Dear Anton,
I mean, your evil side. Or at least, your lazy side. I know you don’t really want to talk about sustainability. Because it is boring. And because working towards sustainability means you have to sacrifice something for the common good. But let’s take a look at a sacrifice and at a possible common good.
Traveling is a great way to learn the world. It allows us to better understand different cultures, therefore uniting people from different backgrounds. Due to this, traveling can help achieve UN Sustainable Development Goal No.17 (Partnership for the Goals), as it makes people from different countries closer to each other, opening opportunities to cooperate. As you can see, to come closer to achieving this goal, you don’t even have to sacrifice anything.
But certain forms of travel, such as private cars, can severely damage the environment. For your trip to Milan for the exchange term to be as sustainable as possible, you should catch the train to the airport. For sustainability reasons you should also travel by tram across Milan, network of which is quite developed there. So is that really such a big deal? These sustainable means of transport are almost as convenient as buses and taxis (or sometimes are even more convenient), but what important is that this way you will actually help saving the environment. It can help achieve UN Sustainable Development Goals No.13 (Climate action) and No.7 (Affordable and Clean Energy). Don’t you think this small sacrifice of your convenience is justified?
As many of our daily decisions can be more or less sustainable, you should pay attention to that while in Milan (and not only there). For example, you should do some research on what companies are more sustainable and ethical and use their products when possible. This will help achieve UN Sustainable Development Goal No.12 (Responsible Consumption and Production). It can be a little bit more expensive sometimes but again, isn’t this small extra cost justified by the realisation that you are not contributing to the human slavery or environment destruction?
While these UN Sustainable Development Goals are primarily designed for the policymakers, I believe that if we all will do our best, it can bring humanity much closer to achieving these goals. Thus, more people should decide on how to travel and consume more consciously, which is also in line with UN Sustainable Development Goal No.17 that I mentioned earlier. I know that you will say that it is impossible and that not everyone will get involved. But if everyone would think this way, no change will ever come. Not even to mention that each year more and more people realise the importance of sustainable behaviour, starting to contribute to the common good.
So let’s imagine that everything is possible, just like great John Lennon did. And let’s do our best to make this world a better place to live in.
Yours sincerely,
Anton (your conscious side)
