Human behaviours and motivations have been of keen interest to me from a young age, to see how certain actions can affect body language, behaviours or entirely change a person’s disposition towards another. I understood the impact actions have on relationships and I learned to build interdependence at the core of my relationships. I arrived at the insight that if we are to survive as a species, we have to build our actions of individual consumptions based on self-awareness to truly transform our relationship with the environment. We need to essentially change the perspective from ‘need for more’ to ‘sustaining’. Humans are predisposed by evolution to compares ourselves to others, to keep striving for more and better, and we need to change our relationships from a comparative narrative to a more collaborative one. It is an inner solution to shift towards less and bring communities together towards a world where we have more solutions and collective resources.
One of the hidden cause of our continued lifestyle that is causing harm to the environment is that the effects of our actions are not visible immediately. The first step is building a global narrative and visibility around the power of one’s choices and culturally transforming our perspectives as individuals having the power to mitigate climate change. We can only meet this tremendous challenge by engaging the public to recognize their responsibility. It is important to create a local and a global movement driven by young individuals who will face the worst effects of today’s decisions, thus enabling them to redefine their roles in the new economy based on actions derived from respect for the environment and for each other. This can be achieved by building a body and team of organizers who then become action experts in their own communities. Successful movements break down walls between issue areas and developed strong action-oriented communities who understand that their work cannot be limited to just one effort. For me, accountability and transparency are detrimental to building a lasting base for people to feel like their own investment is worthwhile and for them to own and embody the idea.
Our actions and practices need to evolve to becoming ‘sustaining’ across sectors but most importantly in the consumption industry especially the fashion, fast food, and manufacturing. We as consumers have to hold each other and companies accountable for their practices. An organization or business is just as good as its people, and we need to build self-determination and sustainability at the core of our daily lives, in our work and structures. We need to redefine our relationship with nature and our human values which are very much derived from the need to transform ourselves to transform the world.
