Sustainability Manifesto!

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Sustainability Manifesto!

Sustainability Manifesto!

Do we need to wait for everyone in the world to transform for a more sustainable world, or can we take small steps to start the transformation instead of waiting for it? Of course we can. Without moving mountains, we can implement small practices and improve our ecological scorecards. If you wish you had a roadmap of simple, effective and realizable actions for sustainability, know that your call has been heard. Please read here:

Let's be informed consumers. Get into the habit of reading labels. Let's follow the content of what we consume and take responsibility for what we consume from a place that has access to the sources of the products. For example, let's prefer products with organic certification. If we are going to consume, let's make sure that our consumption supports the right producer.
Preferably not. If not, let's consume less. Let's not buy things we don't need and condemn ourselves to a lifestyle that makes us happy by consuming and spreads by accumulating. Let's reintroduce words such as repair, renovation, repair, patch into our jargon so that we can position ourselves somewhere other than disposable, broken, torn. Then let's take a deep breath and think: Let's question what we can do with a product other than throwing it away, can we reuse it in another field with a different use.
Let us adopt the habit of local consumption. As the world has become a global village, let's try to resist the spell of the feeling that everything is always at hand with a single click. Let's listen to the voice that says let's buy x, y, z cheaply from distant lands, let's cheer up our coordinate world, and let's listen to the call for support from local producers. Let's choose to consume locally as much as we can so that we can do our part for zero emissions. Because let's foresee that every product we buy has an environmental footprint, that it goes through many processes until it arrives at our home ready for our use, that it creates an emission at every stage from packaging to transportation, from production to consumption.
While we have internalized consuming locally, let's crown our stance by consuming vegetables and fruits in season as much as possible. Let's not try to consume products that are not available in our region. In other words, let's not eat cherries in the winter or chase after antin kuntin products that do not end in these lands.
Let's be aware of the carbon emissions of the food we eat. Thus, let's give ourselves the chance to reduce our personal carbon footprint with small actions such as minimizing some foods in our diet, avoiding others, and making more room for others. While doing so, let's not hesitate to exercise our right to boycott certain products. Let's know that we can eat and survive without depleting the extinction of other species.
If tap water meets the required hygiene standards, we should prefer to drink tap water. Avoid drinking water from disposable bottles or carboys. Let's act with the awareness that the disposable logic creates a waste burden and that the best thing is not to recycle waste, but not to create it. Let us remember that recycling is a process that does not happen with a magic wand, but consumes energy.
Reduce our consumption of all kinds of plastic. To avoid using plastic bags after shopping, we should carry bags suitable for reuse. Let's not deceive ourselves by saying that this bag is biodegradable. Let's not forget that what we think of as dissolution is the separation into micro particles, and that plastic particles remain on the surface of the soil, only changing the format. Let's not be surprised that when we sift the soil, we are left with minerals and plenty of plastic. Let's realize that we don't have time to waste being surprised on a planet where a plastic bag needs 1000 years to completely disappear and a plastic bottle needs 400 years. Let's take direct action and treat nature better by minimizing our plastic use.
Plastic is not only a material that enters our lives in the form of bags. Let's pay attention to the use of plastics in our homes and accept that we don't need other plastics because we have bought these products into our lives, and that we have exhausted our world plastic credit. Let's take one last look at plastic cups, the biggest culprit of our plastic use outside the home, and say goodbye to them. For drinks, we should carry flasks and thermoses made of environmentally friendly materials suitable for multiple use. Instead of using a straw, let's drink directly from a glass cup and not put an intermediary between us and our drink. Just our lips, the glass and us, let's know that when plastic gets in the way, nature loses its power.
Let's cook more at home, prepare and consume as much as we can. Let's not throw our responsibility away with the myth that waste is only a problem caused by factories. Let's recognize that as food decomposes in landfills, it releases methane into the environment, which is written on our personal emission register, and act on the solution.
Let's turn “inevitable waste” into inevitable beauty by turning appropriate waste into compost fertilizer. As a small gesture in return for what we take from the earth, let's bury our homemade organic fertilizers in the proper way.
Let's not pollute nature while cleaning our homes, let's meet our basic hygiene needs with clean, environmentally friendly products. Let's accept that our real home is nature.
Let's choose cosmetics with clean ingredients and ethical products. Let's not uglify nature while we beautify ourselves.
Use public transportation as much as possible. Each vehicle on the road means extra carbon emissions. For this reason, let's make vehicles such as subways, ferries, buses and trams indispensable in our travel processes. Let's see the emission reduction we make by choosing public transportation, but let's not be satisfied, let's increase it. Let's embrace alternatives such as bicycling and walking to protect our health and nature at the same time. Let's not consider the airplane as a public transportation vehicle suitable for use in this whole cycle. Remembering that a flight means multiple and intense greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, unburned hydrocarbons, particulate matter and soot) are released into the air, let's check if we can create lower emission travel alternatives and thus only take flights when necessary. If we can't do without cars, let's consider electric vehicles rather than fossil fuel guzzlers.
If we have a suitable land or area, let's do agriculture, even on a small scale; let's grow our own vegetables and fruits according to organic procedures. Make sure that the products we grow are suitable for the season and conditions. Connect with local and boutique producers, support them by buying from them, but also benefit from their experience and direct our own production activities in the right way.
Knowing that the digital world has a carbon footprint, let's account for the time we spend online.
Let's examine the “disposable” products we use in our homes and try to replace them with alternatives that are compatible with nature. For example, let's replace paper towels with terrycloth towels, and revise plastic covering materials such as cling film with glass storage containers.
Let's not smoke. Let's realize that beyond the damage we cause to our bodies, we are also causing serious damage to the planet. Keeping in mind that a cigarette butt creates a waste load that needs 10 to 15 years to decompose, let's also imagine the test of the harmful chemicals it contains with the soil. If we cannot see ourselves at a point where we can quit smoking, let us take responsibility for our cigarette butts. Let's show our respect to nature by not abandoning them to nature.
Let's do all the greening work we can do personally without delay. Let us plant flowers in our homes and trees in our gardens. Let's support tree planting activities to the extent of our means. Let's love green 5-10-15 times more, knowing that conscious vegetation works act as carbon sequestering and act as a shield against greenhouse gases released into nature by human hands.
Emel Guner / 30.11.2022

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