Five tips for tackling climate change

1. Cast your vote. During elections, choose a candidate who understands climate change and knows ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. A large proportion of emissions is produced in ways that consumers can’t influence through their own choices ― these emissions can only be reduced by politicians.

2. Travel smarter. Where possible, avoid flying and using your own car. Favour cycling, public transport and new kinds of mobility services such as Whim. If owning your own car is unavoidable, go for either an electric car, biogas car or a plug-in hybrid. It’s also worth replacing diesel with Neste’s renewable My fuel.

3. Eat smarter. Choose vegetable proteins and increase your overall vegetable consumption. There are so many different options available today; try hummus on your bread instead of cheese, for example. Pay particular attention to reducing consumption of red meat.

4. Heat smarter. Switch to geothermal heating if possible and buy solar panels to go with the heat pump. Buy a home automation system such as Optiwatti, which you can use to set room temperatures via an app.

5. Invest in reducing emissions. Choose investment funds and stocks of companies whose business is focused on reducing greenhouse emissions. Remove companies that deal with fossil fuels from your portfolio and stop using service providers which do the same.

Researcher Karoliina Auvinen, Smart Energy Transition’s Stakeholder Relations Director