Most of us make some effort to reduce the negative impact we have on the environment. This often means staying away from products with harmful chemicals, recycling our plastics, or switching to more fuel-efficient vehicles over time. The small steps we take to limit the pollution and waste we create can have a large impact. It’s estimated that 29.9% of waste in landfills is containers and packaging, which we can all help reduce.
While every small step does count, many of us are missing one huge area where we can cut back: our homes. When it comes to material waste and energy usage, the huge McMansions that grow larger each year have a major effect on the environment.
Despite our increasing attention to green initiatives in our everyday lives, our homes have grown large each year. According to a new study by home insurance comparison site The Zebra, the size of new construction homes have grown by 150% since 1980. Today, the average home is 2,386 square feet.
Building, cooling, maintaining, and supplying this home requires a tremendous number of natural resources and a huge amount of energy. Meanwhile, families rarely truly need all an extra game room and guest bedroom — let alone the stuff that goes in them. Yet building bigger and better homes has simply become the standard, despite what the average American actually uses.
If you’re considering downsizing your home to simplify your living space or save money, consider the many added benefits that keeping a smaller house can have on the environment:
1. It Makes It Easy to Simplify Your Possessions
With a three-car garage and two extra hall closets, the extra stuff can quickly pile up. Clothes you haven’t worn in years, the accessories you have for hobbies, and out of season decor can take up plenty of room in your home, without ever realizing it.
Over time, your home may feel cluttered and full while becoming less functional for the way you live your life. If you aren’t the type for spring cleaning, one of the best ways to force yourself to declutter your home is to move. When it comes to actually picking up and assessing everything you own, you’ll be surprised how much you’ve been holding on to that you don’t need, including the extra space in your home.
So downsizing ultimately promotes a lifestyle of reduced consumption and waste that has a positive impact on the environment. Though it may be difficult to do without some items, living smaller ultimately helps you focus on the things in your life that truly matter, without the distractions of unnecessary stuff.
2. It Reduces Your Energy Usage
One of the ways that downsizing your home can have the largest impact on the environment is in energy usage. Less rooms to cool, less hot water to heat, and fewer lights to turn on all averages out to a smaller eco-footprint.
Consider that the average AC system might use 3 to 5 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity a day, and that The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that for every 2.21kWh generated by coal, a pound of CO2 emissions is released into the atmosphere. By halving your electricity usage you can keep hundreds of pounds of CO2 from entering the atmosphere every year.
Plus, the money you save by downsizing your home could be put towards an investment in solar panels that further reduce your carbon footprint and save money in the long run. You can reduce the toll of cooling and heating your home by reducing the overall size of your house, closing vents to rooms that don’t need to be heated,
3. It Requires Fewer Raw Materials
Though newer construction often has the most energy-efficient appliances and insulation, when a block of brand new 2,000 square foot homes gets built, often requires the demolition of older outdated homes that destroys resources, erodes landscapes, and disturbs natural habitats. In addition, unless environmentally-friendly building practices are followed, building out a neighborhood of supersized homes can also create a huge amount of waste.
It’s also worth noting that the number of raw materials required to build a larger home has an impact on the world. It can take hundreds of trees to harvest enough board feet to build a new home. In many cases, large swathes of trees are being cut down unsustainably in order to meet the rising demand of construction projects.
While a smaller home still requires natural resources and could disturb habitats, you’re ensuring that none of that effort or material is going to waste for rooms you won’t use, or storing winter clothes from three years ago. When buying, commissioning, or building your own home, consider the source and impact of the materials used to build it. When possible, look into sourcing wood from sustainably managed forests or reclaimed wood. Ensure that the design and build was carried out using the most efficient methods and with attention to reducing waste.
