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ased in Cape Town, SA, our Product Designer, Philip Van Den Berg, shares the story of his decision a year ago to live more sustainably:
Last year I took up two challenges - commuting to work by bicycle and growing a beard, aka a “yeard”. Cycling past the people sitting in traffic you get a real sense of freedom and that it’s the better, more natural yet minimal way to travel.
The beard ended up not that minimal but arguably saves some water (in this case more is less.) I do not recommend this without going to the barber once a month, as it gets pretty wild! The cycling came to 60 trips in total for the year so I've earned some points for reducing the carbon footprint, plus it felt good to do 50 minutes of cardio twice a day.
In Cape Town and the rest of South Africa we have looked hard into more sustainable living due to two major issues; a lack of water and electricity. Both have forced us to completely adapt our lifestyles and some people have even managed to move off the grid completely. We are learning to use our resources more wisely, consider alternative energy sources like solar panels and adopt more energy efficient LED solutions. Here in Cape Town, we're glad that the drought has finally ended and the dams are now 84% full, but we need to continue using our resources more sparingly.
Living in a more sustainable way has now becoming the new normal. To put a new system in place can be painful and needs some discipline to endure, but it does open your eyes and creativity to new possibilities and a better lifestyle.
As for my two challenges - I've continued with the cycling but after a year, the beard had to go! 😉
Want to know more about ASL's One World initiative? Contact us to see how we are working to become more sustainable, as individuals and as a business.
