This post may contain affiliate links. If you click on them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.
Passionate quotes about sustainability that will energize you to do more for our planet.
Ready to get your dose of green inspiration? We’ve rounded up a bunch of kick-butt sustainability quotes that’ll make you want to hug a tree and high-five a compost bin. Whether you’re a full-blown eco-conscious guru or making your first eco friendly resolution, these words of wisdom will have you thinking, acting, and living in a way that’ll make Mother Nature do a happy dance. So, grab your reusable water bottle, settle in, and let’s dive into this collection of quotes that’ll light up your eco-soul and show why sustainable lifestyles matter!
1. “We need to come to a point where we are compelled to take responsibility for the care of our planet…..After all, fighting for its health is fighting for the health of humanity.”
– Natalie Issacs
2. “The answer to the question of whether we should be focusing on individual or systemic change is: yes, definitely. We cannot have one without the other. We need both.”
– Great Thunberg
3. “Sustainability is about so much more than what you buy. It’s about everyday choices that are intentional, conscious, and community focused.”
– Juli Hunter
4. “We don’t need a handful of people doing zero waste perfectly. We need millions of people doing it imperfectly.”
– Anne Marie Booneau
5. “Black Friday, quite frankly, represents everything that needs to be challenged with the industry. We need to shift mindsets around the world that quality and value comes at a price.”
– Christopher Raeburn
6. “You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”
– Jane Goodall
7. “The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it. “
– Robert Swan
8. “We can now destroy or we can cherish, the choice is ours.”
– Sir David Attenborough
9. “Saving our planet, lifting people out of poverty, advancing economic growth – these are one and the same fight. We must connect the dots between climate change, water scarcity, energy shortages, global health, food security, and women’s empowerment. Solutions to one problem must be solutions for all.”
– Ban Ki-Moon
10. “There is no such thing as away. When we throw anything away, it must go somewhere.”
– Annie Leonard
11. “If it can’t be reduced, reused, repaired, rebuilt, refurbished, refinished, resold, recycled or composted then it should be restricted, redesigned or removed from production.”
– Peter Seeger
12. “Convincing customers to buy more shit in the name of sustainability is the biggest scam of our generation.”
– Liz Pape
13. “We deal with this world as if we had a second one in the trunk.”
– Jane Fonda
14. “What if we started by slowing down and not consuming so much stuff just because it’s there and cheap and available. It’s amazing how that process makes sense financially, ethically and environmentally.”
– Andrew Morgan
15. “You may not be able to save the world. But you could be one less person harming it.”
– Unknown
16. “Mankind owns its destiny, and its destiny is the earth. We are destroying it until we have no destiny.”
– Frida Kahlo
17. “By joining together in constructive, concerted action, we all have to hope that there’s a beach clean in our future where we struggle to gather even a single bag of waste.”
– Lucy Siegle
18. “Climate change should be of concern to all who care about economic stability and investment value.”
– Christiana Figueres & Tom Rivett-Carnac
19. “Waste isn’t waste until we waste it”
– will.i.am
20. “Sustainability is no longer about doing less harm, it’s about doing more good.”
– Jochen Zeitz
21. “As consumers, we have so much power to change the world just by being careful with what we buy.”
– Emma Watson
22. “Wanting to take care of the environment shouldn’t be a political thing. It’s a human thing.”
@consciousnchic
23. “The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion.”
– Paulo Coelho
24. “We don’t inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.”
– Unknown
25. “Every time you spend money you are casting a vote for the kind of world you want to live in.”
– Anna Lappe
26. “Caring for the earth is not a hippy thing, it’s a survival thing”
– Unknown
27. “The world is a fine place and worth fighting for.”
– Ernest Hemingway
28. “We don’t have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world.”
– Howard Zinn
29. “It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do little.”
– Sydney Smith
30. “Dear future generations: Please accept our apologies. We were rolling drunk on petroleum.”
– Kurt Vonnegut
31. “Being green is more than just buying ‘eco’. It is an unshakeable commitment to a sustainable lifestyle.”
– Jennifer Nini
32. “What I stand for is what I stand on.”
– Wendell Berry
33. “We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.”
– Aldo Leopold
34. “Sustainability is here to stay or we may not be.”
– Niall FitzGerald
35. “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, but not every man’s greed.”
– Mahatma Ghandi
36. “No challenge poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change.”
– Barack Obama
37. “Everyone should be talking about sustainability because our mutually assured futures depend on it.”
– Aja Barber
38. “Sustainability means meeting the needs of today without compromising the needs of future generations.”
– Gro Harlem Brundtland
39. “Sustainability is another word for justice, as what is just is sustainable and what is unjust is not.”
– Matthew Fox
40. “Without environmental sustainability, economic stability and social cohesion cannot be achieved.”
– Phil Harding
41. “Plans to protect air and water, wilderness and wildlife are in fact plans to protect man.”
– Stewart Udall
42. “If you want grown ups to recycle, just tell their kids the importance of it, and they’ll be all over it.”
– Bill Nye
43. “Environment is no one’s property to destroy; it’s everyone’s responsibility to protect.”
– Mohith Agadi
44. “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.”
– Margaret Mead
45. “I don’t feel superior because I’m vegan. The truth is I’m vegan because I don’t feel superior to others.”
– Michele McCowan
46. “A society in which consumption has to be artificially stimulated in order to keep production going is a society founded on trash and waste, and such a society is a house built upon sand.”
– Dorothy L Sayers
47. “Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without”
– Old motto
48. “Waste is a design flaw.”
– Kate Kreba
49. “Don’t waste anything. Don’t waste electricity, don’t waste food, don’t waste power. Just treat the natural world as though it’s precious, which it is.”
– Sir David Attenborough
50. “What’s the use of a fine house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on.”
– Henry David Thoreau
51. “The most sustainable way is to not make things. The second most sustainable way is to make something very useful, to solve a problem that hasn’t been solved.”
– Thomas Sigsgaard
52. “Climate change is the existential threat to humanity. Unchecked, it is going to actually bake this planet. This is real. And we have a moral obligation.”
– Joe Biden
53. “It angers me when sustainability gets used as a buzz word. For 90% of the world, sustainability is a matter of survival.”
– Cameron Sinclair
54. “There can be no plan B because there is no Planet B.”
– Ban Ki-Moon
55. “Climate change isn’t waiting for any of us. We need a lifestyle revolution, and we need it quickly.”
– Natalie Isaacs
56. “It’s true that no other species has evolved to create such a large scale problem. But no other species has evolved with such an extraordinary capacity to solve it either.”
– Matthew Wilburn King
57. “You don’t have to turn your life around to be sustainable. Just use what you have for longer.”
– Unknown
58. “Twenty five years ago, people could be excused for not knowing much, or doing much, about climate change. Today we have no excuse.”
– Desmond Tutu
59. “Changing our behaviour, our lifestyle, and by that I mean profoundly shaking up how we live, is one of the biggest contributions we can make.”
– Natalie Isaacs
60. “We are not above nature. We are part of nature.”
– Jennifer Nini
61. “The truth is, every one of us, no matter who we are or where we live, can and must play a part in restoring nature.”
– David Attenborough
62. “He that plants trees loves others besides himself.”
– Thomas Fuller
63. “The Earth will not continue to offer its harvest, except with faithful stewardship. We cannot say we love the land and then take steps to destroy it for use by future generations.“
– John Paul II
64. “Environmentally friendly cars will soon cease to be an option … they will become a necessity.“
– Fujio Cho
65. “We have forgotten how to be good guests, how to walk lightly on the earth as its other creatures do.“
– Barbara Ford
66. “It is neither sprint or marathon; it is a relay race. The most important thing we adults can do now is join and support the next generation of climate activists ready to lead the movement..“
– Jane Fonda
67. “Plans to protect air and water, wilderness and wildlife are in fact plans to protect man.“
– Stuart Udall
68. “Anything else you’re interested in is not going to happen if you can’t breathe the air and drink the water. Don’t sit this one out. Do something.“
– Carl Sagan
69. “There must be a better way to make the things we want, a way that doesn’t spoil the sky, or the rain or the land.“
– Paul McCartney
70. “The power is yours!“
– Captain Planet (fictional)
71. “Treat the Earth as though we intend to stay here.“
– Crispin Tickell
72. “People ‘over-produce’ pollution because they are not paying for the costs of dealing with it.“
– Ha-Joon Chang
73. “Preservation of our environment is not a liberal or conservative challenge, it’s common sense.“
– Ronald Reagan
74. “The single biggest threat to our planet is the destruction of habitat and along the way loss of precious wildlife. We need to reach a balance where people, habitat, and wildlife can co-exist – if we don’t everyone loses…one day.“
– Steve Irwin
75. “Far and away, the greatest threat to the ocean, and thus to ourselves, is ignorance. But we can do something about that.“
– Sylvia Earle