Celebrate Earth Day By Investing in Our Planet

With Earth Day right around the corner, now is a fitting time to reflect on your own sustainability efforts. What kind of planet are we leaving for our future generations? With major concerns about climate change and other environmental crises abound, the reality is that we have a lot of work to do.

The good news? There's still time to make a difference and to create a better world for ourselves and our loved ones. The key is working together.

Earth Day provides an excellent opportunity for people across the continent to bond together and work towards the common goal of making the planet a better place for all. In this post, we'll cover the history of Earth day, as well as this year's theme of "investing in our planet." From there, we'll dive a little deeper into the three pillars of sustainability and offer some ideas for observing Earth Day.

What is Earth Day?

The origins of Earth Day date back to 1970, when this holiday was observed for the first time in the United States. Today, Earth Day is observed each day on April 22 across not just the United States, but Canada as well. More than 140 nations also observe Earth Day activities across the globe.

The purpose of the holiday is to honor the planet while spreading awareness about environmental issues, such as climate change. Each year, a different theme is chosen as the focus for Earth Day, with past themes including:

Water for Life (2003)
Healthy Environments for Children (2005)
The Face of Climate Change (2013)
Trees for Earth (2016)

This Year's Earth Day Theme

2022's Earth Day theme was "Invest in Our Planet," which centers around the idea that everybody is accountable for doing their part to protect the environment. According to the official Earth Day 2022 toolkit, "The Earth Day 2022 theme was focused on engaging the more than 1 billion people, governments, institutions, and businesses who participate in Earth Day to recognize our collective responsibility and to help accelerate the transition to an equitable, prosperous green economy for all."

The 3 Pillars of Sustainability

While each Earth Day may have its own unique theme, there is one uniting idea that nearly every observation of Earth Day can be traced back to: sustainability. More specifically, the concept of sustainability refers to practices that support economic, environmental, and social health.

So, what are the three pillars of sustainability? These pillars can be defined as follows:

Economic sustainability: Healthy job creation, profitability, and employment.
Environmental sustainability: Healthy water quality, air quality, and low greenhouse gas emissions.
Social sustainability: Human health, wide availability of education, and resource security.

The more you think about the three pillars of sustainability, the more obvious it becomes that they are interdependent. You can't have social sustainability without environmental sustainability, just as you cannot expect to achieve economic sustainability when the environment is suffering.

Earth Day's mission to improve the environment for current and future generations, then, isn't just about nature. It's about the well-being of the people and animals with whom we share our wonderful planet.

Ways to Celebrate Earth Day

With all this in mind, there has never been a better time to get involved with Earth Day. Whether you've celebrated in the past or not, this year's observance will prove especially important. So, what are some ways in which you can observe Earth Day this year, regardless of how much free time or resources you may have available?

Because the big theme of this year's Earth Day is to invest in our planet, one simple yet effective way you could observe is to simply support businesses that follow environmentally friendly practices. In doing so, you can do your part to send a message to larger corporations that you're choosing to invest your hard-earned money in businesses that care about the planet. This, in turn, may affect their decision-making down the road.

If you wish to take things a step further, you might even consider writing letters or emails to larger corporations, urging them to get on-board with more environmentally friendly business practices.

Some other classic Earth Day activities to consider include:

Leading a community trash clean-up.
Performing an energy audit in your home.
Starting a compost pile.
Refusing single-use plastics.

Rather than drinking your water out of a plastic bottle that you'll toss at the end of the day, for example, why not invest in a quality glass bottle that you can reuse time and time again? Doing so could save hundreds of plastic bottles from engine up in a landfill over the course of a year!

If you have young children in your life, Earth Day is an incredible opportunity to get them involved in your efforts. Consider, for example, going out of your way to plant a tree or other native plant with your child. Explain the role that trees and plants play in protecting and enhancing life here on Earth.

Earth Day is also a great time to introduce younger kids to the concept of recycling. If you don't already have a recycling bin in your home, designate one and explain to your children how some items (such as paper, plastics, and cardboard) can be reused and repurposed. Make a collective effort with your children and/or family to reduce your trash output by finding ways to repurpose items or recycling them responsibly. Be sure to check with your local waste management facility to see which items can be recycled near you (and how to go about recycling them).

Improve Your Environmental Wellness

Observing Earth Day is all about looking at the bigger pictures and realizing that the future of our planet very much depends on the small choices we're making today. At the same time, taking even tiny measures to improve the planet can have a simultaneous impact on your environmental wellness, which is an important dimension of your overall wellness.

By making small changes to your lifestyle, such as cutting back on your water use and making the switch to reusable shopping bags, you can improve your environmental health while making a major difference in others' lives. All the actions you take to help the planet will come back full-circle, so why not take advantage of this "win-win" situation?

Ready to Make a Difference?

While you certainly don't have to wait until April 22 to embrace a more eco-friendly lifestyle, Earth Day serves as an excellent opportunity to really focus on the effects our actions can have on the planet and on future generations. More than ever, we all need to work together to invest in our planet now so that it can continue to provide for us down the road. Our planet has done so much for us—and Earth Day is a great time for us to show some love and TLC in return.

No matter what you'll be doing to observe Earth Day this year, our team at Matcha Bloom is here to support you with environmentally friendly products (including our popular BPA-free Bloom glass bottles). We'll also be continuing to cover topics that are important to your environmental health, so stay tuned to our blog and, as always, reach out if you'd like to connect with us!