it, but about 80% of the things you own have a negative impact on the environment. Even the type of wood on your floor, the paint on your walls, and the mat on your doorway can be silently contributing to the world’s environmental problems. That’s why modern home designers the world over are introducing a new trend: green home design.

But you don’t need a designer’s advice to make your home environmentally friendly. Sometimes, all it takes is a few simple changes to ‘green up’ your home. It doesn’t even cost much; in fact, the greener option is almost always the cheaper one. Switch to green home design and start making a difference with these few simple tips.

1. Build a garden. If your front and back yards are bare and the only thing green is your doormat, you could probably use some vegetation. You don’t need a sprawling garden—start with a few easy-to-grow plants and work your way to bigger projects. Green lawns are more inviting and give your home a cool, crisp atmosphere. You won’t immediately feel the difference, but you’ll realize it’s nice to breathe in some fresh air after all that pollution on your daily commute.

2. Go vegetarian. Producing meat requires a lot more energy, water, space, and consumable resources than growing vegetables. That’s why vegetarians have a much lower environmental impact than meat eaters, not to mention better health. Work your way gradually into vegetarianism—start by replacing one meat dish a day with vegetables, then an entire meal, and so on.

3. Bring the outside in. Asian design is known for blurring the lines between the exterior and the interior. This is a great idea for green home design: your front door opens right into the outside, so you don’t really feel closed in. It makes your home brighter and gives it an open, airy feel. If you can, install bamboo or teak flooring to help it withstand the elements. For an added touch, use outdoor elements as your décor: stone slabs, tree-trunk tables, indoor plants.

4. Maximize natural light. Why use those fluorescent bulbs when there’s enough sunlight to light your entire home? Natural light can be just as effective as artificial, if you know how to make the most of it. For starters, install bigger windows to let more sunlight in. You can be creative with the lighting—put up bamboo blinds to filter the light, use frosted glass panes to diffuse it, or get a large wall mirror to reflect light across the room. If there’s room in your house, try setting up a sunroom. It allows you to view the outdoors while safely inside your home, perfect for rainy or extremely hot days. When you do have to use artificial light, use compact fluorescent lighting. They use up about 1/3 as much energy and save you a good $30 throughout its use.

5. Use bamboo furniture. Bamboo is one of the most environmentally sound building materials, not to mention one of the strongest. What makes it so sustainable is that it’s not really wood—it’s actually a type of grass. And as with most grasses, it grows extremely fast and virtually never runs out. A single bamboo plant can produce stems up to 100 feet tall, although most varieties only rise up to 30. The only downside with bamboo is that it won’t last outdoors. However, they’ll do perfectly well on your porch, balcony, and indoor areas.

6. Put in more windows. Energy-efficient windows work like natural thermostats: they let excess heat out in the summer and prevent heat loss in the winter. Since you don’t have to use heating or cooling systems, you avoid releasing harmful greenhouse gases, not to mention save money on energy bills. The key to this effect is a special reflective coating, which combines insulation and heat-reflective features. To identify energy-efficient products, look for the Energy Star label on the package.

7. Buy local. Imported products cost a lot more not because they’re of better quality, but simply because they’ve traveled more miles. The ingredients for an average meal travel thousands of miles by air, land and sea—that’s enough gas to keep your car running for a month! Buy buying locally, you avoid contributing to air pollution and get your food fresher. See if you can get the same quality product from local suppliers. Even if they cost a bit more, it’s more than made up for in quality and environmental impact.