There is an overwhelming agreement achieving sustainability whether at home or at work entails three types of practices: reuse, reduce and recycle. They all make perfect sense. Think of plastic bags and bottles, office paper and cartons, energy and water. In the three months following a rethinking of our energy and water consumption as well as our waste management practices, although we made significant milestones, we felt we could have achieved better results if we’d also replaced some items and if we could reinvent the way we live. Of course, one can argue that replacing and reinventing as part of our efforts to minimizing our environmental footprint are also essential elements of the 3Rs reuse, reduce and recycle. True, as we can reduce by reusing and we can reuse by recycling. One can also dispute the fact that each component of the 3Rs is a stand alone sustainable practice. So is replace (think light bulb) and so is reinvent (think how you shop). So if these are terms to describe an environmentally conscious behavior and guide us into achieving sustainability, why not pushing it a little bit further and exploring what makes effective, measurable and scalable sustainability practices? Sustainability should not be limited to xRs, the concept of reinventing is precisely here to remind us we must constantly (and perhaps radically) adapt to our ever-changing environment, which demands us to be creative and to explore various sustainable paths to find the ones that allow us to live our present lives without jeopardizing our future.

Reduce
Reduction is the golden goal of sustainability, starting with CO2 emissions. It is also the area in which each and every one of us, individually and collectively can make the biggest immediate impact on the environment and … on our wallet. Two areas are of critical importance: energy and water. A realistic starting goal is reducing your consumption of energy and water by 10% the first year without making any change in your setting. Turn off water every time you do not use it, switch off the light when you leave a room (even for 5 minutes) and turn off electrical equipment every time you do not use them.

Reuse
“Reuse, in simplest terms, is a pollution prevention strategy in which a product is used for the same or new purposes without undergoing any physical change”. This definition – the most commonly used in defining sustainability strategies – gives a lot of room for imagination, but to be effective and measurable, it should be narrowed down to a product at the end of its life cycle. In most instances, we are the ones who decide whether or not a product has reached its end life. Many hotels offer linen-reuse options for instance, which will contribute to water conservation and energy saving. However most immediate reusing strategies relate to packaging, containers, plastic and paper bags, and scrap paper, items that are resources intensive and we can easily reuse more than once.

Replace
For many years, replacing a conventional product with an environmentally friendly one meant giving up on performance. In many areas, greener products have bridged the gap and are now competitively attracting. Take your light bulb for instance: replacing your old light bulbs with CFLs or LEDs will considerably reduce your energy bill. They last longer, use less electricity and are safer. If energy and water conservation are a prime focus of replacement sustainability strategies, a great deal can also be achieved in the area of care products: home maintenance, personal care, auto care, pesticides, garden and so on. Triclosan, chlorine, phenols, quaternary ammonium, PVC, flame-retardants are toxic chemicals that are easily replaceable with green products.

Recycle
Recycling does not come without controversy. Although its environmental benefits seem obvious, many argue they do not outweigh its financial and environmental costs, especially its transportation and, for some items such as electronics its processing costs. Even though recycling strategies are not the ideal path towards sustainability and CO2 emission reduction, they do make sense in regards to scarce natural resources. If we do recycle, we should also purchase recycled products, such as post-consumer paper products and avoid cost-inefficient and non-recyclable products.

Reinvent
Sustainability and CO2 emission reduction strategies cannot succeed without us reinventing ourselves, starting with the way we interact with our natural environment and with … our wallet. We need to integrate the environmental factor into our lives. No matter how we want to look at it, it all comes down to this: we have responsibility and we can make a difference. Watering the lawn mid-day on a hot day, buying bottled water from France or Fiji, illuminating the garden all night, discarding recyclable or compostable waste, are behaviors we can easily change and can make a huge difference at the end of the day.
Our wallet has never been so powerful and meaningful. It has become increasingly easier to find out about the products we buy – origin, ingredients, materials, transportation, CO2 emission (…) and make a conscious decision as to what we buy and to whom our business should go. Manufacturers across all industries will speed the introduction of greener products if and when they know the market is there.

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