March's Sustainability Challenge
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🌼 March Sustainability Challenge: Spring into Sustainability
March marks the start of spring — a time of renewal, fresh air, and getting ready for the months ahead. This challenge focuses on practical actions that reduce waste, save resources, and prepare our homes and communities for the growing season.
March also links to several national and global moments that remind us how everyday actions can make a real difference.
💧 World Water Day – 22 March
World Water Day highlights how precious water is and how closely it’s linked to energy use and climate change.
Did you know?
The average person in the UK uses around 142 litres of water per day, and heating water accounts for a significant part of household energy use.
Small actions like shorter showers, fixing dripping taps, and only running full washing loads help reduce water use, lower energy bills, and cut carbon emissions.
🌍 Earth Hour – Last Saturday in March
Earth Hour is a global event where people are encouraged to switch off their lights for one hour to reflect on climate action and energy use.
Did you know?
Earth Hour now takes place in over 190 countries, making it one of the world’s largest environmental movements.
It’s a great prompt to think about everyday energy habits, such as switching lights off when leaving rooms and avoiding standby power.
🌱 Get ready for the growing season (plant for pollinators and birds)
March is the perfect time to start planting seeds and preparing gardens, balconies, or windowsills. Choosing plants that support pollinators and birds helps local wildlife thrive naturally.
Planting food-bearing plants such as sunflowers, berry bushes, or herbs that go to seed can be more sustainable than buying bird food. Much commercial bird food is grown overseas using intensive monoculture farming and transported long distances, increasing its carbon footprint.
Did you know?
Around 75% of the world’s food crops depend on pollinators like bees, yet their populations are in decline.
♻️ Great British Spring Clean – March to April
The Great British Spring Clean is a national campaign encouraging people to litter-pick and care for local spaces.
Did you know?
Litter can take decades or even centuries to break down, and plastic pollution harms wildlife at every stage.
Whether it’s a quick tidy of your street or a community clean-up, every bag collected makes a difference.
🧴 Big Plastic Count – March
The Big Plastic Count asks households to track their plastic waste for a week to understand how much plastic is used and where it comes from.
Did you know?
The UK produces around 100 billion pieces of plastic packaging each year, much of which cannot be recycled.
Tracking plastic use is often the first step towards reducing it.
How to Take Part
Share photos, stories, or tips from your spring planting, litter-picking, water-saving, or Earth Hour moments on Engage, or email them to engagement@sng.org.uk.
Everyone who takes part will be entered into a £20 voucher prize draw, and our favourite contribution will receive a £25 voucher.
Who's Listening
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Digital Engagement Specialist
Email engagement@sng.org.uk
This month I have been doing the following to Spring into Sustainability:
Deciding what seeds I am going to plant over the coming weeks. I plan to grow some food for us and some flowers for pollinators including growing some flowers for a wildflower lawn.
I am starting to cut back the stems of plants that I left over Winter for the insects to shelter in. I have been using the cut and drop method for this which means you just cut the stems down into small pieces and drop them on the border which provides a mulch. I am doing this slowly because although the weather is warming up, there are still times when the temperature drops and the insects need some where to shelter.
I also took part in the Big Plastic Count earlier this month. This is where households record all their plastic packaging over a week. The Big Plastic Count team will analyse all the data submitted and will share the results in early April. Their overall aim is to show how much plastic is being used for packaging and pushing the supermarkets and Government to look at reducing this.
Everytime I walk past the hallway, my feet would get wet because my dog made a mess when drinking from his bowl. It's like a tsunami of water covers the hallway everytime he has a drink. I was concious of how much water is being waste, as well as damaging the floor beds and driving me mad having wet feet/socks. I saw this genius video of a water bowl in a planter. Get a large planter, place the bowl in the middle and plant things small flowers around it. The planter is tall, which is great, as my dog doesn't have to bend down to drink water now (he's rather tall), plus everytime he drinks, the plants get water.
Brought a multi plug that stops phantom energy wastage for my living room.
Started playing basketball on a Tuesday, now the weather is nice. Everytime I leave the court i pick up some rubbish on my way out. People litter a lot in this area, as its a hang out spot. Hopefully influencing people to either follow suit.
Here are a few things I have been doing this month.
- change my timers to adjust to the lighter evenings
- make use of re-use centres, charity shops and Trash Nothing app to avoid throwing away items when doing spring cleaning
- support local nurseries for new plantings (look for plug plants where I can take my own plant pots to re-use and avoid accumulating even more plant pots!)
- collect rain water when we do get some spring showers to use for watering new plantings (established plants require little watering at this time of year)
- allow a bit of untidiness in the garden and leave small twigs and other bits from trees and plants on the ground for birds to use in their nests.
Happy spring! Anita