Venkatesh Dutta
Sustainability is rooted in our traditions, culture and way of life. Vedic Way of Life highlights an eco-conscious lifestyle. It talks about harmonious coexistence with nature – respecting the fabric of nature – rivers, land, forests, mountains, animals and myriad other creatures on our planet.
It is only in the recent times that we are ignoring our bond with nature. mission life – or Lifestyles for the Environment – aims to connect individuals, societies and communities, and transform them into a powerful global movement to foster positive behavioral change.
It is important to harness the wisdom embedded in our ancient traditions and take this message to a wider audience globally. Minimal and conscious use of resources is essential, as opposed to ‘mindless and destructive consumption’. We can try to be minimalists – living with smaller resources and energy footprints.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched Mission Life to the world in 2021 at the 26th United Nations Conference of the Parties (CO) on Climate Change in Glasgow.
LiFE is becoming a public movement to mobilize individuals and communities to become advocates for our planet, promoting a ‘pro-planet mindset’. Responsible individual action and behavior change with a pro-planet mindset is the key to securing a collective future.
How can we be a ‘Pro-Planet Person’ by adopting a sustainable lifestyle? There are seven LiFE themes that we can adopt in our daily lives – saving water and energy, reducing waste, rejecting single-use plastics, adopting sustainable food systems, reducing electronic waste and living a healthy lifestyle embrace.
If we wake up early and sleep early, we can save electricity apart from improving our health. If we are using RO filter or AC, we can collect the drained water in a bucket and use it to clean the floor.
We can reuse the water from the washed vegetables to water the plants. We can install rain water harvesting in our society and save billions of liters of fresh water. We can clean our car with just one liter of water. Yes, it’s doable—with three different types of old clothes.
While shopping, we must carry cloth bags and when we host a party or event, we can use non-plastic eco-friendly cutlery.
If we have a small backyard, we can make our own bio-compost from vegetable and fruit peels.
One can stop throwing plastic items in the bin and have a sack for the same which can be handed over to the Ragman. This way, we can save tons of plastic from going to landfills or ending up in our rivers.
Changing individual and collective behavior can lead to big positive results. Even if a quarter of the world’s population adopted these sustainable lifestyles, global carbon emissions could be reduced by 40%. Complex problems can be solved by collective effort.
(The writer is Professor of Environmental Science School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, BBAU, Lucknow. He is also a Fulbright fellow and a British chevening scholar,
Sustainability is rooted in our traditions, culture and way of life. Vedic Way of Life highlights an eco-conscious lifestyle. It talks about harmonious coexistence with nature – respecting the fabric of nature – rivers, land, forests, mountains, animals and myriad other creatures on our planet.
It is only in the recent times that we are ignoring our bond with nature. mission life – or Lifestyles for the Environment – aims to connect individuals, societies and communities, and transform them into a powerful global movement to foster positive behavioral change.
It is important to harness the wisdom embedded in our ancient traditions and take this message to a wider audience globally. Minimal and conscious use of resources is essential, as opposed to ‘mindless and destructive consumption’. We can try to be minimalists – living with smaller resources and energy footprints.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched Mission Life to the world in 2021 at the 26th United Nations Conference of the Parties (CO) on Climate Change in Glasgow.
LiFE is becoming a public movement to mobilize individuals and communities to become advocates for our planet, promoting a ‘pro-planet mindset’. Responsible individual action and behavior change with a pro-planet mindset is the key to securing a collective future.
How can we be a ‘Pro-Planet Person’ by adopting a sustainable lifestyle? There are seven LiFE themes that we can adopt in our daily lives – saving water and energy, reducing waste, rejecting single-use plastics, adopting sustainable food systems, reducing electronic waste and living a healthy lifestyle embrace.
If we wake up early and sleep early, we can save electricity apart from improving our health. If we are using RO filter or AC, we can collect the drained water in a bucket and use it to clean the floor.
We can reuse the water from the washed vegetables to water the plants. We can install rain water harvesting in our society and save billions of liters of fresh water. We can clean our car with just one liter of water. Yes, it’s doable—with three different types of old clothes.
While shopping, we must carry cloth bags and when we host a party or event, we can use non-plastic eco-friendly cutlery.
If we have a small backyard, we can make our own bio-compost from vegetable and fruit peels.
One can stop throwing plastic items in the bin and have a sack for the same which can be handed over to the Ragman. This way, we can save tons of plastic from going to landfills or ending up in our rivers.
Changing individual and collective behavior can lead to big positive results. Even if a quarter of the world’s population adopted these sustainable lifestyles, global carbon emissions could be reduced by 40%. Complex problems can be solved by collective effort.
(The writer is Professor of Environmental Science School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, BBAU, Lucknow. He is also a Fulbright fellow and a British chevening scholar,