Sustainable living starts at home

As more homeowners seek to live in harmony with the environment, sustainability is no longer just trendy. It's a distinct lifestyle and the good news is that it doesn't require major renovations, expensive home improvements or a new "green" build.

With a few mindful changes, you can easily make your existing home more eco-friendly and reduce your carbon footprint while saving on those ever-rising water and electricity bills, which is a particularly attractive proposition with Eskom tariffs about to go up by another 13%.

You can start weaving sustainability into your everyday life just by switching to energy-efficient appliances and LED lighting, for example, and remembering to unplug electronic devices when they're not in use to cut out standby-mode power usage.

Read more: Living Green around your Home

Next comes basic water conservation. Fix any leaks or dripping taps, install low-flow showerheads and toilets and water your garden during cooler hours to reduce evaporation. Better still, harvest the rainwater that runs off your roof and use it for irrigation and laundry as far as possible.

Third, expand your recycling horizons. Separating glass, plastic and paper waste may already be second nature to you, but you don't need to stop there. There are dozens of ways to re-use or re-purpose used containers and clothes, and it's easy to use food scraps and garden waste to create compost that nourishes your garden while reducing landfill waste.

Fourth, if you're fortunate enough to have a garden, plant indigenous flowers and trees whenever possible. These not only require less water, fertiliser and maintenance but provide a natural habitat for local birds and pollinators.

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Fifth, support your local artisans, growers and artists whenever you can. From bread and vegetables to furniture and décor items, buying locally made and sustainably sourced products reduces transportation emissions and supports the economy and wellbeing of your own community.

In addition, when you do need to update your home or enlarge it, you should be sure to choose sustainable materials like bamboo flooring, recycled tiles and or low-VOC (volatile organic compound) paints. These not only help the environment but can also improve indoor air quality.

And finally, you should seriously consider "going solar" if at all possible. The PV panels do require a fairly large upfront investment but will significantly reduce your energy costs - and your reliance on fossil fuels. Many banks now offer "green loans" or home loan extensions to help make the transition more affordable, and SA is also on track to enable homeowners to wheel any excess energy their solar systems generate into the main grid, so that the country as a whole can become more carbon neutral.