0

Comments

Sustainable living is the new drift in lifestyle choices that involve an individual’s relationship to Mother Nature and all the natural resources such an individual uses. Even though sustainable living will bear different definitions for each of its supporters, the basic idea of sustainable living is leading a life that will not interfere with natural resources so that the future generations will also benefit from the same.

To accomplish this goal, sustainability education creates awareness among the communities that among other things, people should not demand to use up more resources than what is available. Further, people are encouraged to create a positive impact on the natural resources by helping in the process of replenishing the depleting ones. If natural resources are not overused, they will have an opportunity to replenish themselves naturally.

Adherents of sustainable living normally refer to an individual’s ‘environmental footprint’ as the impact that an individual’s lifestyle has on earth. One of the major precepts of sustainable living is reducing an individual’s environmental footprint. Sustainability education ensures people are well informed of the different ways in which they can reduce their environmental footprint such as through change of ways in which they consume energy, changing transportation ways, and changing lifestyle and diet.

Some of the ways that sustainability education advocates for is using public transportation, practicing sustainable farming, driving a vehicle that has a good gas mileage, showering in place of taking a bath, carrying with you a cloth bag to the supermarket or grocery store instead of using plastic or paper among other ways.

Strong supporters of sustainable living lower the environmental footprint through permaculture – a sustainable living practice which is more of a principled design system. There are three core principles of permaculture, top among them caring for the earth to avoid damaging or disrupting nature. Secondly, the ability to create a sustainable community by sustaining the needs of people without causing any damage to the Earth and lastly by accepting that every person on earth has to reduce the consumption or use of natural resources in relation to the growth population with the major aim of creating a sustainable community for both the present and future generations to come.

When effecting sustainable living through embracing a permaculture system, there are 7 major tenets that ought to be followed strictly to ensure that the ethical core is upheld.

-         Conservation — this calls for using only the needed resources

-         Reciprocity — using what a system produces (the output) to satisfy the needs of other core areas of the system

-         Repeating functions– satisfying a particular need is as many different ways as you possibly can

-         Stacking functions — utilizing a single resource or thing to satisfy different needs

-         Diversity — making use of different elements in a system in order to create pliability

-         Appropriate scale — manufacturing things at a scale that is OK to use with the aim of causing very little disruption to nature.

-         Sharing the excess — giving away any excess in your system to help other people create a sustainable community