Earth Day is celebrated annually to create awareness about pollution and to come together as one to look at another year of environmental progress. It is a day to think back and reflect how you have affected or impacted the planet. People think of ways to give back to the environment with new ideas to reduce their carbon footprints and water management, to name a few. They also get their hands dirty, with activities like tree planting with the Earth’s benefit at heart. It is important that people take a bit of time off on this day to think about how the environment has been affected by mankind and how they can do their part to minimize these impacts.
Image from Reader’s Digest
How did Earth Day come about?
Earth Day’s roots go all the way back to the early 1960s, where Senator Wilson was worried that environmental issues were not being addressed in the political field. He witnessed the aftermath of the California oil spill in 1969 which further enforced his belief that something had to be done. In 1970, the first official Earth Day was a demonstration that had the support of 20 million Americans that showed their support to promote conservation involvement and awareness.
Fast forward to 2022, it marks the 52th anniversary of Earth Day which falls on 22th Apr every year without fail. About 1 billion people recognize Earth Day every year and in their small ways, do something meaningful towards the conservation of our mother Earth. There have been some worldwide initiatives that have benefited the environment. Two noteworthy ones are, more than 100,000 people in China rode bikes to work in 2012 and 28 million trees were also planted in Afghanistan on Earth Day 2011.
What does it mean to invest in our planet?
The organization behind Earth Day announces a new theme each year. This year, the theme is “Invest in Our Planet” which is “focused on accelerating solutions to combat our greatest threat, climate change, and to activate everyone – governments, citizens, and businesses – to do their part”.
With the theme in mind, everyone has a part to play, from an individual level to a company level. It is imperative that we try to make an effort in any small way we can to ensure that there is progress made to build a healthier planet for future generations. Companies, be it private or public, need to adopt more sustainable business practices and start implementing and developing their Environment Social and Governance(ESG) standards and goals.
Governments should also incentivize companies to push to adopt these practices as it will be both the first step and a lucrative option for them to work towards a better and greener future.
Image from Forbes
Significance of Earth Day for Market for Good (MFG)
Market for Good is an online platform for gifts, experiences and services with a social cause. We believe in supporting and sourcing ethically derived, socially conscious and environmentally sustainable designs and services. With this said, Earth Day is important to us as it is a day which exemplifies what we are trying to achieve environmentally, which is to help companies reduce their carbon footprints as much as they can.
We provide gifts, experiences and much more and with Hari Raya coming up in Singapore, a good way of doing a small part is using products made of recycled material. An example of this would be these customizable money envelopes that are made of reclaimed wood and paper! This is only an example of our many offerings so feel free to take a look at the rest of what we have!
What MFG is doing this Earth Day!
MFG has launched a campaign called “Buy to Gift Ukraine” which aims to buy daily necessities to give to the Ukrainian refugees in Hungary through the charity organization and 100% of the proceeds go to the beneficiaries. So on our part, we have made sure to source products that are from the area around Hungary to ensure that these necessities that people purchase from them are not subjected to heavy carbon footprints through imports from air or sea travel and also reduces the time these items get to the refugees. If you are interested in helping these refugees, visit us here to find out more about giving!