You’re committed to meatless Mondays and filling your closet with eco-friendly outfits, but what about the rest of your home?

Rethink that couch purchase

Furniture is the least-recycled household item in the world. Enter Model Living, a Toronto-based start-up that allows you to rent high-end decor pieces for as long as you want and then buy, swap or return them. Bonus: The Model Living team will deliver and assemble your order for you if you spend more than $100.

Get better bulbs

 

Energy-saving lights aren’t exactly new, but do your LED bulbs intelligently adjust their colour temperature and brightness based on how bright it is outside, like the Dyson Lightcycle (from $800) does? Probably not. The Lightcycle will also turn itself off to conserve energy if it senses no one’s around and is engineered to last for up to 60 years. Say goodbye to changing light bulbs.

Stop overspending on heating

Canadian company Ecobee calls its SmartThermostat ($329) the “smartphone of thermostats” for a reason. It can stream from your Spotify account and is enabled with Alexa. But here’s what really matters: To cut back on consumption, it automatically adjusts to the energy-saving “Away” mode when no one’s home and adapts to different conditions so it warms or cools your house as efficiently as possible.

Don’t Marie Kondo your entire house

“A lot of people are really quick to get rid of absolutely everything in their homes,” says B.C.-based interior designer Crystal Moon. She suggests considering ways to revive the piece you want to replace first: Can it be repainted or refinished? Can you add new hardware or maybe change out the feet? “That not only goes a long way in terms of your budget but you also get to enjoy a quality piece for longer instead of sending it to a landfill.”

A version of this article appeared in the September 2019 issue of ELLE Canada. Subscribe now.