Are you still looking for a New Year resolution? Let these pledges made by celebrities in the world of mobility, the fight for clean oceans and fashion inspire you!
After completing the world’s first flight around the globe powered by solar energy, Bertrand Piccard has promised to keep promoting renewable trips in 2017. You can join him by taking up the mantle for green transport and switching to electric or hybrid cars as soon as you can!
Meanwhile, after awareness-raising swims across the North Pole, in the Arctic and Antarctica, Lewis Pugh is taking the plunge again this year and pledges to fight against the pollution on our beaches and in our oceans. He calls on us to help by joining a local beach clean-up.
The Uzbek fabric designer and textile artist Alfia Valieva wears her green heart on her sleeve – literally. Thanks to local silk worms, she produces her own clothes and colours them using paint made from organic pomegranates, onions, nuts and other fruits. She pledges to keep this up by continuing to wear fully sustainable clothes all year round made of exclusively natural fabrics – you can join by checking how green your clothes are too!
If we get on our bikes and follow Bertrand – maybe not by flying a solar plane but by choosing sustainable transport wherever possible – if we join even just one beach clean-up this year as Lewis does all year round, and if we group together and follow Alfia’s daily habit of only wearing sustainable clothes, then our world will be much greener by December 2017 thanks to our collective effort!
Transport accounts for around 14% of global C02 emissions, while cycling to work or school is emission-free and gets our circulation going to make the most of the day.
Some 13 million tonnes of plastic and other rubbish currently pollute the world’s oceans, but the world’s largest ever beach clean-up took place in 2016 – let’s keep it going.
Redesigning old clothes is meanwhile good for the planet and our wallets! You can also look out for sustainable clothing labels during the January sales.
Make old habits history
The tradition of making New Year’s resolutions dates all the way back to 153 B.C. In fact, January is named after Janus – a mythical God in Ancient Rome.
Janus was said to have two faces, one looking forward and one looking backwards. On 31 December, the Romans imagined Janus looking back into the old year and forward into the new one. This became a time for them to forgive enemies for past disputes and make resolutions for the New Year.
Like our Roman ancestors, together we can make old habits history and turn a new page for our planet!
