at 17 i fell in love with traveling and seeing the world i found such beauty in small things
like spring flowers and the views from a great hike at 18 i got a tattoo of the world
as a reminder of how fragile our planet is just like the skin my tattoo lives on now we're 21
i'm trying to make a big change on a personal level so i can see little changes around me
being sustainable nowadays is so confusing because so many companies are abusing the word and making
us believe that by putting a simple label on our clothes that they are actually making a difference
politicians are constantly pushing back climate goals but we can't keep blaming
the problem on others here is what we can do now to take the world into our own hands
okay i have to start this video with a disclaimer because i don't want to spend a video talking
about sustainability without being transparent myself and showing i'm not a role model for
sustainability and there are many things that i'm currently doing they're not technically
lowering my carbon footprint furthermore by being transparent and showing you the ways that i'm not
sustainable i hope that i do not come across as though i am shaming anyone for any of the things
i'm about to mention this is just for educational purposes and hopefully i can bring some intriguing
points for you guys and maybe encourage some people to think more about the carbon footprint
did you know that fashion accounts for around 10 of our greenhouse gas emissions that is a lot and
i think this is one of the most easily changeable problems on a personal level when i think about
lowering your carbon footprint in fashion my first thing that comes to mind is buy less
buy better quality and take care of what you have because especially my generation we have abused
the fashion industry we have abused the workers we are consuming clothes faster than ever when
we go back so many years fashion used to have two seasons and that was it and now clothes are coming
out every single day and we're wearing them once maybe twice i don't know whether this is the blame
from the people and the way we discuss fashion and how everything has to be new and exciting or maybe
it's on more of a personal level in regards to fitting in and wanting to be cool and trendy
and again i love those things but in my opinion we just cannot keep living like this the best clothes
you can buy is none the second best clothes you can buy is vintage secondhand giving hoes a new
life and afterwards the route that i tend to take more is buying clothes that are made from organic
cotton or products that are good quality and are going to last me for the ages and are not
fashionable i think that's something that i've really changed over the past six to eight months
is i've not been buying fashionable pieces my wardrobe now mainly consists of black colors
black pieces things that should not go out of fashion in the next two years i want to buy
pieces that are reliable for me throughout time another big problem in fashion is the way we treat
our clothes i really think that we need to stop treating fashion like it should be cheap it should
be cheap that we buy this dress that took hours and hours to be created and then days and days to
be sent to us we've got to the point now where clothing is cheaper than going out for lunch
you can buy a top from certain stores that is cheaper than a meal a restaurant and that to me
is crazy how can we stop being a part of this problem first of all i think we need to start
buying second hand more and buying less and being comfortable with maybe not being the
most fashionable person in the room but instead having clothes of good quality and clothes that
will last us it's a mindset that we don't need to follow every micro trend just because someone we
saw someone on tick tock with it i personally like to avoid brands that have continuous new clothes
coming out because i can only begin to imagine the amount of bedstock that they have at the end
of the week when they bring in new clothes another thing i do is i tend to look companies up on this
website called good on you where they can give you some more educated opinions on whether a brand is
lower impact than others another thing i look out for is b corporations or global organic textile
standard these are little certificates that are legit not made up by the companies and they can
show that the company is actually trying to do something to improve its greenhouse gas emissions
now during the past six months where i've been trying to really change my views on fashion
and improve the way that i'm buying clothes and decreasing them when i'm buying clothes i found
a company called ask it which is a stockholm based company and for me this is a brand that i can just
fully support with all my might because it's a small company that is doing your best in reducing
the impact they have on the earth and changing the way that we view fashion and at the same
time give us good quality clothes that we can rely on i actually reached out to ask it back
in january because i was so amazed by the company and i wanted to try out some of the clothes here's
what they sent me the white t-shirt 100 organic cotton and 100 transparency and the fact that
this t-shirt had on the environment also they sent me the standard jeans where i was able to pick not
only my waist size and length but also if i want a curvier fit or a straighter fit and they also sent
me the recycled cashmere sweater which is what i'm wearing in this video right now another reason i
truly support asget is because they have programs like the revival program and the repair program
and the care program so you know how to care for your clothes how to repair them if a button gets
lost over time and also when you cannot use the item anymore it's really the end of its life cycle
here you can send it back to them and they will find a better way to deal with it than you perhaps
just throwing it in the bin you know maybe you can do your part and every time you want to buy
a piece of clothing you can either wait a month and check if you still need this piece of clothing
or you can instead invest it a better quality product that will last you longer than a year
okay next up we have transport and transport as i mentioned in the beginning is something that i
personally need to work on and so it's been really fun researching this for the purpose of the video
obviously the most eco way to travel is by fee and since i started my new job here i've been working
two hours a day so that i don't even take public transport let alone a car or more detrimental
forms of transport and not only is this great for my house but i know that i'm lowering my carbon
emissions even just a little bit each day actually the best form of public transport is train travel
that's why i'm such a big fan of interval i've already interviewed twice i'm going into it again
this summer because as someone who loves to travel i want to do so a little bit more guilt-free and
instead of taking all these ryanair flights i can do a wider travel i can see more cities in a
more eco-friendly manner another thing is perhaps you're going to work and it's just you in the car
maybe you can ask a colleague that lives in the same town as you if they need to live and that way
instead of using two cars using one so you're already halfing the carbon emissions just by
cartering with one other person public transport is not only the cheapest form of transport after
just using your feet and walking but it's really good for the environment where possible
i would always recommend that when you can get public transport maybe try and avoid using a
taxi service and i know all of these things are easier said than done as someone who lived in
country town public transport is not necessarily always the easiest
to find but if you can maybe try and make that change i actually got rid of my car in 2019
i believe and it's crazy how much i've been able to rely on public transport since then whereas
in the past i had the mindset oh it's just easier with my car or it's like right out the door or all
the public transport so bad you know just making excuses because i didn't want to go on a bus
and the third major thing i want to talk about today in ways the in problems with sustainability
and how we can make the changes ourselves is food okay something that i think we all can make the
change we just have to spend five more minutes whilst writing and shopping this is reducing
your food waste did you know that around the world 30 of the food we buy goes straight to waste and
i'm not talking about any of the food waste that occurs before it makes it to the supermarket i'm
talking about the money you're spending on food is going straight in the bin i've noticed that since
i made a shopping list once the week where i've written however ingredient i need i've lowered
my food waste immensely compared to going okay this week i'm gonna buy some chicken some potatoes
some veggies i make sure that i know okay normally in a pasta i use half pepper so if i'm doing one
one pasta here and another day with peppers on the side i need one pepper this week and
buying the food that i need rather than picking up those packs of free peppers
i know i'm not going to use for me the thing that bugs me the most is single-use plastics
in food in valencia the tap water is technically drinkable by standard but maybe not the best water
so when i arrived i bought a water filter so i can use the tap water get rid of all the toxic
stuff in there instead of buying a liter plastic water bottle every single day think about how much
single plastic you're using just from drinking water it's crazy another one which i know
is easier said than done is switching to a plant-based diet i've actually tried on and off
since september a vegan diet and i mean i felt healthier i know i know we're not talking about
it on the health standard but i've actually felt healthier and knowing that i'm reducing my carbon
emissions just by the food i'm consuming feels great i think a more realistic change you could
make here is just by cutting out the amount of meat maybe you eat meat for lunch and dinner you
could cut it down to just dinner you can really see the changes you're making you know if you're
halfing the meat that you use in a week you know you're having the carbon emissions of the meat now
lastly i just wanted to finish this video off by talking about a huge problem with sustainability
which is green washing so green washing is when companies use little marketing tactics to make
you believe that their brand is sustainable without necessarily doing anything to prove
it that could be having an advert with lots of the color green which we tend to relate to the
redistribution recycle program or a company saying we care about the environment without showing you
how they care about the environment it's really worth making the time and effort to look into
these companies that are acting like they're highly sustainable and they are the people
that are fighting against climate change because a lot of these companies are just outlining to us or
hiding the truth start supporting companies that are giving you full transparency that are using
renewable materials less toxic materials companies with revival repair programs like ascet and maybe
even just ask yourself the question do i need this other dress or can i use a dress i already have
i'm actually going to link down some companies below that will help you educate yourself a little
bit more and there's a really cool website i want to mention which is the wwf footprint calculator
i remember using this a couple years ago and it shocked me to see the footprint that i personally
leave you know little changes can make a big difference and everyone says they care about
climate change but we don't necessarily show it with our actions so maybe one thing that you can
do whether that's stop buying fast fashion whether it's using public transport or car sharing or even
switching to plant-based diet the little changes will add up and it feels good to help okay i know
this video was a little different from usual it was so much fun to prep and film and to also make
myself more aware of these problems so i hope you enjoyed if you did here are two more videos
i think you would like and if not that's okay i hope you have a lovely day and bye bye you