Publish at October 14 2020 Updated May 23 2024
Many people share the feeling that we are reaching certain limits in terms of both resource consumption and pollution. This internal questioning is becoming more and more common. Let's take a look at how you can do your part as a Hummingbird!
Pierre Rabhi, author of "La part du colibri", chose this title for his book in reference to the Amerindian legend which illustrates that everyone can and must act on their own scale.
La légende du colibri, by Pierre Rabhi from Mouvement Colibris on Vimeo.
In the wake of this, an association was born. It's called Colibris. Their vision is the same as Pierre Rabhi's:
At Colibris, we're convinced that changing society means changing each and every one of us. Colibris is a community of thousands of men and women acting collectively for more ecological and united territories.
Thanks to you, we can bring about a different kind of society. [1]Taking part in one's own destiny, even if the effort involved is negligible, makes everyone an agent of change. Relying on the decisions of political decision-makers to bring about change is often an easy way of absolving oneself of any need to make an effort.
As with any change or good resolution, it's hard to break (bad) habits. For a commitment to be successful, you need to put all the factors favorable to change on your side.
To be motivated to make a commitment, you need to understand the meaning of what you're doing. Parents of young children or members of the teaching staff at schools often want to leave a habitable earth for future generations. Everyone can find their own motivation, and there are so many reasons to make an effort.
Information, training and documentation are essential to the process. As "green" sentiment is all the rage, many companies are using this argument to boost sales by promoting their products as environmentally friendly.
To separate the wheat from the chaff and detect greenwashing, you need to know the impact of your choices.
Staying motivated on your own isn't always easy. When you do things as part of a team, you know that when you're feeling sluggish, you can count on the other team members to motivate you.
If you're trying to reduce your impact on the planet at home, but the other members of your family don't care, you'll quickly lose heart. On the other hand, if you share your successes with your family, friends or neighbors, or if they share their successes with you, it keeps everyone motivated thanks to group emulation.
Not setting the bar too high is a general rule when you want to give yourself a chance of achieving a goal. And when you have an ambitious goal, it's best to break it down into smaller intermediate objectives that you can reach without risking discouragement.
Celebrate the intermediate goals you've achieved. Of course, the means of celebrating these partial victories is congruent with the overall approach.
Every act of consumption requires resources. The levers for action are therefore to be found in a multitude of habitual behaviors that we have acquired over the course of our lives.
The type of housing we live in and the way we occupy it have a considerable impact. One trend that is gaining ground is that of self-contained homes or isolated housing. This implies having no connection to either mains water or an energy source.
Depending on the region where you live, you may well do without running water, including for food consumption. The reference site for information on this subject is eautarcie.org [2].
You'll discover that you can take action by finding a simple source of supply, rainwater, but also by reducing your consumption with, for example, dry toilets.
For electricity, being self-sufficient is more complicated, especially if you live in a more northerly region.
As with water, you need to work on both levers, reducing consumption and producing your own electricity. A number of energy portals [3] provide information on insulation, increasingly using natural materials such as hemp or wood wool. Beyond insulation, there's also your consumption habits and choice of appliances.
As for production, this will depend on where you live. Mixed systems, photovoltaic panels and mini wind turbines enable some people to meet their own needs. On this site, you can see how much electricity you can expect to generate from panels, depending on their number and your geolocation[4].
Finally, for heating, consider geothermal or biomass solutions. Numerous sources enable you to build your own mass stove, dragon stove or rocketstove.
We also talked about people who live in caravans or yurts [5]. These are other forms of housing that can be consistent with a desire to reduce our impact.
Soft mobility is making a strong comeback, with more and more people opting for bicycles. Electrically-assisted bicycles are a great success.
It's easy to imagine putting fuel in the tank of a car. The consumption of resources is therefore better visualized. The health crisis has given rise to new ways of working and travelling. Being able to telecommute is another way of reducing travel.
It's less well known, but textiles are a resource-hungry industry. To reduce consumption, you can reuse things that have already been used once.
Many people turn to thrift stores to find clothes. It's doubly useful, both for the wallet and for using fewer resources. The Vinted app [6] is an incredible success.
Another trend is to make these products yourself. The benefits are manifold. Firstly, we reduce the amount of single-use plastics clogging up our oceans. Secondly, you use products that are free of chemicals whose effects on your health may not yet be fully understood. And thirdly, you save a great deal of money.
The last major lever on which you can act is what you eat. Solutions include :
Among the possible ways of reducing our environmental footprint, we can all find our own. Without being too ambitious, the most important thing is to get started and achieve your first goals.
[1] https://www.colibris-lemouvement.org/
[2] https://www.eautarcie.org/index-fr.html
[3] https://www.defi-energie.be/
[4] https://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvg_tools/fr/#PVP
[5] https://cursus.edu/21780/les-nouvelles-formes-dhabitat-et-leducation
[6] https://www.entre-copines.be/vinted/
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