The impact of climate change is all around us. From stronger hurricanes to rising sea levels and the steady creep of coastal erosion, Bermuda is feeling the effects first-hand.
While these challenges may seem overwhelming, each of us can make a difference. The choices we make at home — how we use water, electricity, and household products — can reduce our carbon footprint and save money on monthly bills.
However, the most difficult hurdle in making homes more energy efficient is changing people’s mindsets. It’s a shift that Eugene Dean has been pushing for.
As head of the environmental charity Greenrock, Mr Dean has long spoken of the need for a fundamental change in the way people think about sustainability.
“What we’re facing is a time period where we’re having to deal with, in many cases, catastrophic challenges that our development, industry and innovation created,” he has said. “If you want to get back to a place of sustainability, then that means we need to start to factor those things into our thinking.”
Save water!
That shift begins with one of the most valuable resources in Bermuda: fresh water. Every drop that runs from a tap has been collected, filtered and pumped using energy — and that means every drop wasted also wastes electricity.
Leaving the tap running while brushing your teeth, washing dishes, or waiting for the water to cool all adds up. Fixing leaks promptly, using a basin for rinsing, and taking shorter showers are simple ways to conserve both water and power. Multiply that across the island, and the savings are significant.
Save energy!
With Bermuda’s electricity generated primarily from imported fossil fuels, reducing energy use has a direct impact on carbon emissions. Yet many of us leave lights burning in empty rooms, run multiple electronics at once, or forget to unplug chargers and small appliances. Switching to LED bulbs, turning off lights when not in use, and using energy-efficient settings on air conditioners and appliances can make a noticeable difference. Even setting your thermostat a few degrees higher in summer can lower your bill and lighten the load on the grid.
Household appliances account for a large portion of electricity use. Simple adjustments — such as washing clothes in tap cold water, running dishwashers only when full, and hanging laundry to dry on sunny days — can reduce consumption dramatically.
Solar panels and windows that allow in a lot of natural light will help bring bills down. Mr Dean believes energy monitor plugs which measure the cost of running appliances are also useful.
“They will let you know how much power the device is using over time. Simple things like putting timers on your water heater also makes a huge difference. And obviously people know now about using LED lights rather than incandescent lights and turning off appliances when they’re not using them.”
Recycle!
Our small size means that waste management can have a big environmental impact. Choosing reusable bottles and shopping bags, avoiding single-use plastics, and buying products with minimal packaging all help. Recycling glass and tin — and composting organic waste where possible — significantly reduces waste and keeps materials out of the incinerator, though many people don’t bother because garbage collection is so convenient.
“Some people will say it doesn’t really make a difference to their house but it makes a difference to the whole country when we’re reducing our waste and it makes a difference to the whole world if everyone is reducing their waste,” Mr Dean said. “All this trash that we create, we just put it onto the road and somebody else has to deal with it.”
Improving energy efficiency isn’t just about new builds; existing homes can benefit too.
“The challenge in Bermuda is when you’re looking at a leaky home where air is able to come in or go out, where we’re either letting hot or cold air in or allowing heat or cooling to escape,” Mr Dean said.
“So when you’re building houses in Bermuda or renovating houses making sure the doors have proper seals, making sure the windows have proper seals, all that type of stuff is really critical.”
You can make a difference
By now, everyone should be used to carrying their own shopping bags, and presenting reusable containers for takeout should be second nature, the charity head believes. Gardening, too, should be a part of everyday life.
“A lot of these things people might say, ‘Oh that’s just a little thing, what difference does it make?’ Trust me, takeout containers have made a huge difference in the amount of trash that’s generated on the island,” Mr Dean said.
“To get to a place where we avoid using all those single-use containers would have a huge impact.”
But it’s up to us as a community to advocate for that to happen.
“We may look at it as if we don’t have a lot to choose from the things that businesses make available but we dictate what businesses make available. People are not going to produce things that don’t sell,” he said.
“We’re not saying that we want to get rid of planes or we want to get rid of cars or we want to get rid of electricity. What we’re saying is we’re now faced with the challenge of how we adopt this technology in a way that we can still utilise it without the harmful emissions. We need to move out of a mindset that’s focused on convenience and move into a mindset that has us focused on optimising our quality of life.”
