LID Permeable Paving Blog

The Environmental Impact of COVID-19 and Where to Go From Here

The global environmental impact of COVID-19 hasn’t gone unnoticed. Here’s what it looks like and how we can continue riding the wave towards sustainability.

The Environmental Impact of COVID-19 and Where to Go From Here

For most of us, it has been 3 months since the world paused.

Faced with an unprecedented Global Pandemic, our lives stopped and we were asked to isolate at home and #stayhome, #staysafe.

Those first few weeks were anxiety-provoking and stressful, to say the least. However, it didn’t take long until we were widely accepting of the “new normal”; working from home, Zoom meetings and Zoom classrooms, family-based activities and marathon baking sessions, just to name a few. Only now are we starting to take tentative steps towards the reopening of our cities. As we look back, there have been a lot of changes, including the environmental impact of COVID-19. We, human beings, are resilient. We are adaptable when need be!

Changes and adaptations are easier to accept when they are being done as a group or as a local/global community. Few of us want to be the one that stands out in the crowd, the one that does things differently.

The Environmental Impact of the Global Lockdown

One very notable result of the Global lockdown is the positive world-wide environmental impact.

It didn’t take long before there were reports from across the world on unusual eco-focused phenomenons, such as the dolphins in Venice, animals in city centers, a global reduction in air pollution, and cleaner oceans.

Staying at home for an extended period of time and pausing our lives, “a change” we could never have imagined, allowed the Earth to “heal”, it has been said.

Can We Keep Riding This Global Environmental Change?

We are now at a very interesting impasse; we have to restart our lives, but should that “reboot” be done in a more “eco-friendly” manner? Should we take steps so as not to “undo” the global environmental change this world-wide pause has sparked?

Realistically and sadly, chances are that it will not be long until we are back to our regular ways.

However, this “restart” may be the perfect opportunity to widely incorporate certain changes and adaptations that integrate more sustainable products, building designs and green infrastructure. Kick-starting the return to “normal,” while focusing on eco-friendly initiatives and promoting green infrastructure is a win-win scenario.

Doing what we can to affect environmental change, as a group, as communities, and need we say, globally, will help propagate valuable and priceless change.

Incorporating Sustainability and Green Infrastructure into Our Daily Lives

We have previously noted that it is easier to change our ways with the support of large groups. Imagine the impact if, as we return “to normal” we do so with a concentrated focus on sustainability and Green Infrastructure. If everyone adapts their ways in this manner, at the same time, it will be a powerful change.

The Earth is, as are humans, resilient. Even though, until now, there has been wide-reaching apprehension towards sustainability and Green Infrastructure, we have seen first hand the positive effects of change on the Earth.

Here’s hoping that global changes will take effect now and that our “new normal” will be one that includes sustainability and Green Infrastructure without question or second thought.