Shop Local

Shopping locally seems to be the new rave in town. The term shop local is gradually becoming a go-to marketing strategy catchphrase. While the whole concept of shopping locally is not new at all, its relationship with the environment and how it encourages sustainability is receiving increasingly new attention. Put simply, more consumers are beginning to realize that not just what they buy but how they choose to buy can affect how sustainable their environment becomes. This is a good thing.

Previously, the economic benefits of shopping locally to the immediate community have been the only incentives for encouraging this practice. From increasing money circulation in the local community and employment of local labor to building a closer community and healthy populations. In comparison to the 33.6% of revenue from national revenue, 64.8% of revenue from local businesses goes back into the local community.

Now, the incentives have become even more compelling. It seems our continued survival on the planet may depend partly on it. This, when you consider it, is also a good thing. Green purchasing practices can help foster a greener, safer environment. Shopping locally is one way to do this. To shop locally effectively means to make all or most of your purchases from vendors around you in your local community. Consumers everywhere have a choice to become responsible and take steps to make for a cleaner environment. I understand that throwing around terms like "shop local" and "sustainable practices" may seem new and even pretentious. So, the rest of the article will try to explain why shop local is not just fancy and how it can help enhance sustainable environments.

In comparison to the 33.6% of revenue from national revenue, 64.8% of revenue from local businesses goes back into the local community.

Environmental benefits of shopping local

The following are some ways our environment and people inhabiting it can benefit whenever we make the green choice of shopping local.

It cuts down on food miles

Shopping locally will help to reduce your food miles, effectively making the environment cleaner. Food mile simply describes the distance over which a food commodity travels throughout the journey from the farm of the producer to the hands of the consumers.

If you are buying local, it means food items will get you faster, cutting out the overseas plane transportation and long truck trips that would have been necessary if you were buying outside your community.

By reducing food miles, you are minimizing fuel consumption otherwise needed for long-distance food transportation. This will reduce greenhouse gases emission and, by extension, air pollution.

Buying local protects nature

You’re directly supporting the local farmers and producers when you shop locally. This is how they can keep up their business operations. For as long as they are able to continue, they will own and operate their farms.

Inadvertently, you’re protecting local lands and wildlife by keeping local farmers and producers in the business. The alternatives are some developers transforming the farmlands into anti-green structures, or bigger businesses incorporating toxic farming practices after buying out the owners.

It makes for easy accessibility

By the virtue of being local, these businesses conduct their operations in the local community. As a result, they can easily bring their products to their consumers who live nearby. Consumers can access all or most of the food items they need without having to leave their community.

Buyers can easily just bike or walk to their local stores to shop. Meanwhile, larger grocery stores may require shoppers to drive far into town or out of it. This means higher fuel consumption and ultimately increased carbon footprint.

Shopping local grows local workforce

Buying homegrown produce in communities supports the local workforce. Consumers will keep in business, not just the farmers and producers who make the products available, but also the local market organizers, sellers, cleaners, and others. This will positively impact the environment. You may wonder how?

Without the consumers’ demand for homegrown produce, these local businesses may not exist. This would leave the workplace with no choice but to work outside their community, consequently increasing fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.

It encourages healthy eating

Lastly, consumers can enjoy fresh and nutritious produce when they shop locally. Most local farmers keep their cultivation process as organic as possible with no hormones or pesticides. While this generally makes healthy produce available locally, it also benefits the environment. There’s also less room for waste as produce goes straight from farm to kitchen.

Key takeaways

To encourage local producers whose businesses operations and marketing strategies in one way or another contribute to environmental sustainability, you can start with the following:

• Learn about the local businesses around you.
• Consciously shop and eat locally.  
• Take it a step further, and bank locally. The less you have to travel out of town to do something, the better.
• Support any activity in your local community that fosters sustainability of the environment.