There are many ways you can make your life kinder to the environment, from buying plastic-free alternatives to common household objects to eating less meat.
But there are also changes you can make to your home to reduce its negative impact on the planet.
To find out more, Countryliving.com/uk spoke to Grand Designs' Kevin McCloud to discuss the biggest changes you can make to your home to make it more eco-friendly, sustainable and efficient.
"The biggest changes are going to be to the basic bones of the building," Kevin reveals.
"The boring stuff that no one is really interested in – insulation, draught-proofing, secondary glazing.
"You do more for the environment by super-insulating a building. This gives you a healthy environment and gives you a low energy building. The embodied energy of a building is a very small part of the environmental impact compared to the in-use energy costs over say 50 to 100 years. And that’s where we need to focus."
Reducing energy consumption in the home is key to not only saving money, but to reducing damaging environmental implications. Kevin emphasises the importance of remembering to do the small things, rather than just the big, fundamental changes to your home.
"Put on another pullover, turn the thermostat down," says Kevin. "All those simple things, not high-tech things."
Grand Designs Live, hosted by Kevin at Birmingham's The NEC in October, reflects the designer's dedication to green issues and eco-housing. The event will offer visitors many interesting seminars on environmental topics.
"I’m looking forward to reprising the talk I gave in the spring about the history of the toilet," Kevin said. "There is a big water saving and non-plastic theme this year at the show. We have always been very environmentally minded but we have really upped that this year.
"So Grand Designs Live is plastic-free and sponsored by Friends of the Earth. It's great to have that. I'll also be talking about another comparative area – clean drinking water," says Kevin.
"Friends of the Earth are selling their aluminium water bottles throughout the show, but we’ve also got ‘Join the Pipe’, an initiative to promote clean drinking water across the world. Something like a third of the world do not have access to drinking water so it’s a very important initiative.
"As part of that I'm giving the talk about the history of the toilet, all about sanitation. It's really fascinating. I have spent a lot of time looking at architecture over the decades and cities and how they work. And there is a very simple and fundamental fact that unless a home has a functioning toilet and clean drinking water, human beings can’t use it. Without sanitation, without drains, nothing works.
"If everything clogged up, I’d give it two weeks before we had the first outbreak of cholera in Britain. So it’s a really fundamental issue. You last two to three days without drinking water. We had a massive audience for that talk in London, so I’m hoping we’ll get the same again in Birmingham."
Kevin McCloud will be appearing at Grand Designs Live at The NEC, Birmingham, from 10 – 14 October 2018. For more information and tickets visit granddesignslive.com.
