5. Challenge assumptions – Many will needlessly return to doing
Ten Ways …
things just as they did before the pandemic struck. Without gaining a reputation for being difficult, why not gently challenge
to return to normal
the assumption that things need to be done in 2021 as they were in 2019? Challenging assumptions provokes debate and only when alternatives are considered, can lasting change be achieved.
By Robert Ashton
6. Embrace new technology – Right now I drive a diesel car. It’s The other day I rode on a park and ride bus into Norwich, my nearest
something I’ve done for more than 30 years, but my next car
city, to meet someone face to face to talk about how we could work
will be electric. I know that to start with, I will suffer from range
together over the coming months. Until March 2020 this was almost
anxiety, but equally I know that with a little planning, I will never
an everyday activity, as my life was filled with meetings, usually locally
find myself at the roadside with flat batteries. Who wants to be the
but sometimes in London or elsewhere in the UK.
last person left in the company car park with a diesel engine?
But as I sat on the bus that day, I realised that this was the first
7. Become a power generator – We’re told that the future will
time for more than a year I’d travelled to meet anyone. Like you I
see micro-grids, with electricity from thousands of roof-mounted
guess, I’ve become all too familiar with meeting people on Zoom and
PV panels and turbines meeting our future need for energy. PV
only leaving the house to ride my bike or visit the supermarket. It’s
panels have also plummeted in price over recent years, so it
no surprise then that according to the BBC, the International Energy
might cost a lot less than you realise to generate more of the
Agency is predicting a surge in CO2 emissions this year as ‘the world
power you use. 8. Buy locally – The pandemic saw local retailers, in particular
rebounds from the pandemic1.’ The challenge we all face, is how to enjoy a healthy economic
village shops, enjoy something of a boom as people travelled less
recovery, without further fuelling climate change, which I predict will
and shopped locally. I’m writing a book about how rural life has
dominate the headlines as the threat of Covid fades. Here are ten ways
changed over the past 150 years and been struck by how even
I’m going to try to balance a return to normal with consideration for my
small communities were virtually once self-sufficient. We’ve had
environmental impact:
the opportunity to rediscover trading locally. Let’s try buying from local people we know and can trust, not just on price alone.
1. Take small steps – Just as I felt oddly apprehensive about going to my first meeting for a year, so too am I apprehensive about
9. Upcycle – I’ve written before about the way one company’s
reducing my environmental impact. Common sense tells me that
waste can become another venture’s raw material. I’ve seen
to make dramatic change is not realistic, but if we all take small
social enterprises employing vulnerable people, who upcycle
steps, then the cumulative impact will be significant.
pallets into garden furniture and much more. People can be
2. Blend the old with the new – We all know that meeting someone
incredibly creative and inventive and often, grant income can
online is not quite the same as sitting in the same room, but
help them generate profit from what appear to be unprofitable
I will think before I set up a face to face meeting. I’ve been
activities. Be receptive and look around to see how others might
surprised at how much can be done, even with a large group,
usefully benefit from what to you is rubbish. 10. Make time for yourself – Like children with new toys, we all
via Zoom. Yes, I’ll be going out more, but only when I think it’s
face the very real danger of filling our diaries and trying to make
really necessary. 3. Think about my diet – The media find it all too easy to demonise
up for lost time now that we have been largely liberated from
cattle and nitrogen fertiliser for contributing to climate change. I
lockdown. We’ve all had time to form new habits and become
think there is also an argument that if we eat less meat, we will
accustomed to living life in a new way. It might be many years
prompt further deforestation in other parts of the world where
before we face another pandemic, so there’s no need to do
alternative proteins are grown. So yes, I will think about what
everything right now. As I said in my first point, let’s journey into
I eat and will have ready reasoned arguments to defend the
our futures one short step at a time. Another consequence of the last year’s disruption has, I’m told,
choices I make. We must not blindly accept all that we read in the papers!
been that many people of my generation have chosen to call it a day
4. Set realistic goals – I spent the first ten years of my career
and retire. I can see the appeal of calling it a day and drawing your
selling fertiliser and can well remember challenging the sales
pension if you are able, but even contemplating this idea challenges
director when sales targets grew year on year. The market for
my long help perception that only old people retire. Trotsky once said;
most products is finite and to always strive for more is simply
‘Old age is the most unexpected of all things that happen to a man.’
not realistic. In the work I now do, I aim to win enough work to
I’m beginning to understand what he meant!
maintain a comfortable lifestyle, not accumulate wealth I do not need. We do not live for ever, and quality of life is important.
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