The Sustainable Startup Lifestyle Myth: Cheaper, Safer, Healthier

Just 10% of the population creates half of the emissions. Cars, meat, clothes, garbage, and travel are killing us today. Limiting your consumption is profitable, useful, and not tricky. I share the UN recommendations and personal experience, allowing you to save thousands of dollars each month.

The ecological disaster cannot be prevented by technology, says Daniel R. Brooks, professor emeritus of evolutionary biology at the University of Toronto. The only solution is to change the behavior of people. And either we do this now, or humanity is doomed.

It is about us 

According to a report by the Club of Rome, the world’s richest 10% of households are responsible for 45% of total emissions, 800 million people continue to starve, while 2 billion are overweight. Moving to cities, people start consuming four times more resources. 

Currently, an annual income of $20,000 is enough to be at the top 10% of the highest-earning people in the world. According to the World Health Organization, an overweight person with an average height of 170 centimeters starts from 72 kilograms (according to the formula for calculating body mass index). More than two-thirds of adults in the US are overweight or have obesity, and 83% of the US population lives in cities.

That means that it is exactly me and you who are the main cause of environmental pollution, consuming more than we really need.

How can we change status quo

Below I summarized the UN recommendations to citizens in “Act Now!” campaign.

Transport: Transport accounts for 27% of the world’s total energy consumption. So, walk, and cycle whenever it’s possible – it will also contribute to improving your health.

I’ll add local vacations. Traveling by plane from Seattle to Miami will produce 1.6 tons of carbon dioxide per 1 passenger (that’s exactly the maximum overall allowable emissions per person per year to prevent an environmental catastrophe), which is equivalent to 6.6 trips around the world on an electric train.

Nutrition

1. Minimize the amount of meat in your diet. It takes an average of 1 695 liters of water to make one burger, almost double what a person drinks in a year. The meat industry is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than the world’s largest oil companies. Meat production is also a major driver of deforestation.
2. Buy only as much food as you really need. According to statistics – 33% of food is thrown away.
3. Consume mainly local seasonal products. They are tastier and more environmentally friendly.
4. Choose self-cooking or ordering ready-made food with eco-packaging. Food delivery, as a rule, is accompanied by the distribution of a large amount of plastic and composite hard-to-recycle packaging.
5. Use your own bag/pack when purchasing. Up to 5 trillion single-use plastic bags are used every year. In addition to polluting the ocean and the environment, plastic bags can contribute to the spread of diseases such as malaria by clogging sewer systems.
6. Use reusable containers. Every minute, 1 million plastic bottles are bought and thrown away, in addition to more than 300 million tons of plastic waste annually that pollute our environment. And, of course, you can ask to pour your coffee into your own cup in Starbucks.

Other

1. Minimize the purchase of new clothes. The fashion industry is the world’s second-largest consumer of water (20% of global consumption), it contributes globally 10% of greenhouse gasses. It takes 10,000 liters of water to make one pair of jeans, which is equivalent to the amount of water a person drinks in 10 years. Clothing “consumes” more energy than aviation and shipbuilding combined. 85% of the clothing produced is thrown into landfills or incinerated, although it could be completely reused. I will add: clothes can be given/sold to second-hand, commission shops or charitable foundations.
2. Take a 5-minute shower. Water scarcity is already affecting 4 out of 10 people. Moreover, 80% of wastewater is never treated.
3. Unplug power adapters/plugs from outlets. The lower the energy consumption, the less it needs to be produced.
4. Turn off lights in unused rooms. When you turn off the light even for a few seconds, more energy is saved than it takes to turn it on, regardless of the type of the light bulb. 
5. Perform separate waste collection. Most plastic (about 80%) never completely decomposes; plastic items shrink until they are swallowed by fish or animals.
6. Take part in initiatives such as “Act Now” and other volunteer projects (cooking eco- food, making clothes from existing ones.
   Additionally, I recommend:

1. Invest in sustainable assets. The same aforementioned Club of Rome report states that 98% of financial transactions are speculative. There is an overabundance of capital in fictitious areas, while the areas on which the future of the planet depends are experiencing a shortage of funds. Today in the US there is already a significant number of sustainable financial instruments.
2. Compensate your carbon footprint (only if it is impossible to reduce it). There is already a number of tools you can use to calculate your GHG emissions and offset them. Bloomberg believes that the fair price of compensation for 1 ton of carbon dioxide equivalent should be about $150.

Personal experience: what did I do, and how much did I save?

1. Sold my car 8 years ago, rented a small apartment 10 minutes walk from the office, and occasionally used the subway or taxi. Savings: 3 hours a day + $600 per month
2. I began to eat a third less (at the same time – 3 times less meat). Savings: $400 per month. Lost 10 kg of weight and increased productivity.
3. Stopped traveling for just leisure. Savings: transfer time + $400 per month. 
4. Gave up going to restaurants. Savings: time for transport + $200 per month.
5. Stopped buying new stuff. For example, I still wear jeans that are 15 years old, and a school tracksuit. I reduced my wardrobe to one suitcase. Everything else, including all paper books, was donated to charity. I have been using the same laptop and smartphone for 8 years. Savings: time to buy + space in the apartment + $200 per month
6. Replaced gym pass with other activities. I work out at home without any equipment. Savings: 1 hour per day + space in the apartment + $100 per month.
7. Switched to full remote work 3 years ago (both work and communication with friends). Savings: 1 hour per day + $100 per month. Decreased sick days from 36 per year to 0 and increased productivity.
8. Transferred all investments to sustainable assets.
9. Began to compensate for my historically accumulated carbon footprint by about 50 tons per year. 

So, in total, every day I save about 5 hours, and also every month about $2,000. What do I spend the saved time and money on? Healthy sleep, daily workouts, medical checkups, volunteering and charity, investing in sustainable assets, increasing income, reading books, and blogging.

Well, of course, this way, I’ve reduced my carbon footprint from about 10 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year to about 1.6 tons (just to the maximum allowable level for every inhabitant of the Earth, necessary to prevent an ecological catastrophe).