Affectionate gifts: Sustainable options for the end of the year

December is here, and with it, a whole bunch of commercial advertising and social pressure telling us not to let go the year without “expressing” our good wishes to close people through a brand-new gift. This has not always been like that, however, as product-based economies grew, we have all been trapped in this consumist spiral that pushes us to buy and buy… with all kind of opinions and guilt feelings if we don’t do it.

What is completely truth is that our planet is starting to show the consequences of these lifestyle of ours, and talking also of our private matters, also our pockets. A few weeks ago, during the Black Friday weekend, we shared a link which questions this and proposes the “White Friday”, I share again the link to use this reflection for the Christmas season:

http://www.missminimalist.com/2011/11/white-friday-the-start-of-a-minimalist-holiday-season/

The tradition of giving gifts comes back in time before the Christmas as we know it. But it was related to the ending of the sowing cycles, and in some cultures was a good omen to have some “new goods” for the house for starting the new cycle. But this “new goods” were almost always handcrafts or home-made products like blankets, seeds, furniture or a good banquet to share with the others and that were part of a rite.

In the Christian era and not so long ago (related to industrialization) it was said that it was baby Jesus that brought gifts to children, a didactic activity that symbolised to be able to recieve god’s blessings. But again, in the beginning the gifts were part of the year crop, fruits, sweets, some clothing made by the mother, some little toy made by the father. The rest of the holidays focused in having the family gathered sharing the occasion.

Nowadays, our society focuses their effort in buying gifts for all the family members. Stores usually prepare for the season with months in advance, offering sales for products out of season, or risky credit plans to get a debt for the rest of the next year, to buy products you don’t need with money you don’t have.

Result: Families with huge debts in the beginning of the year. Gifts that are not always welcome. Holidays in which people is more concerned about giving and receiveing that sharing. Environmentally, overproduced goods that in most of the cases go straight to the trash bin, like all sorts of packaging or even the “unpleasant” gifts.

We propose here to redesign the season experience in a sustainable way, and the first step is to avoid giving stuff whenever possible or the emotional creativity to give away intelligent stuff that won’t cost a lot and won’t overproduce.

The base for this is to reconsider our own value as persons: Please stop thinking that people will have a bad opinion if we don’t give them something, in the end, relationships must be strenghtened all year round, and not a by a gift one day of the year. Let’s explain to the others our interest on consuming less and being more affective. Especially, let’s be rightfull and stop expecting to recieve gifts as well, we can ask for that, to have only good wishes.

When it comes to our closer persons, we can do what I call “Affective gifts”: Things made by ourselves or that have a special value, and to give them heartedly to the ones we care about.

Here I give some examples:

1. Letters or cards made by ourselves: In the Internet era, it is just touching to recieve a letter in which another person invested time, a good handstyle and even some art. TO make them use your creativity, recycled materials, vegetal colors, stamps, trimmings or whatever you want. You’ll be original and also very individual…

2. Recycling projects: In this blog we have shared some ideas to reuse textiles, for example. But there are a lot of ideas to make small useful things, starting from a recicled material. Jewelery, photo frames, notebooks, restyled furniture, don’t limit yourself, look in your closet and transform something in something else.

3. Affectionate gifts: Give away something that is yours and that is special for you. I still remember one of my uncles, who, for space reasons, had to get rid of his mug collection. He chose those mugs that thought that could have a new good owner that appreciated them, and gave them to special persons. We who got one of those, we knew how special they were for what they meant for him. Do the same with your belongings, and feel the pleasure of letting go something your appreciate. Energetically, it has a great value to do it so. I feel so proud each time I see my niece wearing my favorite childhood sunglasses, they couldn’t have a better owner now.

4. Special occasion voucher: The most valuable resource we have to give is our time. So you can make some vouchers for cinema, a nice dinner, a cool trip. If you are to spend money, do it in something you’ll enjoy and won’t loose, joyful experiences.

5. IF you absolutely MUST buy something new, don’t be afraid of asking the options: At least you’ll know the gift will be used, that the person will like it. Get creative with wrappings, use a textile bag that can be reused instead of paper, or if you can, don’t use any wrapping at all. Remember that in the end, those fancy wrappings will turn in trash in no time.

To all our readers here at Ecodiseño Existencial, we wish that you have a very happy end of year, that we keep promoting an affective and sustainable lifestyle. Even if we swim against the current for a while, in the future our children and our planet will be thankful for it.

Göteborg's Sustainability Jam

I've been postponing this post, not because I didn't want to write it, but because I wanted to be very thorough and read up a lot before writing it. To that you add that I got a job, and the possibilities of posting about Göteborg's Sustainability Jam were going down the drain. So... this is as thorough as it gets. Sorry about that... but better some than none.

So: The 28th to the 30th of October just passed there was a multi-location event called a Sustainability Jam. It is basically an open innovation lab where people could enroll and participate with other motivated strangers brainstorming and proposing ideas around Sustainability, focusing on the given topic of Playgrounds. Göteborg had such an event, with at least other 6 locations.

You can read extensively about the event held in Göteborg at their blog, that was created simultaneously by dedicated collaborators. It has some posts in Swedish, but it manages to maintain a good "Swenglish" (Swedish-English) that allows for outsiders understanding. In that blog you find the videos, comments and thoughts that where popping up during the event:

http://sustainabilityjamgoteborg.wordpress.com/

Participants mingling in the first get-to-know-eachother dynamic. Photo by Emmy Jonsson, taken from the Sustainability Jam Göteborg Blog

But the overall purpose of a group of volunteering enthusiast to freely put down their weekend to meet others in order to do fun, but yet exhausting, work is to produce an outcome. What would that be? Propose some sort of working prototype on an idea that they managed to push forward with 48 hours of snappy teamwork and decision making. That outcome has all been posted up for safe keeping and public delight into the Global Sustainability Jam webpage.

Unfortunately I have not had time to go into all the projects, just peeked into a few... but they look very promising. My fear is that in these times of over-saturated communication, these type of initiative get buried into oblivion. That would be a true shame. They are interesting ideas, put front for people to think on and hopefully further develop. Some groups had it in them to say, "Sure, I have time now to dedicate to this further.", some didn't. I personally do hope that the majority of these well intended projects can keep their momentum up and running. Thus taking the step further from thinking and talking about sustainability, to the proposing (done on that hectic weekend) to finally doing something.

At least, gathering people and proposing solutions is doing. Or?

Futureperfect reflections

Last weekend I attended the Futureperfect festival. It was a great opportunity to meet awesome people interested in sustainability and approaching it from their own fields. A lot of talks and forums, interesting work and contradicting opinions. Too much to take in in three days... that ended with a lasting mind buzz for me. Non the less, I would like to share with you some  of the most relevant issues for me, stuff to think a bit about:

In the Design forum, What is the role of the designer? How can we manage to take industry into a sustainable society? Should we just get rid of the current economic system because it is plain evil?

Two comments from the audience that I think are important where: 

- "The last thing society needs is just another chair." 

- "I would like a future where I can by new t-shirts. So, can we design that in too?"

Personally I do not believe that for us to become a sustainable society we all should get rid of all our worldly possessions and go live like ascetic monks. There has to be a way to balance out the extremes of a materialistic society with a more mindful and spiritual one.

The festival was a great combination of smart discussions, concerts and outdoors activities (guided walks through the permaculture garden, berry picking, yoga, etc).

One of the most important things to reflect on, for me, is that becoming sustainable as a society does not mean suffering or getting depressed by the current situation. It shouldn't even be very complex mind-stressing work. It  is rather an enjoyable and fun reminder of the deep connection and dependence we have with other people and nature.

I'm sure everyone that attended took back something different from the festival. There where so many interesting people with a lot of things to say! So, here are some links to different people I met that inspired me, a couple of them blogged about the festival too:
- Young philosopher blogging about his experience while he visits eco-villages and transition town around the world for one year.
- Open source platform solutions for development aid projects.
- British entrepreneur focused on helping people work well and achieving a "digital well-being".
- British food focused writer, that reconnects cities to food and vice-versa.
- Interesting character, hard to describe. Aims in bringing the talk to the walk with is company, the Doors of Perception (design for resilience).