We’re Making Plans.
We’ve gathered the troops (partners, colleagues and kids) and are taking one serious sustainable step every month to move towards a more sustainable lifestyle. Our starting point is making a list of what we currently are doing and over the course of the month, add to that list in meaningful and significant ways.
We won’t get everything right first go, but we feel very strongly we won’t revert back to ‘normal’ because ‘normal’ is what got us all here in the first place.
Each month will have its own sustainability focus, giving us a full four weeks to explore, experiment, and embed one new habit.
June. Embrace Slow Travel
Slow travel is a philosophy of travel that prioritises experience and genuine connection to a place, over rushing from destination to another. Spend this month, a whole 4 weeks looking at your annual holidays and find out how you can slow them down.
Why we should take our travel S.L.O.W?
- Staying longer at a single location, allows for a more relaxed time.
- We tend to make a deeper connection by staying longer in the one place. Hanging out at the same cafe in the morning, fosters a genuine connection with the people and place.
- Travelling slowly allows us to make purchases mindfully, while supporting small local businesses and reducing your environmental impact.
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Slow travel allows us to value the experience of the travelling itself. Learn to love the journey! This is a tough one for me. But a recent trip to Tasmania/Lutruwita on the Spirit of Tasmania helped me to relax into holiday. I had 10 hours to read my book, knit (and subsequently pull out) a small section of jumper and myself into the holiday mode.
This brings us to the question, Can Air Travel Be Sustainable? In brief … no! Even if airlines didn’t mislead us or purposely greenwash, the carbon we capture through various offsets, is not going to make up for the carbon emissions of the of the flight. But there are ways to make your flight a little more planet friendly. My full article on this topic can be found here.
July. Plastic free.
This month is of course Plastic Free July. Hands up if you’re still using single-use items! I know! Me too! My lifetime goal is to eliminate single-use items. So, I’m starting again … small. Changing one habit at a time. And I’ve got the whole month of July to adapt. Note to self, carry a keep-cup, take reusable bags to the markets and refuse over packaging (easier said than done).
And just to drive home how much rubbish we can generate, check out Californian photographer Gregg Segal. Gregg photographed people surrounded by a week’s worth of their rubbish. The subjects were asked to collect and store their rubbish for a week and then bring it to Gregg’s house. These are some of his shots.
‘I wanted to call attention to how much garbage we produce and do it in a very straight-forward way. I wanted to go for the jugular’. Gregg Segal.
If you’ve never thought about how much rubbish you throw away then this is an unforgettable reminder of the amount of waste a human collects in just seven days. I’ve just signed up to Erin Rhoads (The Rogue Ginger) e-newsletter to get monthly inspiration from the woman who helps to reduce plastic, rethink waste and buy less stuff, showing that sustainable living is achievable.
August. Tackle the Workplace.
Gather a couple of kick ass colleagues and give yourself this month to overhaul your workplace.
- Find out who is supplying your energy. Is it a renewable resource? You may need some detective work here.
- Make of list of your suppliers. Are they green? If not, look elsewhere and tell them why. Maybe they will pick up their game and you wont have to go through the pain of changing. This also goes for procurement, develop a sustainable purchasing policy and you won’t have to go through this all again next year, and the year after!
- Take the Ethical Paper Pledge, and only purchase paper from an ethical source and 100% recycled. Do not use Reflex! I repeat Do not use Reflex or their offspring Opal and Nippon Papers. They still use native forests to source their paper.
- Measure your carbon footprint. Here’s some Australian carbon calculators we sussed out last month. Otherwise, call in a sustainability consultant. Heidi Fogg is located in Geelong, VIC. and is a friend whom we can recommend.
- Set targets to reduce your footprint. Start small with a goal of reducing travel emissions by 5% over the next 3 years. You can also set targets that aren’t emissions-based, such as reducing energy or water use by 2% a year and paper by 20%. Set ambitious but achievable targets and report against these publicly on your website.
- Look at the disposables on offer in your workplace (plastic cutlery, disposable cups, Sellotape, bubble wrap, plastic packaging) and decide if you can make reusable, sustainable swaps.
Remember to take your colleagues with you on this journey, ask for their input and ideas, notice when they are doing the right thing and celebrate the wins.
Would love to hear your thoughts, and how we can ‘up the ante’. And while on the journey, don’t forget to celebrate the small wins and let imperfection in!
Next season is spring where we will be focusing on reducing our car use, spring cleaning and buying nothing new. Stay tuned.
Writer: Colleen B. Filippa
With a background in Environmental Science, Colleen is the Founding Director of Fifteen Trees, a social enterprise she launched in 2009 after two decades in primary, secondary, and tertiary education. Stepping out of the classroom and into climate action, Colleen created Fifteen Trees to help individuals and businesses reduce their carbon footprint by supporting community-based revegetation projects across Australia.
