Handle with care - Sustainability starts with caring for things and living beings.
We only have one planet so we are best advised to treat it with care. What does that mean? It starts with little things in our everyday life: Treat the people and other living beings around us with kindness, practice benevolence, grant others the rights to be «just enough» and be understanding as well as open to critical conversations when people disagree.
We should also care for the objects we use in order to make them last as long as possible, minimizing our consumption. When we produce, especially as makers and creators, it is crucial that we hold ourselves to a high standard of quality, producing things that last. While we make things, we should also handle the necessary tools and facilities with care and think of the people who might use them next, or who will have to clean up after us.
These are seemingly ordinary, even redundant pieces of advice, yet, in order to achieve a sustainable future, they represent a crucial attitude and skill towards the world. This effect of improving a system by improving many micro-areas of that system is called «the aggregation of marginal gains».
Taking more sustainable actions and making an effort on a daily basis is very similar to improving any other habit. By improving many habits by just a tiny bit, we can make a tremendous difference!
When did you last fail to handle something with care? How did you make up for it? Comment in the comment sections: https://paul.zhdk.ch/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=7631#p17886