One of the many things which fascinate me about the world is its diversity. We have billions (probably even trillions) of possibilities to shape our way of life. We can decide to move to another country, we have the chance to choose our diet, we have many options to shape our education, we can decide to start a career in a field we are most interested in, or we can start our own business and bring value into the world with our work… the list goes on and on … and on. We will always encounter some barriers, misfortunes or inner blockages. But we have the power to turn the wheel around and change direction. So, I want to show you a way to do it in a sustainable way: with the Rs of sustainability.

No one else is able to make the decisions which are best for us. That’s why it’s so important that you are aware of what you really need and what brings you the most joy. I’ve been through a lot of ups and downs in my currently short lifespan (like the majority of people), and there were a lot of days where I thought nothing made sense. I was waiting for the outside world to give me a sign, but I got tired of wasting my time waiting for the right moment, a supernatural sign or someone to push me. When I started to take my fate into my own hands, information I needed came flying towards me and continuously supporting me in my endeavours. 

Be ready for a simple way of implementing sustainability in your everyday life

What does this sentimental introduction have to do with you? You will soon get an inspirational boost from me to support you in making more sustainable choices at home, at work and wherever you are. It is a way to not only act more sustainably but also use words which benefit your mindset in implementing sustainability in everything you do.

Related:

Sustainability Mindset – A Mindset For A Better World

When looking for information relating to sustainability you might have stumbled upon the R principles, also referred to as the Rs of sustainability or the Rs of sustainable living. If you’re not familiar with the R principles, here are the three universally used ones:

Words which begin with RE are very important when it comes to achieving sustainability goals. They indicate that something needs to go back into a cycle, something needs to change or something needs to be looked at from a different angle. The grammar enthusiasts will know that RE is a prefix derived from the Latin language and is used with the meaning “again” or “again and again” to highlight repetitive actions. It can also mean “back” or “backward” to show withdrawal or a backward motion.

I have always found words very fascinating because they can be used in endless combinations to achieve what we want or to reflect how we feel. Storytelling for example is a very powerful tool to reach the masses, marketing specialists can probably sing many songs about it. However, I see the importance of a positive narrative for sustainability implementation as a crucial step to move the masses and achieve what we urgently need to achieve: bringing our Earth systems back into balance and becoming a part of its system again.

Related:

The Power of Words: Why We Should Change The Way We Talk About Sustainability

How can you apply the easy principles of the Rs of sustainability?

So how are we going to use words with the prefix RE to change the world? Easy – we live by the principles I’m going to introduce to you. In the following table I tried to organise all the collected RE words into my three blog categories: concept, mindset and action. The reason I did this is to support different kinds of approaches of making more sustainable decisions based on the situation you’re in now. Some meanings may be more important to you than to others, or easier to implement. I also just like playing around with words to express myself more precisely. It is boring to always read the same stuff and we need more inspiration if we want to become better storytellers.

The cool thing about Sustainability is that it depends on where you are in your thinking, what your geographical location is and in what cultural setting you want to implement sustainable strategies. We don’t only need more natural diversity but we also need more cultural and linguistic diversity to express our true self and sustainable ambitions.

We’re quickly circling back to the research I did on the Rs of Sustainability, and what I discovered was that many articles focused on a different amount of R-words. Articles contained from 3  to 14 Rs of sustainability (very ambitious). The 3 Rs of Sustainability are the most prevalent ones and are where most writers (probably unintentionally) agree: Reduce, reuse and recycle.

The more Rs included the higher the diversity of combinations, but mostly they didn’t differ too much from each other. I prepared another table with different combinations of the Rs of sustainability for you to browse around and form your own opinion:

You have the choice to become sustainable – but on your terms

There are many ways in which to group them and I asked myself, can’t we choose the combination ourselves? Sure we can! You can choose whichever RE word best suits your situation and as many RE words as you want. We can use our own set of R sustainability principles to support our contribution to sustainable development. How often did you come across someone’s advice to live more sustainably but it just did not resonate with you? It doesn’t always have to be spot-on advice as we all have different structures in our lives. Something that works for one person doesn’t need to work for a different person.

However, building your own foundation to achieve more sustainability outcomes can be very helpful. You will be able to find the right information more quickly and implement it into your daily life and decisions.

Thus I created a template for you, to personalise your R’s of sustainability and demonstrate how to use them. You will receive the template for free when you sign up for my newsletter by clicking on the picture below or here.

Once you have mastered your chosen Rs, you can decide whether or not to add more Rs to your list. The beauty is that this is a continuous process that supports you to develop habits which not only help you become more sustainable, but are also good for the planet and your professional life.

Implementing sustainable practices is not complicated

You will be able to create R’s of Sustainability which work well with your current lifestyle, but why stop here? You can implement the R principles in the business world. A lot of businesses will benefit from making their processes more sustainable. Every industry will have their own special R-list that will support them to contribute more effectively to a sustainable transition.

Applying basic Sustainability principles may even have a bigger impact than investing in new and expensive technology (this does not apply to industries which have a highly damaging impact and where clean technologies need to be applied). The principles support you in REthinking the current state of things and making it easier to REact to what you find. I hope that I was able to show you that Sustainability doesn’t need to be complicated and that it can be achieved easily with the right tools.

Complication is the death of anything new and exciting, thus I’m here for you to make your life not only easier but simultaneously more sustainable.