Definition Of Green Living

Green Living For Earth & People

“Going Green” is a hot topic these days. Yet, many people wonder about the term “green living” in its practical sense.

What is the definition of green living? Is living green the same as sustainable development? It depends on who you ask.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA):

“Green living means making sustainable choices about what we eat, how we travel, what we buy, and how we use and dispose of it. We can implement sustainability in our workplace practices, and by greening the buildings we inhabit. Our everyday choices can create a sustainable lifestyle.”

Living green has traditionally been in general reference to the environment and our impact on planet Earth. It’s a philosophy that recognizes humanity’s relationship to our environment. Earth is a support system. Our quality of food and shelter depends on how we treat the Earth.

To live green is to sustain a healthy environment. When we take good care of the Earth, we help ourselves.

Are Green Living & Sustainable Development The Same Thing?

Clearly, green living and sustainability belong on the same page. Sustainable development might be grander in scope. To develop sustainably requires the intent and combined efforts of groups of people using resources that affect broad population now and into the future.

Sustainable development includes green living. But I think of green living as behavior and lifestyle in which each individual can control his or her choices to help sustain a healthy environment.

What Does A Green Home Involve?

Living green involves a lifestyle that sustains a healthy environment in the home, community and planet. Some big factors in creating a green home lifestyle include contributing as little waste as possible, eliminating toxic substances and reducing our use of power and water.

Green home living addresses our choices in:

• health care
• nutrition
• food
• lawn and garden
• where we spend our money
• building and decorating materials
• cleaning and maintenance supplies
• cosmetics and personal care products
• energy consumption
• choice of appliances
• packing and wrapping materials
• waste disposal

How To Live In A Green Home

Green living involves activities help the planet stay in a balanced mode and able to support future generations. Maintaining the ecological balance is the end result of green living.

Green living practices reduce toxins from the environment. The ultimate target of sustainability and green living is to improve and preserve the planet’s health, which in turn protects the planet for all living beings.

A few of the practices that come under the scope of green living include:

• Using renewable sources of energy
• Recycling everything that can be recycled
• Using less packaging (whether paper or plastic)
• Driving more fuel efficient cars, using public transportation, or riding a bicycle or walking when possible
• Purchasing products with only natural ingredients instead of toxic chemicals
• Using building materials made without toxins such as formaldehyde, arsenic or VOCs (volatile organic compounds found in many paints)

To live a green home lifestyle also sustains our personal health by avoiding toxic chemicals and artificial ingredients that pollute the environment in every way. What goes around comes around when the polluted environment causes people, plants and animals to be sick.

Green living is the way to break this vicious cycle that is harming every single thing present on our planet. This conscious lifestyle helps balance, conserve and preserve human culture and communities with the Earth’s natural resources, habitats, and biodiversity.

What Green Living Means

The goal of living green is utilizing every natural thing in the most sustainable way. Green living means understanding that:

1. Each choice you make affects not just you, but everybody everywhere.
2. Each choice you make affects not just the present, but the future.
3. “Saving the planet” or “saving the environment” is actually saving ourselves.