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3. A few NARDIS ideas
NARDIS as a guiding principle helps to come up with new ecological, economic and social ideas.
Here are a few NARDIS ideas for inspiration: • #1_in_7 and the community garden 2.0 ➔ two ecological NARDIS ideas • The new company ➔ an economic NARDIS idea • The sustainable jam ➔ a social NARDIS idea
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Ecological NARDIS ideas
We all need to become more ecological: recycle more, eat less or no meat, consume less...
All good ideas. But to have a real impact, we need to combine our efforts.
Changing your behaviour as an individual and becoming more ecological is good. Setting up an ecological initiative together is better! Two such ecological NARDIS ideas are #1_in_7 and the community garden 2.0.
#1_in_7__________________________
A smart way to reduce your carbon footprint is to switch to a plantbased diet. This offers many advantages:
• It is better for the environment (less CO2 emissions) • It is better for the animals (less animal suffering) • It is better (healthier) for us, humans While these are all good arguments, making the shift is still quite difficult for many of us. And so we just carry on as before.
The step to give up meat altogether can seem quite daunting: it turns the way you cook and select restaurants upside down. For vegetarians, switching to veganism is also a big step: no more cheese, dairy products or eggs may sound a little less drastic, but when put to the test, you notice how many products contain animal ingredients. That pizza without mozzarella does taste different.
Switching to a vegetarian or vegan diet therefore requires some adjustment.
The all-or-nothing problem
The problem with vegetarianism or veganism? The choice is presented in a black and white manner: vegetarians never eat meat and vegans never eat anything from animals.
But that debate is too binary: it is an all-or-nothing story. You either eat like this or that and there is little room in between. There seem to be few part-time vegetarians or vegans. The result? When it is all or nothing, many of us choose nothing.
With #1_in_7, you move towards a partially vegetarian or vegan diet along with others. Taking the step together, makes it all more doable.
The reasoning behind #1_in_7 is very simple: if seven people eat vegetarian or vegan one day a week, that makes one extra vegetarian or vegan. It's a smart option for those who want to reduce their carbon footprint without immediately becoming 100% vegetarian or vegan.
This is the #1_in_7 challenge:
• 7 meat-eaters who eat vegetarian 1 day a week = 1 extra
vegetarian
• 7 vegetarians who eat vegan 1 day a week = 1 extra vegan
Step by Step
With #1_in_7 we take a slightly smaller step towards a more plantbased diet, without immediately kicking our habits "cold turkey". Instead of becoming a 100% vegetarian or vegan straight away, you become one for one day a week. If you do this together with six other people, then there’s one extra vegetarian or vegan! It's as simple as that.
Participants of #1_in_7 become more sustainable together, which makes it easier to keep up. After all, you are not alone. You’re doing this together.
If you like your new diet, you might after a while decide to switch to #2_op_7. Who knows, maybe you will gradually become a part-time vegetarian or vegan? There’s also a good chance that your partner or children will join in as well, thereby increasing the impact on sustainability for your whole family.
Easily feasible
Becoming a full-time vegetarian or vegan is quite a big step for many, but eating vegetarian or vegan one day in seven is feasible for just about everyone. It's a quick, easy and tasty way to help reduce your ecological “foodprint”.
What you need to make #1_in_7 a success:
• Find six friends, colleagues or family members who along with you will take on the challenge of eating vegetarian or vegan one day a week. • Encourage each other - online and through social media - to keep going. • Share recipes within the group for extra inspiration on cooking your next vegetarian or vegan meal. Why not set up a monthly "let’s cook together (online) session”? • You choose which day of the week will be your #1_in_7 day. Is today less convenient? Then just go for it tomorrow. • Increase the impact of #1_in_7 by involving your household family members.
Bon appétit!
The community garden 2.0_______
The community garden 2.0 is an ecological NARDIS idea that transfers the age-old concept of the community garden or allotment garden to today. With the community garden 2.0, a group of neighbours comes together around a jointly grown organic vegetable garden. The “jointly” part is also its main novelty: initially, most community gardens consisted of a series of individual allotments. The community garden 2.0, however, consists of one large garden that is cultivated together, as a group. Growing organic vegetables in our own neighbourhood is a good additional step to further reduce our ecological footprint.
Some principles to consider: • The community garden 2.0 is an organic vegetable garden: pesticides are banned and only natural fertilizers are used. To prevent pests and depletion of the soil, different varieties can be changed regularly. • Working the land is best done manually as much as possible.
Apart from setting the garden straight mechanically once or twice a year, machines are kept away as much as possible to preserve the ecological character of the community garden 2.0. • The community garden brings both experienced and new-born gardeners together with the newbies getting the hang of it thanks to the more experienced gardeners.
• Obviously, the community garden 2.0 is also managed direct democratically: the gardeners determine together what should be sown and grown in what quantities and how to best organize the division of tasks.
Admittedly, growing organic vegetables in our own neighbourhood will not meet all our nutritional needs. But it is a good additional step towards further reducing our ecological footprint.
A garden for everyone
Just about everyone can participate in a community garden 2.0: starting and maintaining a vegetable garden is feasible for most of us. What you will need: • Time: an investment of two hours per week per person will get you a long way. • Garden equipment: many people already have some gardening materials like spades lying around that can easily be brought along when work at the community garden 2.0 needs to be done. • Expertise and knowledge: how much you should plant of what, when and how; how to best maintain the garden organically; when and how to harvest... information on this and more can be found online and in all kinds of books. Although, the human expertise of the more experienced gardeners will most likely be even more crucial for success.
Socially and economically sustainable
Every gardener knows that each season has its peak moments: harvesting periods often lead to a yield that exceeds demand. At such moments, the community gardeners 2.0 can decide what to do with that surplus. Part of it could be donated to charities (such as a public kitchen or local poverty network) or offered to those neighbours who can no longer actively participate in the garden, because of old age for example. The community garden 2.0 thus becomes additionally socially sustainable. Or why not sell some of it on the weekly market? With the proceeds, new seeds or garden equipment can be purchased. By deciding to sell the vegetables at current market prices, unfair competition towards small businesses and market vendors can be avoided. As such, the community garden 2.0 becomes economically sustainable as well.
A garden for just about anywhere
A community garden 2.0 can be set up just about everywhere: in an urban as well as a rural environment. Wherever there’s a piece of cultivatable land available that can be rented (for free or little money), a community garden 2.0 can be set up. As such, a community garden 2.0 can provide local, organic seasonal vegetables, all year round which the participating families can use for cooking. Since the community garden 2.0 is always local, getting there can be happen on foot or by bike, which also helps to further reduce emissions.
Of course, one or even many community gardens 2.0 will not stop global warming. But it does put us to work for a few hours a week in an ecologically and socially sustainable manner. The time that we spend in the garden is time that we do not spend on other, less sustainable activities. When many of us do this, we will again reduce our footprint somewhat further.
Velt, the Association for Ecological Living and Gardening in Belgium, supports various so-called together gardens (“samentuin” in Dutch). The name says it all: it is a vegetable garden people cultivate together. A real community garden 2.0 avant la lettre. You can find more information on velt.be/samentuinen.
What will be your new, ecological NARDIS-idea?
#1_in_7 and the community garden 2.0 are just two new, ecological NARDIS ideas. For sure there are many more we can come up with: • Why not set up a joint shopping service? Instead of everyone driving to the supermarket separately, we could set up a rotation system. As such, we reduce our mileage and at the same time, there is an opportunity for additional social contact every time groceries are dropped off. • A “tonight-it’s-our-turn-to-cook” initiative. Fewer people are cooking and more people are relying on takeaway meals. But what if you and a group of neighbours or friends would arrange one or a few nights a week to cook in turns for each other?
• Why not set up a repair shop? It is absurd how quickly and easily we throw things out. Perhaps combine this with a monthly barter café?
• What about a lending service in your neighbourhood for (electronic) garden and other do-it-yourself equipment? • Is setting up a network of insect hotels throughout the city or your neighbourhood a good idea to help the stifling bee populations? • What about a “plant-a-tree” initiative somewhere in your community? Add up all these (and many more) ideas, and that drop on a hot plate can grow to become a puddle. So what about you? Are you already thinking about a good location for your local community garden 2.0? Who do you think would be willing to partake in #1_in_7? Or do you rather come up with your own, new, ecological NARDIS idea?
The new company________________
Within the new company - an economic NARDIS idea - sustainability is key with workers deciding direct democratically how to best run their enterprise.
A company without hierarchy
In the direct democratic company, there is no longer a boss or manager telling employees what to do or how to do it. The employees themselves determine how to best handle their activities, usually through a process of consultation and consensus. As such, every employee is on an equal footing as there are no more hierarchical differences.
The basic principle of is this: all workers can take part in those decision-making processes that impact them, ranging from deciding how to divide the work to determining the strategy or deciding what to invest in.
That does not mean that everyone should be involved in every decision. That, indeed, would not be workable. But it does mean that opportunities are created systematically to participate in the decisionmaking processes. Of course, employees with more expertise and experience in a certain domain can weigh more heavily on the discussion. But ultimately, workers decides how they want: in the decision-making process, everyone weighs equally. Being able to co-decide implies you’re well informed. Therefore, within the new company, information is not a privilege but a basic right of every employee: everyone has free access to financial, operational and other information.
Training and info sessions can be organized to make sure everyone is able to understand and interpret the information.
A sustainable company
The new company is ecologically sustainable: it aims to be completely carbon neutral. Employees continually strive to handle their activities as environmentally friendly as possible and the negative environmental impact that cannot be avoided is regularly calculated and compensated for, for example by investing in environmentally sustainable projects. The new company is also economically sustainable: it aims to develop business activities that create a fair added value to all involved. The focus is on all stakeholders, not just the shareholders. Profit maximization is no longer the highest goal that trumps everything else. At the same time, the new company also avoids structural losses, as that too would not be very sustainable. Lastly, the new company also aims to be socially sustainable: workers continually try to keep self-interest and group interest in balance. What’s good for the group and the company as a whole (a sustainable, longer-term policy) can thus be tied to what’s good for the individual (a rewarding job, a fair salary and profit sharing). The new company continuously strives for situations whereby the individual is better off if the group performs well, and vice versa. The new company can also externalize social sustainability: by investing part of the profits or part of the employees' time in socially sustainable initiatives outside the company walls. Think of supporting a local social initiative or another form of engagement within the local community.
Financial fair play
Ideally, the new company is a company without owner(s) or shareholders. It’s up to the employees to decide how the new company’s added value can be redistributed fairly and sustainably:
• Which part of the profit is to be reinvested in the company?
• Which part is distributed among employees (via a profit-sharing system)? • Which part is used to support (external) sustainable initiatives? That way, profits can no longer be alienated from the company. Because there is more transparency, also the large wage differences that sometimes occur in current companies can be avoided.
A financially healthy company
Finally, the new company also strives to be financially sound from the very start. Starting capital could come from the initiators, crowdfunding or a loan. The less investment is needed, the better. After all, external financing can lead to dependence and external pressure to place profit maximization above sustainability and direct democracy. Independence, also financially, offers the new company the best guarantee to remain faithful to its own principles.
A few ideas for new companies
• The new recycled company.
Much of what we already do today, could just as well be done within a new company. That is the idea behind the new recycled company: continue to do what we’re already doing today (and do well), but more sustainably and direct democratically. The wealth created from these activities can be distributed more fairly and we get more job satisfaction as well.
• Outsourcing existing activities.
What if you and your colleagues, as employees of a department or team, could outsource your current range of activities to yourselves? No longer as employees of the current company but as employees of a new company who now take on these tasks.
The cost for these employees would become an external cost. The employees continue to perform their activities but can now organize themselves direct democratically and sustainably. The current company can optimize its cost structure while the new company immediately has a steady flow of income that it can manage sustainably. A win-win situation. • The new consultancy company.
IT, marketing, sales, finance... there are a whole host of consultancy companies available for every conceivable activity.
Many of those activities could just as well be done by new consultancy companies that are run direct democratically and sustainably! • The new ecological supermarket.
Something completely different is the new ecological supermarket. No more disposables but only recyclable materials.
As such, we can all drastically reduce the enormous heaps of waste we create.
And what about the new day care centre, the new home nursing organization, the new parcel service, the new school, the new...
What will be your new, economic idea?
Imagine that you could still do what you do today, but then more sustainably and direct democratically? Wouldn't you sign up for that? Think about it? Which economic activity could you develop together with others within your own new company?
In other words, what will be your new economic NARDIS idea?
The sustainable jam______________
Since we are social beings by nature, the possibilities of coming up with social NARDIS ideas are enormous. One such idea is the sustainable jam: local musicians playing more or less spontaneously and unprepared to a local audience. By keeping everything local, travel is limited (which makes the idea environmentally sustainable) while people come together to enjoy the music together (which is socially sustainable). As soon as people spontaneously play together, you have a jam, so they probably have always existed. What is new about this jam is its sustainable and direct democratic nature: by keeping things local, travel is limited as much as possible while both musicians and audience are enabled to co-decide what is played.
An action plan
What you need to get a sustainable jam off the ground: • Action 1 = gather interested musicians.
Talk to a few fellow local musicians to get them to realize the idea along with you. Consider putting together a small, more permanent band of musicians: this can help assure there’s at least a minimum number of musicians present each time and it increases your chances of producing something musically which makes it all the more pleasant for the audience.
• Action 2 = find a place to play.
For sure there are some pubs in your area that are willing to welcome the jam. That’s also a good moment to decide on the timing and frequency of the jams. Maybe go for a monthly or bimonthly jam, depending on how big the musical pond is that you're
fishing from. Could a Sunday afternoon be a good time? Or does a busy Thursday evening sound better?
• Action 3 = further develop the idea.
Why not work with a theme per jam? That way, you take a close look at different repertoires while the musicians that join in are challenged time and again. You can also invite the audience to send in their suggestions of songs in advance.
• Action 4 = promote the idea
Actively promote the jams on social media, in all kinds of online groups and use word-of-mouth to reach as many local musicians as possible as well as a local audience. Put up some posters in the run-up to the jam. Why not make a suggested playlist available via one of the streaming platforms, together with some chord schemes. This enables the musicians to practice some songs in advance.
• Action 5 = let’s jam!
What will be your new social NARDIS idea?
The sustainable jam is a new cultural idea but there are undoubtedly many more social NARDIS ideas we can come up with. • Why not start a discussion group on the big questions of life?
Exchanging thoughts is an excellent way to test, strengthen or perhaps even adjust your own ideas. Do they hold their ground or do they start to shift in the discussion with others? • Can you turn a juicy story about your village or region into a comic or cartoon? Every region has some fascinating stories and salient figures that stir up our imagination. Why not record that for later
generations? Imagine this: an artistic and multidisciplinary project where residents with very different talents and from different age groups come together to make a stop-motion film using only recycled materials from their region... Or why not draw a comic book that connects past and present? • Portray the history of your village, region or area in a comic strip or cartoon. Why not make a stop-motion film using only recycled materials or a comic strip that connects the past with the present.
It can be the start of an artistic and multidisciplinary project in which residents with different talents work together. • How about launching a new women’s movement? • What about a new pathfinders or youth movement? One that puts ecological sustainability high on the agenda and is managed direct democratically by the young people themselves? • And what about the current social organizations that you are part of? How could you manage these in a more democratic and sustainable manner? Many local organizations have a limited number of members with everyone knowing everyone, which offers opportunities to continue the current social activity (whether it’s a sports club or local party committee or what have you) but then more sustainable and direct democratically. And... what will be your new social NARDIS idea?
