Saturday, June 5th, is World Environment Day! Here at EcoCart, we wanted to celebrate our Earth today (and make sure it’s celebrated every day!). While World Environment Day is slightly newer than Earth Day, it’s still an important holiday and helps spread awareness about global warming and the importance of saving our environment.

In 1972, the United Nations General Assembly designated June 5th as World Environment Day at the Stockholm Conference after scientists, activists, and leaders all over the world had raised concerns over the rising temperature and sea levels. This marked one of several efforts by the UN to move towards a greener planet, including the creation of the UN Environment which empowers countries, people, and leaders to change the world for the better. Every year, millions have taken part over the years to make changes on small and big levels alike, through protests, celebrations, social media, and more.

Since then, World Environment Day has been hosted in cities around the world, each year focusing on issues like the dangers of pollutants, the effects of environmental destruction, and the importance of sustainable practices. Each year has a different theme, and this year’s theme is Ecosystem Restoration! Ecosystems are communities of organisms that interact with each other in our world, and preserving them is important to ensuring the health of our species and other species for centuries to come.

We want to do our part at EcoCart today and every day onwards. Through our initiatives, we’ve been able to offset 25 million tons of carbon! And we don’t plan to stop here – through the support of brands and our customers, we continue to invest in verified and vetted projects around the world that help to offset and reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, protect ecosystems, provide clean water, and more. A few projects we’ve invested in include constructing wind farms in Indonesia, forestation projects in the United States, and a composting system in Brazil, all of which reduce thousands of tons of carbon each year.

How you can be involved

Celebrating World Environment Day is simple! By spreading the word to your family and friends, they can become aware of their environmental impact and start making small changes. If you’re curious to see your own carbon footprint, check out our calculator to learn how much of an impact you have on the environment and where you can improve. 

Learning how to properly recycle (check out your recycling system’s rules!), opting for reusable and sustainable products, and supporting policies and laws that consider the environment are other ways you can care for the environment, today and every day. Making our planet green again requires changes on both an individual and government level. Supporting tree planting, renewable energy, and other projects from nonprofits like the Environmental Defense Fund and National Resources Defense Council can also benefit the environment and help people around the world.

And of course, remember to care for the environment every day, even if it isn’t a holiday! Change doesn’t happen overnight, and no one can be perfect – small efforts daily will help make the earth green again, and you might even be able to inspire others to do the same.