My New Decade Goals: Grow a Greener Life Fueled by Tech
“How can technology help me live more sustainably?”
With seemingly infinite progress to be made to achieve sustainable living, it can be easy to get overwhelmed if you’re flying blind. That’s why I turn to technology.
Technology gives us data. Data sheds light on what needs improving. It also helps us understand where effort would be best allocated and puts plans of action into perspective. Having a data-centric mindset helped me co-found Cloud EPC, and it helps me measure, track and correct my way to a more eco-friendly existence.
Feeling good about my progress and empowered by information, I still wanted to get clear on my sustainability goals as we enter the new decade. Defined goals help me determine where I can focus my tech-driven perspective to make progress. Thankfully I was introduced to the concept of spheres of influence by Dr. CB Bhattacharya Zoffer.
Dr. CB is the author of Small Actions, Big Difference: Leveraging Corporate Sustainability to Drive Business and Social Value. In his interview on the Bigger Than Us podcast, CB explains that we all have the control to drive change in the spaces that we occupy. When this idea is applied, everyone from the mailroom to the boardroom can be a sustainability regulator.
“I believe if all of us work in our spheres of influence, then the collective impact can be great.” – Dr. CB Bhattacharya Zoffer
Here’s where and how I’m using my data-driven influence to be more sustainable in 2020.
Sphere 1: Personal Sustainability Goals
After assessing our household energy use, my wife and I found that we had room for improvement. In the morning rush to get the kids out the door, we often forget to turn the porch light off. Maybe you can relate?
Enter the Kasa Smart Switch. This switch lets us set a timer that turns the lights off when we forget. As you can see from our Nest Thermostat energy summary, we saved almost a full day of energy in one month!
Building on this progress, my new goal is to install smart switches in all rooms.
Other personal sustainability goals include:
- Supporting businesses with a sustainable social mission.
- Embracing more meatless meals.
- Recycling my Nespresso pods. I chose to make the switch to Nespresso after learning about their recycling practices.
- Saving for residential solar, batteries and residential energy storage, and electric vehicles.
- Being more mindful about apparel choices by choosing sustainable brands or shopping secondhand.
(PHOTO CAPTION) One brand I’m loving is Step Tire. They recycle old tires into shoes. I plan to put many more miles on this rubber!
As I touched on when reflecting on 2019, my personal and professional spheres are interdependent. By fulfilling my responsibility to control choices in my personal space, it helps me exercise problem-solving skills and motivates me in the next area: my professional sphere.
Sphere 2: Professional Sustainability 2.0
Our mission at Nexus PMG is to build a better world. As part of our rebrand, we’re outlining actionable steps to implement our key core values in 2020. Here’s what the drawing board of our core values looks like in the concept stage.
As COO, it’s my responsibility to execute this vision. I look forward to championing this rebrand with my colleagues, and to the amazing possibilities that this groundwork will open in the new year and beyond.
With travel being essential to my professional role, my carbon footprint is unfortunately quite large. To reduce it, I started using eCarra‘s all-Tesla rideshare fleet in 2019 and plan to continue in 2020. Here’s a snapshot from their app of how I’ve reduced carbon so far.
Again, my personal and professional spheres are interdependent. By making the changes I wish to see in the professional space, I can fulfill living in alignment with my core values.
Where Do You Have Influence?
While each of our spheres of influence is unique, I hope that sharing mine will help you identify where you can directly make or inspire change in your life. Maybe some of the tech tools I’m using can help you on the way. I also wanted to share these goals on this platform because I believe that transparency holds us accountable. Here’s to a clean, green 2020!
