365 Sustainable Decisions Challenge

65 days into my 365 Clover Challenge: 
When I realize I do things that do more harm than good, I stop digging the hole I'm in to prevent it from becoming deeper. Instead I change my approach to get out. That's why I live sustainably and share how I do so: I feel we're in a deep hole and need to get out now.

When I take a shower, I make sure that I don’t fully open the tap to save water. When fully opening the tap, it feels that doing so causes an unnecessary amount of water to pour down the drain. And as I take warm showers, this also reduces the amount of energy that is needed to heat up the water.

64 days into my 365 Clover Challenge: 
Today, in #400, I shared the idea of moving tiny trees. In The Netherlands, a similar and I think brilliant initiative is expanded: volunteers will move seedlings from places where they can't become full-grown trees to more suitable spots, saving trees and money.

Next spring, I’m planning to grow some trees in my garden. When they are large enough, I can then move them to a suitable spot. (This year, I already did so with a tree that grew by accident; #357).

63 days into my 365 Clover Challenge: 
In the last few weeks, I had to pay extra attention to my priorities due to many tasks. The course I've been doing was on the top of my priority list during the last few days. However, this Sustainable Decisions Movement is too, that's why my posts kept coming. 

When I mow the grass in my garden, I usually leave the grass on the ground. This works great as natural fertilizer. Also, I minimize generating biodegradable waste that needs to be processed.

62 days into my 365 Clover Challenge: 
When I wanted to use my tripod this week, I realized that a plastic piece is broken. Luckily, I learned on 🌱Day 354 that I can fix plastic with super-glue and baking soda. I repaired it but because of the pressure it broke again. But yes, my final improvisation worked!

I don’t know whether this is the case in other countries as well, but in Germany, quite a lot of buildings, walls etc. are sprayed with graffiti. As it is not necessary to do so, and causes a lot of waste. Buildings, walls etc. can also left be left they are.

61 days into my 365 Clover Challenge: 
My flexibility this week has been worth it! And even though I sometimes go through phases that are not so comfortable during my course, I enjoy it! And I'm sure that what I learn will benefit our Sustainable Decisions Movement too.

As I promised yesterday, I found an even better way to brew my tea. I remembered that I have mint in my garden, so with fresh leaves, I can brew delicious tea. The good thing here is that I not only reduce waste, the tea also doesn’t have to travel the world to end up in my cup. This saves transportation costs, including fuel.

60 days into my 365 Clover Challenge: 
To me it's important to take action for our planet. Yesterday, I also took action by emptying my diary when I heard that I can do a course this week that replaces next week's course. Although it fills my diary from 9am-10pm for 4 days, I look forward to learning a lot!

219 days into my 365 Sustainable Decisions Challenge: 
To get rid of pain in a crisis, something has to change. But although there is pain, there also are costs related to change: uncertainty, judgments, effort, money. I believe that change is unlikely when the experienced costs are higher than the experienced pain. I also believe that in the climate crisis, we haven't reached the tipping point. So, for change to happen, the pain should increase or the cost decrease. The pain will increase when we continue like this (e.g. floods); with my Challenge, I contribute to reducing the cost.

This is not something I can do. But for those who do plan roads: a roundabout compared to a crossroad with traffic lights saves using electricity for the traffic lights and fuel due to a more fluent traffic flow.

59 days into my 365 Clover Challenge: 
During my this week's drawing course, I again realized how much I like constructive feedback. I drew the left mouse and got the tip that it looks better when the weight of the black line is not always the same. I changed this and wow, it looks so much better!

In #21, I promised to look for alternatives to tea bags. I found two. The first is to use a tea infuser, which is better because this tea is sold in one large bag and in some shops only the leaves. I herewith can definitely reduce the amount of waste. I’ll tell you about the second one tomorrow.

58 days into my 365 Clover Challenge: 
Some argue that we should panic about climate change. I believe it's important to see the urgency, however panicking would bring me in a emotional roller coaster ride. That's why I stay calm as much as I can and focus on making a difference.

When I used to buy detergent to clean the toilet, I didn’t pay attention to whether it is eco-friendly. From now on, I do to use as little chemicals as possible.

57 days into my 365 Clover Challenge: 
Every year, my energy company sends me a letter like this one to tell me how much electricity I used and how this is compared to other households. As I'm at home a lot due to home-office and now Corona, I'm pleased that I'm in the category "good".

I used to buy butter in a plastic cup as you can see on the left. I still use this cup, but fill it with another type of butter that comes in merely a wrapping. Yes, this is similar to the decision I made in #7, but importantly, in the hotel I couldn’t change their purchase anymore, but I can at home.

56 days into my 365 Clover Challenge: 
This week was an exciting week as you're now able to read the 365 Sustainable Decisions book, we reached 50.000 members in this movement and I am now self-employed so that I can continue my work for this movement. I celebrated this by dancing freestyle in my house.