How to approach your journey

Given the urgent and critical nature of the Climate and ecological emergency we recommend that you try to make progress as quickly as you reasonably can with all of the Top Actions, whilst being careful not to overwhelm yourself. However, it is for you to decide exactly how quickly you progress. There is often quite a lot of time available for all of us, if we decide to prioritise fitting actions our schedule and stay reasonably focused and motivated. You can do this!

At any one time, we suggest focusing on progressing a small number of sub-actions – even just one at a time. You don’t necessarily need to complete the full Top-Action before committing to and progressing another; it may be refreshing to have a break from progressing one Top Action for a time, particularly when your progress goes through a slow patch, and to change your focus towards another Top Action. However, to ensure that Top Actions are completed, it is important to later return to progress and hopefully complete the original Top Action.

Struggling to find time to progress your targeted action? We suggest booking a regular time in your diary. This need not necessarily be long – even as little as 5 minutes a day or 15 minutes a week will help you progress – the key point is that it is regular so you build up momentum and it becomes part of your normal schedule. For ease, we recommend keeping key web pages open or bookmarked on your browser or inserting a link into the diary appointment. You may wish to keep web pages open for:

• the Action you are completing.
• your “personal eco-progress-story” thread on Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp etc.
• this Approach page
• the Tracker calculator and associated list of Sub-Actions

Eco-anxiety is unfortunately a natural part of awareness of the impacts of the Climate and ecological emergency. You may feel increasingly anxious sometimes after hearing worrying news stories or when struggling to make changes in your life. There certainly is a lot to take in for those at any stage in their journey, which can be overwhelming. With such urgent timelines and large-scale negative impacts, a long-term lack of political leadership and often sub-standard media reporting, it is no wonder that many people become overly focused on the negatives and anxious, overwhelmed or feeling hopeless as a result. Also, eco-anxiety is not just limited to adults; significant eco-anxiety in children around the world has been reported by Hickman et al., 2021.

To avoid eco-anxiety, we must learn to recognise when such negative emotions appear. It may then help to counterbalance them with positive thoughts and actions, focused on our opportunities and the wider benefits of those opportunities.

Read the tips below for cultivating a productive mindset, which will help to guard against eco-anxiety.

The most powerful way to combat eco-anxiety is to take Action with the things that you can control that can help to address the Climate and ecological emergency. EcoTracker is designed to support you to do exactly this, and the 12 Top Actions have wider benefits which can give you extra incentives to progress them, helping you build that motivation. Urgent action is needed, but there is still a very reasonable amount of time left for all of us to make the required changes in our lives, by 2030. Help guard your child from eco-anxiety by showing and telling them how you guard against eco-anxiety yourself, involving them in what you are doing as a family, and empowering and supporting them to take their own small actions.

You won’t be able to solve the Climate and ecological emergency yourself, but you will be able to confidently say that you are doing your bit – everything in your power. By participating in your Community, you can further guard against eco-anxiety, and at the same time as taking your own personal actions, you can influence others to do the same.

How you perceive yourself and others can have a large impact on the chances for success.

We all have inherited behaviours, habits and preferences from a variety of sources, including earlier generations and cultural influences. Some of our behaviours, habits and preferences are not eco-friendly which may be simply due to us not knowing any better or because ‘that is the way it has always been done’. Take an interest in history and you will see ‘that is not the way it has always been done’, with humans constantly adopting different approaches, habits and technologies to meet the challenges of different eras. The tendency for continual change over time is among the few things that do remain constant!

A critical point is that we choose not to blame our self of others for the actions of past generations or for unknowingly continuing their habits and acting on their advice in our past when we don’t know any better. Similarly, we also should choose not to blame our self or others for being susceptible to cultural influences such as advertising. We define ourselves partly by what we have done before, and so we tend to cling on to and defend past habits, whether or not they actually give us any value. By changing these kinds of environmentally damaging habits we are not changing ourselves but casting aside something damaging that was put upon us without our consent and without us even realising it. We should focus on the future, and feel liberated when we cast aside such habits, even if the feeling might be tinged with a hint of betrayal of our past selves and earlier generations.

It is normal to feel internally conflicted, particularly when making changes, and as we may for instance have enjoyed some experiences that were environmentally damaging like taking short flights for a holiday. If you are feeling conflicted consider the positive outcomes from making the change and how you can still live a very good “one planet” life within planetary boundaries. This might need some adjustment and reprioritising, for instance, through embracing “sufficiency” rather than consumer culture, but there is a good chance this could improve your happiness. Increased wealth only only tends to increase happiness potentially when this provides the basics and improves life opportunities; beyond this point, additional wealth and possessions are unlikely to increase happiness and may be ultimately unfulfilling.

It is important to recognise that everyone is at a different stage of their journey, and to mostly focus on the achievable future rather than the past. This includes:

• having a positive outlook, focused on taking opportunities for improvement rather than dwelling on problems or all the things you have not done.
• having realistic expectations about what you can achieve, given your situation and constraints, but not underestimating your adaptability.
• similarly having realistic expectations about what others can achieve, given their situation and constraints, but not underestimating their adaptability.
• regularly celebrating your successes and the successes of others, however small.
• reflect on your progress to notice how far you have come and gain pride in this.
• focus mostly on the immediate small steps you need to take rather than simply on the end goal that might still seem quite far away.
• consider how your actions can help others, improve Climate justice and help restore our global ecosystem. Although it will be nice to also save money, try and and focus on how you can help rather than how much money your can save.
• occasionally do imagine the future in which you will achieve those end goals, notice how the benefits of the changes could impact and improve your life and the lives of others, and imagine how this will feel.
• being kind to yourself and others, recognising that no-one can be expected to be perfect.
• forgiving lapses and avoiding blaming individuals.
• having an open mind, and a curiosity about the world.
• accepting that often there is no perfect solution, and that compromise might be needed, particularly in the short term.
• accepting that the best solution may change over time.

If you are feeling guilty about your environmental impact or have eco-anxiety, try to harness this to productively reduce your impact using EcoTracker, such as by taking Action or supporting the Community, rather than letting this negative emotion hold you back.

A key part of developing eco-friendly habits is being mentally ready to do so by cultivating a productive mindset – see the section above.

Approaches that help form eco-friendly habits are embedded within EcoTracker’s Method. General tips for forming eco-friendly habits that you could try include:

• Follow the EcoTracker Framework (see above).
• Follow the guidance in the other subsections above and below to build regular time into your schedule, make EcoTracker work for you, help you decide actions to take or help you work through actions that you are finding challenging.
• Break down EcoTracker Top Actions and sub-actions into manageable chunks and progress them at your own speed. Don’t progress too many Top Actions all at once.
• Keep visible records and prompts to alert you to your progress or next action, for instance, keeping the relevant EcoTracker Top Action page open on your phone to prompt and guide you to take the next step. Some may prefer post-it notes or diary entries.
• If you are interested in following the News stories sourced by EcoTracker, also get into the routine of progressing your Actions after you finish reading the news. The news stories regularly update so you might want to check back regularly.
• Spend some time imagining how your life will be and how you will feel when you complete EcoTracker Top Actions, for instance, they might involve reducing your environmental impact, improving your health, saving money or helping to address Climate justice. Work out which of the imagined outcomes generate the most powerful emotional responses for you personally and then try to capture this in some way and store it (e.g. in your memory, on paper or on your device) for when you might need motivation later.
• Make any adjustments that will reduce the effort of adopting the new habit. For instance, if we want to start recycling more and putting less of our waste in the general waste bin, we could ensure that our internal recycling bins are as convenient to use as the general waste bin, with separate internal bins or compartments matched with the external bins that are collected by our local waste collection service.
• Get others in our household or wider network involved in our habit forming which will provide extra support. Discuss your efforts and your progress. Consider setting a series of challenges which may help make it more fun.
• Plan in rewards for yourself at milestones, but do beware of and avoid damaging “rebounds” that might work against the Top Actions. For instance, you might want to avoid celebrating your success with a holiday that involves flying. To maintain a healthy and prosperous planet for humans – our one and only planet – we must reduce our impact in all areas of our lifestyle and stay within planetary boundaries.
• Occasionally review and refresh your knowledge on the Climate and ecological emergency, which can increase your motivation.
• Develop a closer connection to nature by following the Rewilding EcoTracker Top Action, which can help influence your perspective on other issues and increase your motivation to complete the other EcoTracker Top Actions .
• Try to develop some immunity to consumerism and advertising. When you see an advert, this is of course trying to sell you something and often this will be a product or service that is not eco-friendly and that you don’t need. You may want to try ignoring the advert, or deconstructing it to work out what it are trying to sell and whether or not it is eco-friendly. See the Buy fewer products (re-use and repair) EcoTracker Top Action.
• If you notice that you are feeling a negative emotion relating to environmental issues e.g. guilt or hopelessness, turn this into a positive by making progress with environmental actions using EcoTracker. If this happens repeatedly, you might want to try to turn this into a routine that helps you get past the negative emotion.
• You may have several different roles or areas of influence (e.g. at home and at work). If it challenging to make positive changes in one area due to reasons outside your control, you might want to refocus on another area.

You may need to focus on and persist with some changes for weeks or months before they become new habits that you don’t need to think about. It can be easier to change our habits during a moment of larger change such as when you move home; when you are going through such a period, it is a great time to reset and work on building new habits.

Wherever you have got to on your journey, a nature-based offset payment calculated to remove your estimated CO₂ emissions from the atmosphere is recommended if you can afford it, although not as a substitute for completing the Top Actions. There is insufficient land in the world to maintain our current approach to living and also to simply offset this by creating more habitats. A nature-based offset payment can create a valuable positive impact in terms of reducing CO₂ and improving ecosystems, although it should be noted this impact takes time to develop e.g. trees planted take time to grow, attract wildlife and establish a surrounding ecosystem.

Support your community and supercharge your impact

A key part of making the most of EcoTracker is sharing your “personal eco-progress-story” and engaging with your community. By doing so, you enrich the community, encourage others to join and progress their own journeys, and your can gain extra support to help you complete the Top Actions. Humans are significantly influenced by each other. By taking the opportunity to share your progress, others in your networks are much more likely to act themselves. By thinking beyond our own horizons, we can achieve so much more. Social media is a key opportunity for supercharging your impact by sharing your EcoTracker progress. If you don’t use social media it is highly recommended that you start using it. For those who need support with this, read our guide to using social media, which is particularly aimed at social media novices or reluctant / infrequent users.

Track your progress

By tracking your progress, you can see how far you have come and how far you have to go, helping to break the journey down into manageable stages. Completing each action and seeing the impact of that progress can give you a boost to help you complete further actions. This is even more powerful when you have shared your progress and commitments with others who will be hoping to see more; you won’t want to disappoint them!

Offset your remaining environmental impact

It is currently very challenging to get to net zero carbon and even more challenging to reduce your ecological footprint. Carbon offsetting involves paying an organisation to reduce CO₂ emissions on your behalf by making a change or removing CO₂ from the atmosphere elsewhere in the world, thus covering your remaining impact.

A level of offsetting may be critical to addressing the Climate and ecological emergency, but the highest priority is to all take Action to reduce our environmental impact, as the offsetting mechanisms available to us fall well short of the capacity to absorb all of the CO₂ emitted globally.

We recommend nature-based offsetting (e.g. tree planting, habitat restoration, and rewilding) in which the local community are engaged and have a key stake, as this is robust and can address the Climate and ecological emergency as well as social issues at the same time.

Want to select Top Actions with other benefits? The Actions page allows you to filter the actions so you can select these based on your other goals and preferences:

• spend little or no extra money
• save money, little or no money spent upfront
• invest money upfront, save it in the long run
• improve your health and wellbeing
• develop and learn a new skill
• save water
• maintain your lifestyle

You could start off by selecting actions that meet your other goals and preferences, which is highly recommended. It likely that you will find it easier to progress and complete actions that match your other goals and preferences, and those that give you desirable co-benefits; this will help you progress quicker and build momentum.

Maintain your progress and avoid becoming overwhelmed

It is important that you keep your focus on progressing a small number of actions (even just one) at any time, and are careful to not become overwhelmed, which may limit your progress. If you do feel overwhelmed, try and take a step back and get some perspective. You may wish to seek support from your community. Review your “personal eco-progress-story” thread that you have created on social media. You have probably achieved a lot already!

To truly complete some of the actions, you need to continue with such approaches in the long run, embedding them into your lifestyle so that over time they become automatic, and an accepted ‘normal’. Some actions, such as the choice of Eco-friendly products and services, will require ongoing attention as the products and standards available may change, and some companies may revert to less eco-friendly practices. We should always be on the lookout for opportunities to keep making improvements through such actions.

For inspiration, why not see what actions others in your community are taking or ask someone for their view on what you might do either individually or as a group challenge?

There are many actions with smaller impact than the EcoTracker Top Actions that can also be taken to reduce your environmental impact, and you may wonder why some are not included. Completing such actions is also valuable, but do ensure that such actions don’t take too much of your precious time and energy away from completing the most impactful Top Actions.

There are many reasons why we might struggle to take a particular action, such as lack of knowledge, other preferences, or lack of money.

EcoTracker is specifically designed to address a lack of knowledge, so we recommend following our approach, including spending time on the Actions which are based on learning.

Where your lifestyle preferences are a barrier, it may be best to initially try a different Top Action instead – ideally one that meets your other goals and preferences, using the Actions page filter. The reality is that some lifestyle changes are usually necessary to complete all of the Top Actions (which is necessary to address the Climate and ecological emergency), so we urge you to focus on the benefits of making the change and to persist. Please seek support from your Community, which includes people like you who have already succeeded in making the lifestyle changes and may be able to offer further tips and assistance.

If you don’t have the money available to take one of the Top Actions requiring up front investment, we recommend taking a long term view and try to save the money needed if you are able to do so.

• First, filter the Actions page for Top Actions labelled: “save money, little or no money spent upfront”. By completing these Top Actions, you are likely to be able to save a significant amount of money over time, which can then be invested to complete the other Top Actions requiring investment.
• You might want to take some time to consider how much value you really get out of any more expensive spending habits (if you’re lucky to have enough income to support them), and whether some funds could be diverted to the critical task of addressing your impact towards the Climate and ecological emergency.
• There are multiple ways to complete some Top Actions and usually reducing your consumption is the lowest cost option, and will also save you money.
• Consider whether there is any financial support (e.g. grants or cheap loans) available to you. Where relevant, possible sources are sign-posted for UK users on the page for each Action.
• Consider whether you could apply for additional finance e.g. as an addition to your mortgage. Excessive debt should not be taken on and you should ensure you are comfortably able to pay back any additional loan. Often, the technology purchased will help save you money and more than pay back the loan in the long run.

Note that some Top Actions are expected to become easier to complete over time as Government and organisations offer more support (e.g. financial or other resources) and innovative technologies and approaches are developed. Therefore, we recommend that you stay up to date by periodically reviewing the News page for external updates. Even if you can’t currently take a Top Action, you may be able to do so in future.