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1. Choose Well

The location of your home can have a huge impact on your ability to live sustainably, so think hard about your lifestyle when you are looking for your next rental property. Are there good connections to mass transit? Is it walking distance to work, or downtown? Are the roads safe for cyclists? It might help you to talk with current residents to find out more, or just take some time to scope out the neighborhood by yourself. The more people who seek out greener communities, the more developers and local authorities will be motivated to create them. How to begin? Visit Walk Score to locate restaurants, parks, grocers and other businesses and amenities within walking distance of your possible future home.

Buddy up and live with a roommate; it'll cut your expenses and your footprint. Photo credit: kristina mayyy

2. Live Small or Live Together

You might not be able to afford that passive solar house of your dreams, but you can still have a huge impact on your home’s energy consumption simply by limiting its size. The smaller your house or apartment, the less energy is needed to heat and light it, and the smaller its physical footprint on the land will be. Your can also greatly decrease your personal environmental footprint by sharing your home with others. Sharing energy bills, appliances and common space automatically means that more people can live with less stuff. Besides saving money on your bills, you can save money on rent, too, and have a little extra to spend at the farmers market…

3. Talk to your Landlord

One of the biggest obstacles to living green in a rental property is the feeling of powerlessness to make changes. It’s important to remember that as a tenant you are a customer and you deserve decent service. A good landlady or landlord should work with you to make your home as pleasant as possible. So talk to them if the property is drafty, the toilet keeps running, or heating systems are inefficient – after all, investing in improvements will help them to retain tenants, attract new ones, and it will increase the value of their property. The owner might be particularly amenable to funding improvements if you do the math to show them the return on their investment, and offer your labor free of charge, creating a win-win situation for all concerned.

4. Get Good Habits

With all the buzz around solar panels, LEDs, and smart homes, it can be easy to forget that much of what makes a house or apartment green is the behavior of those who live in it. Recycling your waste, turning the lights out when you leave the room, putting on a sweater when you’re cold – all of these things are simple to implement, and they’re at least as important as owning the latest in fashionable green gadgetry. Putting a little thought into how you arrange your home can make a big difference too – put the recycling bin where it’s easy to access, keep your reusable shopping bags close to hand, and plug all your electronic devices into one power strip so you don’t have to switch each one off separately. With a little forethought, green habits can become second nature.

5. Stay Snug

Many rental properties suffer from poor insulation or leaky doors and windows, but it doesn't have to be that way. By applying simple, affordable measures, like weather stripping to doors and windows, or placing reflective foil behind radiators, you can have a significant impact on your energy bills. You can even apply plastic glazing to windows to increase heat retention. Installing sun shielding shades and blinds can also go a long way to regulate light and temperature in your home.

Weather stripping and sealing your windows is a great way to green your rental. Photo credit: Niemster

6. Find Your Power

Off-grid living is not feasible for most of us renters, but that doesn’t mean we can’t go renewable. Many large utility purveyors are now offering green power options. You can also purchase offsets from a reputable supplier to compensate for your household energy usage. There are also an increasing number of small-scale renewable energy devices on the market, from solar cookers to phone chargers to hand-crank radios and lanterns. While the energy they produce is unlikely to make up a large proportion of your household usage, they can be an inspiring first step towards energy independence.

7. Lighten Up

Yes, the ultimate eco home makeover may be beyond your grasp for now, but it only takes eighteen seconds to screw in a light bulb. By switching out your incandescent lights for compact fluorescents, or even the LEDs that are becoming increasingly available, you can save a considerable amount of energy and money. And if you’re concerned about moving on before the investment pays for itself, you can simply take them with you. Alternatively, you can leave them behind to help future tenants on the path to green en-light-enment

8. Be Water Wise

Water is becoming an ever-scarcer resource. Of course, installing the latest in low-flush toilets would be great, but it’s not too high on most landlords’ priority lists. Start small by encouraging your landlord to install water-efficient faucet aerators and low-flow showerheads on your taps; if they aren't up for springing for new ones, the installations are easy enough that you can do it, if they'll let you. As with energy, our use of water has as much to do with our own behavior as it does with technology. Spend less time in the shower; consider only flushing the toilet when you need to (follow the old adage ‘If its brown flush it down, if its yellow, let it mellow’); don’t run the tap when brushing your teeth; only use your washing machine and dishwasher with a full load, and consider reusing water from your bath or shower to water plants – these simple measures alone can cut your water use by over 50%.

9. Any Color You Like, As Long As It's Green

Adding a fresh coat of paint to a rental property can be one of the easiest ways to make it feel like home. Unfortunately, many paints are loaded with toxins that are not only harmful to the environment, but can also be hazardous to your health. Be sure to search out brands of paint with low VOCs (volatile organic compounds), and you can even experiment with the increasing number of natural paints that are appearing on the market; we've got some green paint suggestions below.

Painting green, with low-VOC paints, will help you feel at home and won't contribute to poor indoor air quality. Photo credit: Erik++

10. Buy Green

When the average renter moves into a new apartment, they spend as much as $4,000 on new furniture and other items to make it feel like home. If you’re needing to fill up your new abode, scour antique shops, flea markets, Craigslist or classified ads for pre-loved furniture; if buying new, look for heirloom quality furniture made from FSC-certified or reclaimed wood, and take the time to seek out energy efficient appliances. Choosing to furnish your home with lasting products is key to maintaining your sustainable abode. While it may be tempting to run to IKEA for all your furniture needs, ask yourself is that new coffee table will realistically last you ‘til your next move (or even until the next year). If your space is limited, you should also consider multi-functional transformer furniture – as we’re fond of saying, less is more when it comes to living green.

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1. Find Community

Living green on a budget can be so much easier if you find others doing the same. Options for sustainable communal living can range from informal house-share arrangements with like-minded souls, to more explicitly green housing co-ops or co-housing initiatives. Seek out environmentally-focussed community groups or listservs in your area, check out bulletin boards at coffee shops or organic groceries, or keep an eye on local listings magazines to find housing opportunities with fellow TreeHuggers.

2. Dream Big (and Build Small)

Owning your own home may seem like a distant dream, but you’ve got to start somewhere. There are plenty of examples of green building pioneers buying parcels of cheap land and constructing sustainable housing from low-cost materials, and you can learn something from their model. After you max out your green rental, start thinking about the next step, which could include movin' on up to your very own green house, built green from the ground up (but that's another guide). It’s certainly not an easy route to take, but the rewards can be phenomenal.

3. Grow Your Own

Most property owners are unlikely to give you permission to dig up the lawn and plant potatoes, but they might be willing to let you start a small vegetable garden. Alternatively, you’ll be amazed at how much food can be grown in containers. Even if you don’t have a garden at all, herbs and salads can be grown in a window box, and sprouting seeds is an easy way to grow some fresh food too. Complete self-sufficiency might not be realistic, but any food you can grow at home will be an important contribution to cutting food miles, and reducing our dependence on fossil fuels. It will also taste delicious.

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1. 78% of Colorado households receiving financial assistance with energy costs live in rental accommodation, and 13% of their household income goes to meet their energy needs (source: Energy Outreach [pdf]).

2. The UK Government predicts that 1.2 million UK households will still be in fuel poverty (that is, spending more than 10% of their income on energy costs) in 2010. The vast majority of these will be in rental accommodation. (source: Department of Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform )

3. Weatherizing windows and doors can save $115 USD a year. (source: Canadian Parliament)

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Greening your rental from the inside out can save you some bucks. Photo credit: Getty Images

TreeHugger Green Guides

Our guide on How to Green Your Dorm may be meant for students, but we can all learn a thing or two from it.

Renovating may not be an option, but you don’t need the landlord’s permission to green your furniture.

Our guide on How to Green Your Lighting includes plenty of easy-to-implement changes for more sustainable illumination, even if you don’t own your home.

Your landlord may take some convincing to replace the old boiler, but some of the simpler changes like weather stripping are much easier to get done. Take a look at our guide on How to Green Your Heating for more ideas.

TreeHugger Posts

Those of us who rent often have to deal with a lack of space, meaning we end up looking for innovative ways to live small. Small Houses by Carles Broto is a good source of inspiration.

We explore why single person households are not such a great thing for the environment.

North Carolina students set up a website to "kick gas through smarter living," including an online apartment finder with mass transit information included.

We repeat, once again, that small is indeed the new black.

This multi-functional appliance offers apartment dwellers an instant kitchen.

Compact fluorescent lightbulbs are one of the easiest changes you can make in your home.

Even as compact fluorescents take off, Justin takes a look at an LED alternative in one of our most popular posts ever.

The navy shower is a great way to save water, with no need for installing new equipment or technology.

You might not rent forever – Justin looks at alternative strategies for owning your own home.

Transformer furniture offers a great opportunity for living large in small spaces.

This three-in-one bed, desk and closet is yet another example of excellent transformer furniture.

Storage is always at a premium for renters, so Freecycle can be a huge help in getting rid of the clutter.

It might not fit with everyone’s idea of hygiene, but the age-old adage of “If it’s yellow, let it mellow” is a superb way to drastically cut your water use for free.

Our picks for innovative ways to grow your own food include a surprising number that would work, even in the smallest of spaces.

We take a look at the top ten green energy utilities in the US.

Composting isn’t just for those with a big backyard. Naturemill offers a compact, indoor composting unit.

We take a look at a selection of affordable low-VOC paints.

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Photo credit: glueslabs

Check out TRI, the EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory. Click on the ‘Where You Live’ tab to search for local polluters, hazardous chemical emissions and waste stations your specific county or ZIP code.

Sharing a house or apartment with others can be a great way to lessen your impact, but the social side can be tricky. The BBC offers some tips to get you through.

The Daily Green looks at the prospects for renovating the US's affordable rental housing stock.

Lighter Footstep offers some thoughts on how to be a greener renter.

Renting a house or an apartment in a walkable neighborhood means decreasing our dependency on vehicles to facilitate our daily routines. The Walk Score website allows you to calculate the walkability of your future home.

Askville runs through the process of weatherizing your windows.

A Blueprint for Greening Affordable Housing offers, well, a blueprint for greening affordable housing.

No Impact Man’s blog is a wealth of resources for anyone wanting to live greener, no matter what their living situation.

The Edible Container Garden is a great resource for growing your own food in limited spaces.

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Getty Images

TreeHugger’s BuyGreen Guides:

BuyGreen: Dining Tables

BuyGreen: Dining Chairs

BuyGreen: Sofas and Loveseats

Compost Your Trash
GreenCulture Composter
NatureMill

Furniture/Home Goods Purveyors
2Modern's Eco Section
3R Living
Branch
Nigel’s Eco Store
Vivavi

Grow Your Own Food
AeroGrow
Container Seeds
Fungi Perfekti
Hortuba Gardening Table

Lighting
Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs at 1000 Bulbs
GE Lighting
LEDtronics
Philips EnergySaver
Sylvania
X-treme Geek

Low VOC Paints
AFM Safecoat
Benjamin Moore
ICI Dulux
Old-Fashioned Milk Paint Company
Sherwin Williams GreenSure
Yolo

Renewable Energy Devices
Freeplay Energy
HYmini
Solar Cookers International
Solio
Voltaic Systems