Earth Overshoot Day - Aotearoa New Zealand

Today, April 19th 2023, is Earth Overshoot Day here in Aotearoa New Zealand.

This means that if everyone on Earth lived the same way that we do, we would have consumed all of the Earth's resources today, not yet a third of the way through the year.

Expand that to everyone living like New Zealanders for an entire year and we would require the resources of 3.3 Earths.

These are very sobering stats but the good news is that there are a lot of small changes that we can all make to help move this date.

The Earth Overshoot Day website (managed by the Global Footprint Network) highlights the immense power of possibility in the many existing solutions that we can use to make ourselves more resilient, improve our resource security in five key areas (healthy planet, cities, energy, food, and population) and #MoveTheDate of Earth Overshoot Day.

The entire list of solutions is available on the Earth Overshoot Day Power of Possibility page. We've chosen just 5 of these solutions to highlight here, the combined impact of which would move the date by 40 days.

We think that these can be adopted daily by just about everyone by making small, incremental changes.

Plant Based Nutrition:
If we replaced 50% of global meat consumption with plant-based substitutes, we would move Overshoot Day by 7 days.

💚 Having one meat-free meal or day a week is a great place to start!

Slow Fashion:
Halving our Ecological Footprint of clothing would move the date 5 days.

💚 Swapping outfits with friends, shopping second-hand and only buying from ethical and sustainable brands are all great starting points.

Cycling Infrastructure:
Effective infrastructure that is safe, direct, and with as few interruptions as possible entices more people to choose a bicycle over other modes of transportation. Better bicycle infrastructure could increase the proportion of bicycle trips up to 35% of all trips and move 9 days.

💚 For better infrastructure, we need more cyclists! With rentals available on lots of street corners, it's an ideal time to give it (or other forms of active transport) a go.

Food Waste:

If we cut food waste in half worldwide, we would move 13 days.

💚 Embracing 'ugly' produce and using apps like Foodprint NZ are tasty starting points!

Energy Efficient Household Appliances:

💚 By choosing energy efficient appliances when we need to replace the ones we've got, we would move 6 days.

For more ways to move the date, check out the entire list on the Power of Possibility page.

Is there a change here that you'd like to (or have already) adopted? Have you got tips and tricks that would help others on their sustainable journey? If so, we'd love to hear them ... share your thoughts in the comments below.