Here is ten-year-old Stephanie. She’s sitting on the carpet with her tiger-patterned notebook writing down the names of countries she’d like to visit.
Here is thirteen-year-old Stephanie. She just turned vegetarian. Did you know that the majority of chickens are selectively bred for their meat and live in crowded, windowless sheds? (https://vegsoc.org/eating-veggie/why-eat-veggie/).
Here is eighteen-year-old Stephanie. She just completed a Carbon Literacy qualification. Did you know that an aeroplane from London to Shanghai produces 1.4 tonnes of CO2 emissions? (https://curb6.com/footprint/flights/london-lhr/shanghai-pvg).
Here is nineteen-year-old Stephanie. She’s learning that she is more responsible than she thinks. She can hop on a plane and go to a country 500 miles away without even thinking. She can buy something off Vinted, wear it once and pat herself on the back.
Here is twenty-one-year-old Stephanie. She’s moving to China in August and here are her plans to be more conscious of the United Nations sustainability goals (https://sdgs.un.org/goals).
Step 1: Keep being vegetarian. This is something she’s had practice in and it’s easy. Let’s push her though: she needs to proactively be the person who encourages her friends to do the same.
Step 2: Sustainable consumption. She has fallen a victim to believing that buying lots of clothes off Vinted is okay because it’s second-hand… She swears this will not continue in the lead up and during her time abroad, and more importantly, she has enough clothes. It could be easy to be tempted by cheaper items in China, but only treasured items will be bought from here on out.
Step 3: Education. The modules she chooses to study while abroad will set the tone for the entire year. Millions of students lack basic numeracy and literacy skills; the least she can do is pick classes that help her learn about her role in improving access to education. She wants to be a teacher after all.
Step 4: Travel time. Does she want to see everything that Asia has to offer? Obviously. Informing this will be the World Animal Protection list (https://www.worldanimalprotection.org/our-campaigns/wildlife/commercial-exploitation/travel-tourism/). Using the list of ethical sanctuaries and the recommended travel companies Airbnb and The Travel Corporation, she can see elephants where they’re safe and allowed to behave like elephants. Isn’t that great?
Step 5: The big one. The awkward one. How can she offset 1.4 tonnes of CO2 emissions? She walks, she car shares, but what of the everlasting damage to the environment caused by flying? Firstly, she can pick a direct flight because it is more fuel-efficient (https://climateactionaccelerator.org/solutions/direct_flights/). Secondly, she plans to donate money to a carbon-offsetting programme which focuses on supporting renewable energy projects (https://sustainabletravel.org/our-work/carbon-offsets/).
At twenty-one, in the same tiger-patterned notebook, she writes down these steps. It makes it easy, and, in a list next to names of countries, she’s tied to these promises.
