What is Our Simple Gestures?
Our Simple Gestures is an online platform helping people to minimise their impact on the planet by making more informed choices in their home.
Our mission is to cut through the overwhelming sea of content and equip people with clear, accessible information. We strive to create a community of like minded individuals that are passionate about reducing their environmental footprint, all with the power of our simple gestures.
We believe that small shifts in our behaviour can make a big impact on our planet. That’s why we’re starting in the home with everyday actions anyone can adopt. We share the information to educate and the tips to turn knowledge into action.
We know that making environmentally friendly decisions isn’t always fun or easy and we’ll admit we’re not perfect either. Just like you, we’ve been known to forget our keep cup or ditch that eco-friendly toothpaste that tastes like mud. But what we will never ditch is hope and optimism. We’re here to motivate you and show you the power that our simple gestures can have on the environmental issues facing the world today.
Why Our Simple Gestures?
So you’ve had a wave of inspiration and you’re ready to make some environmentally friendly changes in your life – go you!
Whether it’s swapping out your cleaning products for eco-friendly ones or making your own compost, you’re feeling motivated to make a change, so you jump on a search engine and get researching.
After 5 minutes of scrolling your motivation melts faster than that sustainable coconut oil deodorant you bought last week.
Sound familiar?
For many people the volume, complexity and variety of content on sustainability can be the biggest hurdle in making more environmentally conscious choices.
That’s why we created Our Simple Gestures.
We strive to be the one-stop destination for concise, actionable information on sustainable choices for your home.
Our Approach
Our approach is underpinned by our three core values: individual responsibility, minimising consumption and finding more environmental alternatives.
We focus on changes that can be made in the home, and for good reason. We believe that our homes are the most accessible place for sustainable change. Our philosophy is rooted in habit formation, a process where behaviours become automatic through intentional practice and development.
The key is implementing little tweaks and shifts over and over that compound to bigger change.
A big misconception for habit formation and behaviour change is that people think they lack motivation. But we think you should give yourself more credit, it’s not motivation that you’re lacking, its clarity. That’s why our approach is focused on carving out a space away from the noise where you can find clear information, ask questions and seek support and motivation from a like minded community.
Who’s behind Our Simple Gestures?
Over 5 years ago I had the realisation that I wanted (and needed) to do MORE in my everyday life to do LESS to the planet.
The awareness and journey evolved rapidly from a range of experiences – contributing to community groups and charities to address areas of environmental and social impact (such as food waste, urban farming, sustainable fashion and more) as well as the last few years working at the Investor Group on Climate Change. This has facilitated a constant exploration and passion toward personal sustainability. As such, Our Simple Gestures was born; a launchpad and starting point for people to form more environmentally aware habits, starting in the home.
The intention is…
…that these simple gestures and shifts are more easily accessible for individuals and communities, to scoop up and dive in with reliable actions and an array of resources to support not only the tweaks in our habits but education as well.
The shift to more environmental alternatives can be confusing at times, and there have definitely been some interesting ventures – exploding kombucha bottles, a not so effective DIY deodorant – and with so much information at our fingertips, it is hard to know where to start.
The hope is that this platform will help individuals and communities to access the information they need to take action and collectively do more for our environment.
Thankfully, we can change the course of WHAT we do and HOW we do it instantly, made even easier with Our Simple Gestures!
– Madeleine Hill
Browse some of our favourite Gestures
DIY deodorant paste (with or without bicarb soda)
Make your own homemade deodorant from minimal ingredients
Minimal Impact Pet Ownership
Consciously selecting environmentally-friendly products and habits for our pets, and recycle and reuse where possible
Plastic-free planting and gardening
Avoid plastic when planting and choose more sustainable alternatives