The Start Of My Sustainable Living

With oil prices rising, food prices rising and global pollution rising, I have long felt that people could do more to reduce their waste and impact on the planet. No one is going to live a life that does not in some way negatively impact on the world around them, but everyone could do more to minimise their negative impact on the planet and help affect positive change as they go.

For many years now I have wanted to grow my own fruit and veg, but doing this has never been that practical. I have lived in a house with no garden for much of my adult life and the one garden that I did have in Northern Ireland was one prone to constant flooding!

Of course window boxes were an option, but I wanted more than just a few herbs and flowers. Without a background in gardening or a lot of money, there were few options open to me that were feasible, sustainable and easy.

Such a shame considering the size of my parent’s garden and the length of time I lived with them (almost two whole decades). If only I had the will to grow my own food then...

Now my wife Jenny and I have bought ourselves a house and we move into it soon. We intend to grow our own fruit and veg here, although we have many other plans too. Jenny really wants a chicken run and coop to keep hens and would like to plant flowers for aesthetics.

We also live in New Zealand, the land that insulation forgot! For some reason all houses built 10-20 years ago and before were not constructed with insulation. Even some modern houses have left out simple things like loft insulation, so there is a lot of heat loss in cold weather. This loss means burning more fuel to keep warm in the form of wood, gas or electric, all of which is bad for the planet (and the wallet).

We intend to take the 1970's house we have bought and fully redevelop it into a new and eco-friendly house: one that promotes and encourages sustainability and green living.

The Sustainable Living blog is the documentation of this process - the guide to how anyone can take a house and make it a more efficient, green and cost-effective home that will save time, money and the environment.

We are not rich by any means, so the ideas we try will be on a budget: the kind of ideas that anyone could try if they put their minds to it. The whole point of sustainable living is not just to be environmentally friendly but to live in a way that can be sustained. This means not only green living but also profitable living. After all, if you spent more on sustainable living than you make, you'd eventually go broke. Not very sustainable!

Hopefully the ideas Jenny and I have and put into action will be successful, and this blog will serve as a guide to anyone else wanting to grow their own, keep hens, insulate their house and much more. My main hope is that it encourages others to do the same and to let me know how they are getting on. The more people who join in, the more knowledge is available and the easier the whole process becomes.

So it is with hope that I venture into the world of sustainable living...