Not all of us are cut out to eat a vegan diet, buy only cruelty-free products, go waste-free, or make any other sorts of drastic changes to our lifestyles just to help the earth. But there are quite a few more subtle ways to carry out a more sustainable lifestyle, like bringing your own bags to the grocery store. Living more sustainably is not an all or nothing feat.
And if you want to learn more about living more sustainably and lowering your overall carbon footprint, YouTube is a great place to start. Check out these awesome channels that focus on minimalism, living waste-free, sustainability, veganism, and more.
1. Shelbizleee
Sustainability is a huge topic that's intimidating to most people, even if you already have a brief intro to the subject. Shelbizlee's YouTube channel breaks down the overwhelming topic of sustainability into bite-sized chunks that are easily digestible for the average viewer.
She's passionate about sustainability and has a Bachelor's degree in Environmental Science, so she has the schooling to back up her videos.
Her personality makes her videos fun to watch and easy to learn more about helping the environment. Although her videos are certainly not limited to these topics, she's covered eco-friendly habits, zero waste swaps, her diet, sustainable and non-sustainable brands, healthcare, and traveling.
2. The Fairly Local Family
Amber's YouTube channel, The Fairly Local Family, focuses on multiple sustainability topics, including thrifting clothes, growing food, saving money, eating a vegan diet, and supporting smaller, local brands. Oh, and of course, raising and homeschooling her and her husband's three kids!
This channel does a fantastic job of combining living eco-friendly while also living frugally. If one of your main concerns with living zero-waste or more sustainably is the extra cost of certain swaps, The Fairly Local Family has you covered. Helping out the environment doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg.
3. JHÁNNEU
JHÁNNEU's channel combines her passions of sustainability, productivity, and wellness. These three topics mesh beautifully on her channel because they're all about improving yourself and becoming the best you can be. Although her channel is smaller, her content is amazing, and she deserves way more followers.
Some videos on her channel focus on minimalism and waste-free swaps, like her minimalist morning skincare routine, makeup routine, zero waste travel essentials, and zero waste bathroom swaps. Other videos focus more on being more productive and achieving the goals you set for yourself.
4. Eco Boost
Kate's channel is a great option if you're a parent who also needs info on sustainability for your kiddos too. Eco Boost covers zero waste swaps, an organic diet, eco-friendly fashion, and overall just living in a way that's kinder to the earth.
Since she's a new parent, a lot of her recent videos cover baby-related content, like cloth diapers, eco-friendly baby favorites, and her low-waste pregnancy story. That said, there's still a ton of other awesome eco-friendly content on her channel, from plastic-free beauty brands to DIY projects to sustainable fashion look books.
5. My Green Closet
If you want to know anything and everything about building a sustainable closet, Erin's channel is the perfect one for you. She's here to teach you everything she's learned about the fashion industry, and how to navigate it to find eco-friendly and more sustainable options for your wardrobe.
She has videos on how to be minimalist or buying only what you need, and thrifting your clothing from secondhand shops instead of buying new clothes from big box stores. Also, she gives you fashion ideas through look books, so that once you find a few awesome pieces, you know how to style them.
6. Sustainably Vegan
As the name of her channel implies, Sustainably Vegan focuses on meal prep, sustainable grocery shopping, and various ideas for vegan breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. So if you're looking to transition completely to a vegan diet, or you just want to introduce a few new dishes a week, you'll find plenty of ideas here.
Although there are plenty of food-related videos, there is also a slew of other content that focuses more on living zero waste and practicing minimalism in other areas of your life. She has decluttering videos, gardening videos, daily routines, and other videos of her simply chatting with the audience about something heavy on her heart and mind.
7. Goodful
Goodful's channel on YouTube is the perfect spot to go if you don't want stuffy content. Because the channel is owned by its larger, parent content company, BuzzFeed, Goodful produces a lot of the same funny, more personable content.
With the Goodful channel, this personable approach makes sustainability, minimalism, veganism, and other topics easier to approach.
Looking at veganism first, the channel has content about making popular dishes vegan, trying out vegan meat substitutes, and looking at vegan restaurants and meals from around the world. Then, there's zero waste content, frugal meal ideas, meditations, and way more types of content than I can easily list here.
What makes this channel extra special is the character videos that pop up every so often; Goodful loves to look at mental health and sustainability in terms of real people, not just gimmicky, clickbait titles. There are videos from someone with OCD, a herbalist, foragers, someone with ADHD, and more.
Living Sustainably Starts With One Small Change
To many people, the thought of living more sustainably or reducing your waste seems like it's going to be this huge task that takes up a lot of your time and effort. But the truth is, that's just not the case.
There are a ton of ways you can reduce your carbon footprint and be a bit friendlier to our world while barely making an impact on your day-to-day routine.
Whether you want to start with your diet, your clothing habits, the technology you use on a daily basis, or swapping out the products you usually buy from non-sustainable brands, it only takes one small change to get started on a more sustainable path.