If you’ve been here for a while, you’ll know that we tend to invite you to complete various surveys for the different research projects we run. We realised that we very seldom talk about the things that happen behind the scenes. We are now taking a new initiative to launch a newsletter which will reach your inbox at various times during the year.

Our aim is to tell you a bit more about how what we do, how your feedback is impacting the world.

Your newvista Team

For our first newsletter, we would like to start with a message of hope and confidence that we can make things better.

If you’ve paid much attention to the news over the last few years, you may feel that it has been unusually bad — from Brexit to Covid, and now the war in Ukraine and a cost-of-living crisis. The stories around sustainability are not any more positive, particularly with some making use of scaremongering techniques.

We, as humans, have a Negativity Bias and as such we are drawn to negative information first. And, even if they have the same intensity, the negative information (or events) will have a greater effect on our perceptions and memory than neutral or positive ones.

Many of you were asked to share your opinions in a research study we ran for the Institute for Groceries Distribution. Your opinions however, have shown that when it comes to encouraging people towards healthy, sustainable diets, focusing on what food people shouldn’t eat is not effective. As such, positive reinforcement can be a better strategy when it comes to sustainable behaviours.

Having hope is crucial for our brain and a lot of research has gone into showing the effects and benefits of hope. Zen master, Thich Nhat Hanh, known as the “father of mindfulness“, once said that “hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today.”

So here is to hope!

Small things we can all do to make our environment better:

• An automatic dishwasher uses less hot water than doing dishes by hand – an average of six gallons less, or more than 2,000 gallons per year.
• 15%-20% of all food bought is thrown away by the average UK household.
• Switching from the font ‘Arial’ to ‘Century Gothic’ saves 30% ink on printing.
• Less than 10 percent of all plastic produced is recycled.
• Glass can be recycled endlessly with no loss in quality or purity.
• Also, aluminium can be recycled forever without any loss of quality.
• Recycling a single 500 ml aluminium beer can saves enough energy to power a TV for over 4 hours.

TOP TIP

Lidl have started a new WASTE NOT box, for £1.50 you can get 5kg of fruit and veg. Follow the link for more info
https://www.lidl.co.uk/our-products/fruit-veg/waste-not