EXPERT INSIGHT
Shopping sustainably
Fatima Khan, co-founder of online concept store Treety, talks keeping ourselves accountable Shopping sustainably is key to the life of the planet. Our natural resources are finite and our wastage keeps increasing. If you are remotely altering your buying behaviour to ask how something was made then you have already taken an important step. Shopping sustainably should be a way of life, not an option.
If we were having this conversation a decade ago, I would admit that buying sustainably isn’t necessarily affordable nor readily available to everyone. However, today, information and product selectivity are at your fingertips.
When you make a purchase ask yourself, what does it take to produce this? How will this get to me? How will I use it? How will I discard it?
It’s an exciting time to be shopping sustainably as there are so many options. Plastic-free and second-hand are the more widely acknowledged sustainable methods for shopping, but the refill revolution is catching up across food, cleaning agents and toiletries.
The use of regenerative raw materials is an excellent way to go a step beyond sustainability and not just focus on sustaining our planet but actively working to restore, renew and heal the Earth. Cork is a great example as it continues to grow after it has been debarked – Lush uses cork to create its pots.
The circular economy is a term to learn. In simplest terms it is the reuse, recycle, repurpose and repair of an existing product. It is different from a linear economy in which we mine raw materials that we process into a product that is eventually discarded after use. In a circular economy, we close the cycles of all these raw materials aiming to extend their lifespan and keep them at their highest utility and value at all times. One way to find out where products are originating from and how they’re made is to check for transparency in the supply chain on websites. Certifications are another way to ensure that products meet certain eco-friendly credentials. B-corp is the gold standard of accreditations for businesses adhering to a strict value-based business model where they prioritise the planet over profits.
There are so many examples of where wastage occurs but we are too desensitised to even notice. For instance, have you ever wondered how many tea bags are discarded around the world? Why not switch to loose tea rather than using tea bags that end up in bins. thetreety.co.uk