Democratize sustainability, one story at a time
by Ilaria N.Branbilla, geographer and nomad.
When the Chernobyl disaster occurred, I was a child. I remember that both at home and in kindergarten, it was no longer allowed to drink milk. I did not understand, at the age of four, the reasons for that sudden change in diet, but I saw that the adults around me were frightened. I believe that the ecological conscience matured in my family on that occasion, as well as in many others in Italy and probably also elsewhere in the world. I remember that my father took to support the WWF and the Italian association Legambiente (League for the environment), made me a member too, although what I truly remember were the stickers of the panda and others representing animals and enchanted landscapes. Growing up, any excuse would do good to take a walk in the mountains, to go and see some natural wonders close to home or travel through TV documentaries. We were and have remained avid consumers of documentaries: my parents repeated to me relentlessly “Look how much beauty, and how lucky we are to be on this planet!”. But beauty is a fragile balance and, over the years, from all sides came news of oil spills into the sea, the ozone hole in the atmosphere, deforestation of the Amazon, not counting the daily pollution produced by the human activities. I cannot say exactly when it happened but, at a certain point, I must have said to myself: this issue is too important to keep as private interest, it must be the centre of my activities.
I walked around it for a while, graduating in geography and assuming that I would work on documentaries myself. I then followed a master in environmental communication which led me to write about the environment in various places: for a research institute, as a ghost-writer of an Italian politician, as a journalist and author and finally on European projects on climate issues. Lately, I have been experimenting with climate fiction and podcasts. What I do is storytelling, trying each time to convey the enthusiasm and urgency to change the way we are treating the place that hosts us. What I do, in particular, is to try to create an empathy link between the reader and the story I am telling, but not in a naively emotional way, sweetening the pill: in fact, one of my favourite punch lines is from the stand-up comedian George Carlin, “The planet is fine, the people are f***ed!”. If you are a child, if you live in precarious economic conditions, if you have experienced to have no power, it is difficult to think of light-years away ideas like “ saving the planet ”.
I live in a working-class neighbourhood in Palermo. In my everyday life, I see very discouraged people, who find it hard to believe in change. One example above all: separate waste collection. In Italy, some regions have remarkably high rates of separate waste collection and others are still far behind; some that started in the late nineties, some have not started yet. Despite the partial commitment of the administrations, the incompleteness of collection networks or other sustainable city services transforms environmental responsibility towards an individual responsibility that, as defined, few can afford. When the social and environmental dependency networks people need to live their lives become invisible, they end up regulating their interactions only according to the individual perspective of their salary. Another reason that hinders people from doing the separate collection correctly is the lack of confidence in public administrations and in those who manage the waste cycle. Furthermore, in recent years, waste is also becoming an interesting business for organized crime, which illegally disposes of tons of toxic waste for companies that do not want to pay for the correct disposal of certain materials. We are poisoning ourselves and we are also poisoning other countries where we go to bury our waste. Yet, some people blame the poor to not engage enough in recycling or other sustainable behaviours: but how can they not understand that is the inequality itself that leads towards privilege even in sustainability? Here, for me, is the real challenge, the most difficult and the most important: democratize sustainable behaviours and empowering people through the environmental cause. I try to do it every day in small things, for example systematically refusing my greengrocer’s plastic bags and letting him make fun of “the weird environmentalist woman” while, at the same time, starting to scold me if I forget my reusable bags, just as I do as soon as I have the opportunity to write about or talk about sustainability in public. I do it because we have worked over the years on the business front: I wrote a book on the circular economy and participated in several meetings and conferences with companies to bring out all the advantages that exist in the circular paradigm shift. And if now almost all companies feel the pressure to convert to sustainability, international governments are still slow in their decisions. I greatly admire the guys from Fridays for Future and their strikes for the climate, just as I find the work of the many environmental associations in the world fundamental. And what I would like to do, the desire I have for the future is to involve the most disadvantaged sections of the population, which are the majority, to join associations and create their companies, their projects, their communities to operate towards an increasingly extensive environmental and social sustainability.
Being a freelance author, it must be said, is not easy: sometimes moments of despair come to me too and it seems to me that my words are made of smoke and that, even if they touch a reader, it is a light wind it leaves no trace. On the one hand, it is normal, you cannot always write dense and memorable articles, on the other hand, you feel alone and wonder if and how your work leaves a small trace. This is the reason I believe in the power of networks, associations, communities: feeling part of something is a powerful sensation, which gives the individual confidence and allows him or her to dare more. Not surprisingly, I do not believe in heroes: I don’t think they are models to be inspired by because no one is the result of him/herself alone, his/her talent, and his/her work. We are all intimately intertwined, and it is through the small or large movement of each one that we can accomplish great deeds. I feel extremely fortunate to be part of different networks and communities, ranging from local to global. Reading about what is happening on the other side of the world, as it has happened to me since I have been part of the Nelis Global research group for the 4REVs initiative, fills me with joy. It is exciting to discover how many people out there, in whatever condition they find themselves, with or without means, are striving for change, for their communities and the environment. From small eco-villages to large companies that say enough to decades of the linear economy, from the countless inventions scattered here and there to reclaim water, to monitor the state of the forests, to create sustainable agriculture, to reduce food waste and the control the state of the soil.
It will seem like a paradox but now and then, to feel less alone, you can look into a screen, a window between worlds, and you can find a green fuel to move forward in your work.
