Your Sustainability Story Starts with Solar

Your Sustainability Story Starts with Solar

Updated March 14, 2024

By Morgan Pierce

As sun shines through the window on a green plant and a laptop, someone is making their first steps on their sustainability journey with solar energy.

Solar energy is one of the Earth’s most abundant, sustainable sources of power. Capturing just an hour and a half of the sun’s rays as they hit the Earth could meet all of humanity’s needs for energy for an entire year.

In a recent article in Forbes magazine, author Nicholas Wyman wrote movingly about our collective bond with the Sun: “Solar energy is coming out of the shadows and helping remind us of our positive connections with this star. At the heart of this movement is connections and not just to the power grid. Solar power helps link us with our communities, with policymakers, and with the very narrative of solar itself. The future of solar isn’t just about panels and power; it’s about purpose, passion, and people.”

Think about that. If you are installing solar today, you aren’t just saving money, you are joining a global community. That’s exciting, and – pun intended – empowering. 

Wyman links the increase in the uptake of renewable energy, particularly solar, with the concept of “the common good” – what one recent study defined as “achieving the best possible outcome for the largest number of people, which is underpinned by decision-making that is ethically and morally sound and varies by the context in which the decisions are made.”

In the recent past, it too often felt as if the grabby slogan “me first” shouted down the principle of “you too” on which creating a survivable future for humanity depends.

Now, though, week after week, a pig-tailed teenager “strikes” for the climate, hundreds of thousands march beneath banners warning “there is no Planet B”, and even Forbes, one of the most influential voices of global business, has made room in its Opinions section for the notions of the “common good”.

As we look around our homes now, many of us are assessing the impact of individual appliances on our electricity consumption, asking ourselves hard questions about how much energy is “enough energy”, how warm is “warm enough”, and how generating electricity with solar fits into our home life and our sustainability journey. 

Meanwhile, the storms, floods and natural disasters of 2023, the hottest year ever recorded, fuel interest in renewable energy technologies, like solar, but they also fuel “climate anxiety”.

Steps towards a Sustainable Lifestyle

As Yale University’s Sustainability project has noted, taking action, particularly with other people, is one of the best ways to alleviate that sense of helplessness. 

The Yale boffins suggest ten change-making sustainable steps any one of us could take up in 2024:

  1. Move to a plant-forward diet. That doesn’t mean meatless, but it does mean less meat. That’s a mantra that producers of local fruit and veg, and even Ireland’s beleaguered cattle and dairy farmers might get behind.
  2. Like your mother told you, wash your clothes in cold water. It’s better for the life of your clothes and for the life of the planet. 
  3. Get involved – learn more about environmental justice at home and abroad.
  4. Get a bike – us it.
  5. Use public transport for one journey a week.
  6. Take the time to actually learn what’s recyclable and how it’s collected in your area.
  7. Get into Vinted, Depop, eBay or DoneDeal. It’s never been hipper or easier to buy and sell secondhand.
  8. Go for a walk.
  9. Vote like the future depended on it – because it does. 
  10. Go solar.

Anyone can take these steps in their journey towards sustainability. It doesn’t mean you have to take all of them. These are just samples of the kind of thinking that can generate the forward momentum needed to power a movement. Small steps that put you on the same sustainability journey as a lot of others wanting to do their bit for a greener, sunnier tomorrow.

Investing in solar panel systems can bring many benefits, including reduced energy bills, increased energy independence, and a reduced carbon footprint. If you are interested in installing a solar panel system, it is also worth exploring the different grant options available and seeking professional advice from one of our solar energy advisors.

Feel free to contact us for more information, we’re here to help.

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