Decision making choices for home-based sustainability practices

To overcome the forthcoming sustainability challenges, effective individual or community leadership is required in our daily lives

The word ‘sustainability’ exposes a part of our everyday life. Every individual action at home, whether it is small or large – can be a significant contribution to achieving sustainability. When a good choice based action is repeated in our daily life, it could be very powerful as part of our individual collective efforts towards a sustainable future. For example, if we think, our daily activities are mostly related to energy supply and sources. Therefore, energy use is a vital issue through which we can change our lifestyle with a goal towards achieving a sustainability efficient energy behavior. But what does it mean? Since 1987, it is widely accepted that the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development explained sustainability as “meeting the needs of the present genera¬tions without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.” This definition may help us to put forward an important concept into practice with a framework. To make decisions at home, this framework would help to improve our health, savings, increase efficiency and motivate local community having for a better living place.
Sustainability at home provides us some implementable guidelines as we go through its understandings and talk about the sustainability challenges. Our new attitude to behavioral change offers some ways to think about everyday house¬hold decisions and give some tips to be applied room-by-room in a home. In that case, we should first identify the concerned resources as much as possible to look deeper into sustainability issues that matter to us mostly. The useful checklist may be prepared in our lifestyle-thinking that would help starting to make changes in life and track our success, not only in individual case, but also at global level gradually. So, it is better to perceive about collective needs in our individual movement toward making a positive change in the global society.
However, based on the sustainability approach, we therefore need to know the root of making personal decisions in living style, even though we have our many limitations. If sustainability refers our collec¬tive needs, how does it look like ‘successes’ in our home? In this answer, most of the people agree that an ideal home should have some essential characteris­tics: environment friendly or, healthy surroundings to live in; comfortable and good-looking; smooth access of work and possibly with a small play ground; affordable to operations and maintenance; connected to cooperative neighborhood and community; and well-organized and shared mentality for using energy, water, space and materials.
 Therefore, an ideal home requires the approach of home sustainability, which is mostly influenced by our personal choices/decisions, and that should be taken by understanding the root causes of unsustainability, and the relevant opportunities to form more sustainable choices. In general, the principles of this process address the six following categories as we assume a reality for making sustainability based practices at home.
1) Utilities: It refers to the fundamental services in our daily life- water, electricity, fuel, gas, or any system related to these basic utilities. Most of these services are directly related to release harmful gases into the atmosphere. If we can make a good plan with alternative options of these services, we can definitely make our home in a sustainable manner. For example, we can produce electricity from the renewable resources like solar and waste in small scale at home. Another example, in case of water supply system, some inexpensive devices we may think about in our supply system, e.g. faucet aerators, low flow showerheads. Rain water harvesting or collection of surface water can be a better way in our personal decisions to utilize our basic utilities.
2) Transportation: It can take place for moving from one place to another by means of walking, driving, cycling, train, boat or plane. However, we can reduce our transportations in different ways to think more options where we think about public transport as much as possible. For short distances, cycling, non-motor vehicles or, walking is the best possible ways to be sustainable at home. Solar driven vehicles can be another path to reduce combustion of fossil fuels in all kinds of usual vehicles.
3) Shopping: Buying eco-products are a good practice for sustainability at home. In sustainable thinking, if possible, it is suggested to share, borrow, or rent of a product as planned to further use. In following the principle of sustainable shopping; reuse, recycle and disposed of a product are a good manner to maintain sustainability at home. Specifically, we should think about reuse of a product; and, it is only recommended for buying a product in case of its urgent necessity to an individual where we must look for an Eco label or related tag on a product before buying it. Therefore, eco-design of products is a prerequisite to produce sustainable product. For example, durability and the decomposing nature of a product should be considered in a simple way in sustainable product design.
4) Waste: If we start sustainable shopping, the production of waste is become self-sustained by nature. That means, waste can be reduced, recycled, or disposed of in following the process. Overall, we should manage our household waste in any of the four processes- reduce, reuse, recycle, or disposing.  
5) Health: It indicates our physical, mental and emotional wellbeing that we could achieve by keeping the good health of our environment. In some ways, we can keep our home healthy. For example, greening the surroundings of home, maximizing natural lighting, or ventilating home system can be good initiatives in home practices towards sustainability.
6) Participation: In achieving home sustainability, exchange of ideas, views and experiences of individuals is very important. Any kind of participations first involves the community, neighborhood or, local people where most of the practices might be discussed. Public communication may be raised in a small group, e.g. tea table discussions, evening gossiping, cultural events and so on. Discussions leading to build awareness of the local people may act as collective information for individual working towards sustainability.
However, it is important to think about home based sustainability solutions that act as a system like a complex function of our body mechanism. A home based system is interconnected in several functions mentioned above. These home based functions may be more functional if some policies could be adopted in the community level. Policy reformation or, generation may be accomplished through a common acceptable platform between the community people and the local government. Awareness of home based sustainability practices might also be initiated at the same time as the functions of adopting different crosscutting government policies in different sectors. For example, reformation of government existing policies takes place in four major functional units of a home- a) housing infrastructure policies (building materials, walls, windows, furnace etc.), b) inputs (furniture, water, fuel, gas, energy, food etc.), c) outputs (garbage/waste, heat, sewage, gases etc.) and, d) household activities (cooking, heating/cooling, eating, sleeping etc.).
Finally, the time has come when we must start understanding more than ever before the importance of an individual’s participation in societal change. To overcome the forthcoming sustainability challenges, unique individual or community leadership is required in our daily lives.
The world needs are now more complex than before that we definitely seek for role models and, or champions in our present daily activities where people are willing to be something different.
Therefore, we should believe individually that we are not only a part of a family, but to inspire changes in our community and, we through collective household efforts can change the world apart from our home with one step more at a time.

The writer, a researcher on sustainability at BRAC Research and Evaluation Division, can be contacted at: [email protected]

Decision making choices for home-based sustainability practices

To overcome the forthcoming sustainability challenges, effective individual or community leadership is required in our daily lives

The word sustainability exposes a part of our everyday life. Every individual action at home, whether it is small or large can be a significant contribution to achieving sustainability. When a good choice based action is repeated in our daily life, it could be very powerful as part of our individual collective efforts towards a sustainable future. For example, if we think, our daily activities are mostly related to energy supply and sources. Therefore, energy use is a vital issue through which we can change our lifestyle with a goal towards achieving a sustainability efficient energy behavior. But what does it mean? Since 1987, it is widely accepted that the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development explained sustainability as meeting the needs of the present generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. This definition may help us to put forward an important concept into practice with a framework. To make decisions at home, this framework would help to improve our health, savings, increase efficiency and motivate local community having for a better living place. Sustainability at home provides us some implementable guidelines as we go through its understandings and talk about the sustainability challenges. Our new attitude to behavioral change offers some ways to think about everyday household decisions and give some tips to be applied room-by-room in a home. In that case, we should first identify the concerned resources as much as possible to look deeper into sustainability issues that matter to us mostly. The useful checklist may be prepared in our lifestyle-thinking that would help starting to make changes in life and track our success, not only in individual case, but also at global level gradually. So, it is better to perceive about collective needs in our individual movement toward making a positive change in the global society. However, based on the sustainability approach, we therefore need to know the root of making personal decisions in living style, even though we have our many limitations. If sustainability refers our collective needs, how does it look like successes in our home? In this answer, most of the people agree that an ideal home should have some essential characteristics: environment friendly or, healthy surroundings to live in; comfortable and good-looking; smooth access of work and possibly with a small play ground; affordable to operations and maintenance; connected to cooperative neighborhood and community; and well-organized and shared mentality for using energy, water, space and materials. Therefore, an ideal home requires the approach of home sustainability, which is mostly influenced by our personal choices/decisions, and that should be taken by understanding the root causes of unsustainability, and the relevant opportunities to form more sustainable choices. In general, the principles of this process address the six following categories as we assume a reality for making sustainability based practices at home. 1) Utilities: It refers to the fundamental services in our daily life- water, electricity, fuel, gas, or any system related to these basic utilities. Most of these services are directly related to release harmful gases into the atmosphere. If we can make a good plan with alternative options of these services, we can definitely make our home in a sustainable manner. For example, we can produce electricity from the renewable resources like solar and waste in small scale at home. Another example, in case of water supply system, some inexpensive devices we may think about in our supply system, e.g. faucet aerators, low flow showerheads. Rain water harvesting or collection of surface water can be a better way in our personal decisions to utilize our basic utilities. 2) Transportation: It can take place for moving from one place to another by means of walking, driving, cycling, train, boat or plane. However, we can reduce our transportations in different ways to think more options where we think about public transport as much as possible. For short distances, cycling, non-motor vehicles or, walking is the best possible ways to be sustainable at home. Solar driven vehicles can be another path to reduce combustion of fossil fuels in all kinds of usual vehicles. 3) Shopping: Buying eco-products are a good practice for sustainability at home. In sustainable thinking, if possible, it is suggested to share, borrow, or rent of a product as planned to further use. In following the principle of sustainable shopping; reuse, recycle and disposed of a product are a good manner to maintain sustainability at home. Specifically, we should think about reuse of a product; and, it is only recommended for buying a product in case of its urgent necessity to an individual where we must look for an Eco label or related tag on a product before buying it. Therefore, eco-design of products is a prerequisite to produce sustainable product. For example, durability and the decomposing nature of a product should be considered in a simple way in sustainable product design. 4) Waste: If we start sustainable shopping, the production of waste is become self-sustained by nature. That means, waste can be reduced, recycled, or disposed of in following the process. Overall, we should manage our household waste in any of the four processes- reduce, reuse, recycle, or disposing. 5) Health: It indicates our physical, mental and emotional wellbeing that we could achieve by keeping the good health of our environment. In some ways, we can keep our home healthy. For example, greening the surroundings of home, maximizing natural lighting, or ventilating home system can be good initiatives in home practices towards sustainability. 6) Participation: In achieving home sustainability, exchange of ideas, views and experiences of individuals is very important. Any kind of participations first involves the community, neighborhood or, local people where most of the practices might be discussed. Public communication may be raised in a small group, e.g. tea table discussions, evening gossiping, cultural events and so on. Discussions leading to build awareness of the local people may act as collective information for individual working towards sustainability. However, it is important to think about home based sustainability solutions that act as a system like a complex function of our body mechanism. A home based system is interconnected in several functions mentioned above. These home based functions may be more functional if some policies could be adopted in the community level. Policy reformation or, generation may be accomplished through a common acceptable platform between the community people and the local government. Awareness of home based sustainability practices might also be initiated at the same time as the functions of adopting different crosscutting government policies in different sectors. For example, reformation of government existing policies takes place in four major functional units of a home- a) housing infrastructure policies (building materials, walls, windows, furnace etc.), b) inputs (furniture, water, fuel, gas, energy, food etc.), c) outputs (garbage/waste, heat, sewage, gases etc.) and, d) household activities (cooking, heating/cooling, eating, sleeping etc.). Finally, the time has come when we must start understanding more than ever before the importance of an individuals participation in societal change. To overcome the forthcoming sustainability challenges, unique individual or community leadership is required in our daily lives. The world needs are now more complex than before that we definitely seek for role models and, or champions in our present daily activities where people are willing to be something different. Therefore, we should believe individually that we are not only a part of a family, but to inspire changes in our community and, we through collective household efforts can change the world apart from our home with one step more at a time. The writer, a researcher on sustainability at BRAC Research and Evaluation Division, can be contacted at: [email protected]