Here and now
Climate change is very much in the news, which got me thinking about eco-friendly shibari tuition and how our businesses stand in this respect. I’ll come back to that later but I want to talk about what’s happening now.
It’s all well and good protesting, expecting somebody else to solve the problem, often those who you blame for creating it, but, in reality, a lot is down to putting our own house in order and making a tangible personal contribution.
I can’t help shit-posting about some of the hypocrisy, such as those who fly in by private jet to join Extinction Rebellion, or protests which cause congestion, thus more pollution, hinder emergency services and strain the police who have more pressing duties. I wish protests could be carried out with a net positive result. Doing something that gets the public behind you is always better than pissing them off. More of that later.
My other concern is that climate change activism is being used as a sugar-coating for anti-capitalistism. Whilst consumerism is to largely to blame for pollution, capitalism will also be a massive part of the answer by developing the new technologies we need. The last thing we need is panic. It leads to hasty, ill-thought out solutions; we need a calm and sensible response.
One the plus side, any publicity is good publicity as it all raises awareness, even savage Greta memes.
Don’t just stand there
There’s nothing wrong with a cleaner, greener planet. We need to “Clean up our room!”, but on a mondial scale, to echo Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life.
A wonderful example of how individuals can contribute was how volunteers in India planted 66 million trees in 12 hours. Now that’s making a real difference! There are more initiatives such as Trillion Trees who connect funders with forest conservation ventures, and inspire society to protect and restore one trillion trees by 2050. Why not get involved? There are many opportunities and, undoubtedly, some near you. Here’s a page for Londoners, you even get free trees!
What’s it got to do with learning shibari?
How you learn shibari might not seem very relevant at first sight. However, consider the carbon footprint of flying teachers across the globe or simply travelling to a class, especially in a big country or if you come in from abroad.
What about other ways of learning? Well, books require trees to be cut down…DVDs are plastics…then there’s the shipping. It all has an impact, however small.
Low carbon footprint learning
When I come to think of it, our on-line school, ShibariClasses does tick a lot of boxes. However, we can’t claim any virtuous reasons for starting it. The simple truth is that Nina and I tired of living out of a suitcase and only seeing cities from a cab on the way to or from an airport. Regardless, I can’t think of many ways to improve our credentials:
- No physical product :
- No production pollution
- No shipping
- No packaging
- No end product needing disposal
- No travel as we work and shoot from home
Like any business, we have computers which have to be produced and powered. However, our day to day PC’s are refurbished and the main PC was second hand and just gets upgraded. So, it’s not mad consumerism with old kit ending up in landfill due to regular replacements. Our third party software platform, of course, has its shared servers so we have no choice there.
One thing I will look at our energy supplier’s green credentials and see what carbon neutral/renewable options are available.
What about the rope business?
If I look at it critically, we should use less plastic bubble wrap mailers for sending out rope orders. However, we found that paper mailers quite often fail to survive the rigours of the mail and split due to the weight of the contents. I’m sure they would be fine for light items. One the positive side, the manufacturers claim to be carbon neutral and/or the mailers are recyclable.
For larger orders which require boxes, I try to buy recycled ones or simply re-use those from our own deliveries. Now, more and more of our couriers are working towards carbon neutrality and some have achieved it, e.g DPD.
As for incoming deliveries of rope, the vast majority comes overland and some by sea. A very tiny proportion of our goods come by air, although I try to minimise this through good stock planning and to keep my prices low for you.
Again, we work from home so our travel is minimal. As we very rarely perform or run workshops abroad now, we don’t fly often. Until somebody loans me an eco-yacht with crew, that is a rather necessary evil.
These days I have my OAP travel pass for public transport and barely drive more than 1,000 miles per annum. I confess a Volvo 2.0ltr auto is not the most economical but, as it is 17 years old, I have not added to the considerable footprint of making new cars or scrapping old ones. I have even taken the unprecedented step of cycling from time to time. I confess, it doesn’t happen often
In our little Arcadian haven of a London garden, we have planted quite a few trees, grow a little food, compost what we can and keep our chickens. I’m also pleased to say our local borough recycles a massive percentage of waste. It’s far from super green, self-sufficiency but it’s a start. Virtue signal over 😀
UPDATE: Green energy
We have just completed the main remaining step, carbon neutral energy. Our gas and electricity is being moved to Octopus Energy’s supergreenOctopus tariff described as their “greenest tariff, for carbon neutral energy throughout your home.”
And it’s cheaper!
The cherry on the cake was that it is actually quite a lot cheaper than my existing supplier even on their greenest zero carbon tariff. I was a little dubious as it was a cold call but the company gets glowing reviews on Trustpilot, from Which and MoneySupermarket. If you are interested, there’s even a deal where we both get £50.
Here’s a bit about them:
Octopus Energy is a gas and electricity provider that specialises in renewable energy.
It is the largest investor in solar farms in the UK and built its own solar farm in 2011. Octopus Energy also invests in wind generation, energy through the anaerobic digestion of plants, and rapid response gas generation.
Octopus Energy’s other green credentials include offering 100% renewable electricity and carbon offsetting for its gas tariffs.