17 billion planet earths?

Do you love a challenge?

Do you love the environment?

Then why not do the Environment Centre's Sustainability Challenge?

I've been planning this moment since I picked up my Sustainability Challenge pack and agreed to blog about it on Friday. I'm quite excited about it. Both the challenge and the blogging that is. So it should now be no surprise to you that 'this moment' is the moment I sit down to start my first blog about the challenge. Seeing as I've had my pack since Friday I've had all weekend as well as today to think about it (and become more excited). I know exactly what I want to talk about, but starting seems such a challenge in itself today. I really thought over 3 days I'd come up with something better than my 3 cliche questions to open with.

But apparently I haven't. So there they are at the top of my entry.

Like my challenge so far, not great.

For starters, I'm starting late. And then, although I've had my pack since Friday, my weekend was prohibitive to starting until today, so I'm starting later still, which means I don't get to put cool stickers on my challenge poster for the past 3 days (yes, I admit it, I like stickers...).

I thought about challenging myself to make up for lost time and prohibitive weekends by doing 6 things instead of 5 (which would come with the bonus of collecting extra stickers!). I thought about doubling up and doing some things twice a day. I thought about getting an extra challenge pack and taking it to work and forcing it upon my workplace.

Now I could do 6 things, but I had enough trouble picking 5. I could do one twice a day, but only if it were gardening. And I could take a pack to work. But by the time I had written my proposal for the workplace to participate, had that approved by the bosses, bigger bosses and even bigger bosses who need to approve things, conducted a panel on the 5 things we'd do and sent out instructions to everyone not on the panel it would have been Christmas 2020. And that's when I realised this thing is meant to actually be doable. So I decided that starting late without upping the ante is ok. It is definitely better than not starting at all. So while I may have missed the first third of the month, I'm in it for the remaining two thirds. And I'm here to tell you all my tales about it.

So, I'm announcing that I have finally started my Sustainability Challenge. After ticking a terrifying list of 'next steps' on a food for thought document provided as part of the challenge pack I didn't end up with much that was achievable for us. A bit of brainstorming added a couple of extras to the list but it still wasn't very 'helpful' (are challenge items supposed to be helpful anyway?). But after a prolonged discussion with my husband we eventually agreed on the following list:

• Working in the garden daily (priority on edible plants)
• Not driving to work 3 days
• Substituting 2 products in our major shop (weekly) for organic
• Showers of 4 minutes or less
• Purchasing only organic/free range/grain fed meat.

And our 4 extras are:

• Visit and start using the food co-op at ANU (I've only just discovered this existed, so am really looking forward to this one)
• Increase the portion of energy to our home that comes from renewable resources
• Purchase and start using a solar device for recharging our smaller appliances such as mobiles
• Participate in an event akin with sustainability eg a planting day.

To be honest I don't know how I feel about our list. There's a part of me that thinks it's cool (the 4 extras). And there's another part of me that thinks it looks kind of pathetic to see it written there like that (the 5 daily challenge items). I mean we recycle absolutely everything that can be recycled here, we compost with bokashi, we purchase local produce, we buy some organic produce/products and majority Australian products. We save water in various ways, avoid plastic, don't use household chemicals, cycle to work a couple of days a week, are appliance savvy, are vego 2 days a week, grow a few herbs and vegies and have some yet to fruit fruit trees and a few other things. So it seems pretty pathetic to have to commit to having a 4 minute shower. It's one of the most basic things you can do for sustainability, especially with the water restrictions Canberra has had for at least as long as I've lived here. But I'd be lying if I said that my showers of late were less than 4 minutes. They're not long but they're not 4 minutes or less either, so I thought it was a good one to add.

Now I haven't just listed environmentally friendly practices already practiced in my household to intimidate anybody (if you do more feel free to note and gloat, love to hear about it!). But if you subscribe to the notion that because you recycle and watch your water use you're doing enough not to compost (yes, someone has said this to me) I'd like to challenge you.

Which is why I'm doing this Sustainability Challenge. To challenge myself, especially given that according to the WWF ecological footprint calculator  I need 2.5 planet earths to sustain me in my current lifestyle. Considering my husband has an identical lifestyle I need another 2.5 planet earths for him. And since this isn't  Hitchhikers Guide to Galaxy there isn't another planet (or 4) for us to make home.

Now that I think about it, my footprint from that calculator is quite scary. We intentionally do quite a bit to reduce our footprint and still I need 2.5 whole planets to support me. Maybe that doesn't seem like much, but consider that the actual planet I live on I share with almost 7 billion people. So if everyone lived like me we'd need about 17 billion planet earths. And there's erm...one...WOW.

I take the stance that how I treat this earth isn't just about my lifestyle here, but about that of my grandchildren and their grandchildren. And when you make it personal like that it makes it pretty hard to justify not having a shower that's a minute shorter if it means your children and their children and their children (and so on) can have a quality of life similar to your own. Which got me thinking about what their lifestyle would actually be like if we went on like this. What would happen? No really. What would their life be like?

If the images that came to mind then were as ugly for you as they were for me then we're both in the right place-reading (and hopefully completing) this challenge. At the very least, having our notions of a 'quality' lifestyle and a 'sustainable' lifestyle challenged. Of considering the difference between 'want' and 'need' in our consumer driven society. I'm not suggesting that we should all go out and buy ourselves a mudbrick house tomorrow, but reading the label on a manufactured product to see where it was manufactured (and hence considering the carbon inherent in the product) is likely to go a long way to improving the quality of life your great great grandchildren experience.

So, I hope, through this blog to not only talk about my own hurrahs and hurdles with this challenge, but to encourage you with the 5 things you've picked for yourself, your household, your family. In fact I'd love to hear about what you've picked, see what great ideas are out there for the challenge.

And while we're talking about encouragement, I have an admission to make...

I drove to work today.

And I'll be driving to work tomorrow.

And the saddest part about that?

It means no stickers!! :(