Our actions make an impact - Celebrate Earth Day with Kent

Earth Day serves as a conscious reminder of how fragile our ecosystem can be and how our actions can have positive or negative consequences in the world that we live in.

As humans, we have made a great deal of technological progress and adaptation in how we live to survive and maintain our quality of life. The industrial revolution marked the beginning, and this trend has continued throughout time. Climate change, global warming, pollution, deforestation, excessive plastic usage, industrial processes as the main source of energy, dependence on fossil fuels, and improper waste disposal are a few of the examples of human activities that contribute to environmental problems.

We can drastically reduce the impact of these issues by using clean energy and lowering greenhouse gas emissions, which we are currently working on here at Kent.

The climate challenges we are facing today motivated me to Major in Renewable Energy and Sustainability Engineering along with Environmental Science, as I want to be part of that change. I am currently writing my MSc. thesis, which I plan to publish soon and will be my contribution to the literature about Environmental Science and Engineering. I'm extremely passionate about working on ways to contribute to climate solutions. As a Junior Engineer, I work with the HSE team to assess our environmental impact and work on limiting our carbon footprint. In addition to preparing training materials, we are also developing tools to educate our colleagues on the effects and how we could mitigate them. Be on the lookout for that soon!

We can try to tackle all the big issues, but we all know that real change starts from within. Real change begins with our daily habits.

Here are some quick wins you can incorporate into your daily life:

• Instead of relying on electrical lighting during the day, use sunlight.
• Limit water consumption and use water efficiently. Keep the tap closed when not in use.
• Using reusable bottles and paper bags can help reduce our plastic consumption.
• Instead of using plastic bags at the grocery store, carry your reusable bags.
• Walk, cycle, use public transport and reduce driving when you can.
• By segregating and recycling household waste, we could reduce the amount of disposal going to landfills. (Check the availability of waste management initiatives in your local community)
• Planting trees can help to reduce deforestation, improve the air quality, and lower the surrounding temperature.

We hope you join us in making this change in our daily life. Our earth needs it now more than ever, and together, our actions make an impact.

Here's something cool: In honour of Earth Day, Kent has gifted our global team a tree to adopt in our Kent forest.

An article by Amna Salah Al Ali, a Junior Engineer - Environment & Sustainability based in UAE