Online Lives: Sustainability blogger Hannah Byrne

Canada-based Hannah Byrne started blogging five years ago as a way to be creative but now she uses her blog, Byrnewithme.com, to promote sustainable living.

“It took me a long time to find my ‘niche’, as they say in the blogging community,” Hannah said.

“When I started out, I just wanted to write, I didn’t think too much about what. I have finally settled on a topic that I’m passionate enough about to be able to focus on full-time, which is sustainability and living an eco-friendly lifestyle.

“I’m passionate about the environment and I have been making efforts in my own life to live in a more eco-friendly way. The more I learn, the more I want to share with others and help them find ways to be more environmentally friendly too.

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“I’m still learning myself and I’m not sure I’ll ever achieve a completely zero-waste lifestyle, but I want to show that each small step can help towards reducing our impact.”

Hannah, who lives in Vancouver and works remotely for an Irish website, said her writing has helped her get work online.

“Spending so much time creating my own website and my own content meant that when I started working in the online and digital media space, I was bringing a certain amount of self-taught knowledge along with me.

“Likewise, working for a website has been great for my blog too, because I can take what I’ve learned at work and apply it to what I’m doing with my own site.”

She said she is proud of each post she publishes online.

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“I love to write — it’s why I started in the first place — so the process of putting together the post is always fun for me. By the time I reach the end of it and have put on all of the finishing touches, it’s always a great feeling when you publish. Regardless of how well the post does, I’m still proud of what I managed to put together, all by myself.”

Hannah said creating quality content for her readers is her main priority, not focusing on how many people are following her blog.

“It can be easy to get caught up in numbers, followers, likes, comments, but if you let yourself get carried away with that, it will get in the way of what you really want to do. Each time I allowed myself to get caught up in numbers, I lost sight of why I was doing it all in the first place, and it usually led to a few weeks or even months of not writing anything at all.”