Climate change can be overwhelming and it’s hard to know where to start to become greener and kinder to the environment. As more of us are trying to reduce our carbon footprint, we met one woman whose switch to being vegan led to a rethink of her consumer behaviour 

For Claire Bell and her family, it started as a lockdown experiment – could she and her husband handle forgoing meat and become vegetarian? 

Reducing their carbon footprint was the initial motivation, as the family, from Northampton, had been reading up on climate change and had watched the Sir David Attenborough series ‘Seven Worlds, One Planet’, which inspired them to change their eating habits.

“After a few months of being vegetarian, we realised that most of the recipes we loved were vegan, and we questioned why we were still including other ingredients when we could go fully plant-based,” said Claire, 34.

“We made the change and all absolutely love it – including our three children.”

Claire, husband Nick, and one-year-old Luca are fully vegan, while Sofia, 10 is vegetarian and seven-year-old Elijah eats a mix of food  – but they have all embraced being vegan at home – and they’re not alone.

YouGov's bi-annual survey of 2,000 people suggested 2% were vegan in 2020, and this rose to 3% in 2021. And many more have incorporated vegan food into their diet flexibly.

The sign-ups for the Veganuary campaign - where people eat vegan for the month of January - hit record highs in 2022, with more than 629,000 people signing up, compared to 582,000 the previous year.

Claire says the only downside is when the family are out and about and need to grab food on the hop, when there aren’t often many vegan convenience foods available.

“But apart from that, we’re so happy with the decision we made,” she said. “You don’t need any new equipment, and the food is really tasty. We often make supergreen gnocchi with our own pesto sauce which is a really handy on a school night.

“The children absolutely love tofu ramen and would eat it every day if they could.

“With baking, you need to follow proper vegan recipes rather than substitute vegan ingredients, but with the right recipe, you can create some delicious treats.”

When she needed access to vegan recipes, Claire kept in mind that the initial aim was to reduce their carbon footprint, so she borrowed cookbooks rather than buying new – which got her thinking about other ways she could change her shopping habits and how she and her family acquired new ‘stuff’.

“With children, there are some great ways that you can borrow or rent things that they might need or want,” said Claire, who is a childminder.

“There’s always a new sport they want to try, or toys they want to have – and to be able to borrow those from friends or rent them out while you need them, is such a great way to reduce your carbon footprint while still getting what you want.”

 This way of consuming has a name – the sharing economy – and we’ve been doing it for years with companies like AirBnB, Gumtree and eBay.

And Claire says platforms like RentMy.com, which allows you to rent anything - can be invaluable for those who want to reduce their carbon footprint and make money themselves by renting out their belongings.

“When we started out on this journey, it was initially about the food we ate and sourcing that more responsibly. Now that we’re doing that, websites like RentMy make it so easy to rent toys or sports equipment – things that as a family we’d have gone out and bought.

“Once you get in the swing of reducing how much you consume and how much carbon you’re responsible for, it’s really fun and satisfying to find new ways to keep going and save a bit more.

“We’ve learnt a lot from our children as they are really interested in doing their bit too. We’re really pleased we made the decision to try being vegan, it has been a really fun and interesting journey.”

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