Stop Calling It Sustainable Living
Living a sustainable life has different meanings in various parts of the world. That shouldn't come as a shock to anyone actually reading this.
In Denmark, it can affect every aspect of your life from the clothes to the food you buy, to the hotels you sleep in and cars your choose to drive. To put it in perspective, Denmark is scheduled to have more than 70% of it’s electric power deriving from renewable sources by the year 2022.
Where I come from, clean water is still a novel concept for most part of the country. Therefore, living a sustainable lifestyle, as it is now known, and being environmentally conscious has a slightly different meaning (read: generally unimportant).
In Angola, and in many other countries in Africa, due to the poor conditions that many people live under, saving the environment is the last item on the government or the population’s priority list. We can say that it falls under the now famous category of “First World Problems”. People are in perpetual survival mode — will I have electricity today? Will I have to carry buckets of water for kilometers? And in the worst of cases, where will my next meal come from? Being so, it is completely understandable that no, we are not thinking about how not to harm the environment. That’s for the people that can drink water straight from their taps, and not worry about the harms that may come from such a simple act.
Not to say that all angolans are oblivious to the plights of the environment. One of my favorite initiatives in my country geared to the environment, is one led by The National Geographic, named Into the Okovango, where a team of young Angolan scientists, led by Dr. Steve Boyes, embarked on a multi-year journey to explore and protect the headwaters and rivers in Angola. I am extremely proud of this project for my country and for the new generation of scientists, having heard first hand by one of the brilliant young biologists taking part of it, the progress they have made.
But this is still not something that is seen as amazing, to the vast majority. Honestly, most angolans living in urban areas would ask, why would one want to trek, and hike and camp for months looking at bugs and plants? The rest, would shrug and call it their daily routine.
Still, this does not mean that there is nothing to be done to herd the environmentally conscious, in parts of the world where it seems it would not matter.
I, for one, believe that developing economies such as many of the ones existent in Sub Saharan Africa are a hotbed for sustainable initiatives that can educate populations to live lifestyles that are modern and conscious of the environment and their resources. We see our adjourned development as a crutch, but I see it as the way to skip all the trial and errors that developed societies endured and leap straight into the tried and true solutions. It is an uphill battle, yes. Still, when put into perspective, rural communities already live a more sustainable lifestyle than the urban population. Even in developing countries. Most inhabitants of villages and small towns in Angola, do grow their own food, which is by default organic. Their trash and waste, is usually disposed of by burning or burying — not the best practice, but most of the, if not all of the trash is plastic free. This only changes when urbanization demands that their way of life is primitive, and processed food is more “civilized”. An effort should then be made to re-learn from these communities, and create a balance between a modern lifestyle that embodies the best of both worlds.
As a fairly conscious consumer, I am a big fan of the social enterprise #EthicalHour (side note: I am a hardcore supporter of social enterprises, startups and small businesses). This year, in line with this year’s theme for World Environmental Day, they are leading a massive campaign to bring awareness to plastic pollution.
I am proud to say that just last year (indepent of Ethical Hour’s campaign), the Kenyan government placed a ban on plastic bags. It is still to be seen if the ban will be effective, and if there is actually a campaign to educate people on the change to make it long lasting. But, let us imagine that such initiatives are spread through the poorest economies in the world — teaching the populations of rural areas that the food they grow is actually the healthiest, boosting their traditions, and that all the growing urban infrastructure can be energy efficient, and actually making these projects happen.
Of course it is not so simple. There are many cultural and social aspects that would prevent making sustainable and environmentally conscious living a paramount issue in Africa for reasons that would be obvious to anyone with any knowledge of the socio-political history of the land.
By shifting mindsets and treating these projects not as “sustainable” (which has become synonymous with elitism, but that is for another post) but as the most cutting edge way of urban development, the blank development canvas that are many countries in Africa can be painted… green.
