Growing up in a primarily Conservative Midwest, It is safe to say that the conversation around our carbon footprint was rare. I didn’t grow up with recycling in my home. My home town didn’t have a program until 2011.
I recall a time in my young childhood where I observed people freely tossing their fast food garbage out of their car windows when driving. I just assumed it was the way things were done. Yet I was startled to get a scolding from my mother when I attempted to do the same thing.
When I was a teenager of driving age the “cool” thing to do was cruise Main Street. You’d get a car full of friends, play hair band music as loud as possible while driving back and fourth on a three mile stretch of road.
Everyone would be out driving around meeting in parking lots to talk, some would drag race a little bit, there would be the motorcycle clan and eventually someone would find out where the big farm party was and we would all pile in trucks and hit the country roads.
I remember writing to my German Pen pal, Dagmar answering her questions about what we teenagers did for fun in my home town. Her response rather stunned me at the time. Her letter berated me with questions about why we Americans were so frivolous with our gasoline consumption? Why does America pollute so much. Why aren’t we concerned about our environment? At sixteen it was the first time I even entertained these questions.
With the recent IPCC report about Global Warming and its Code Red for change has made me evaluate my environmental impact with my business.
I have to start somewhere and this is what I have put into place for Aprilierre Jewelry moving forward to align with my values towards sustainability and supporting women empowerment and women entrepreneurs.
If you are like me and tend to get overwhelmed on where to start making changes some excellent resources can be found on the United Nations website
You can download a fun interactive app ActNow that encourages simple little tasks that you can do today that will help track your progress towards living a more sustainable lifestyle.