Sustainability! It Starts at Home.

My Dear Aalayam Family,

This  post is a trifle offbeat. The reigning theme this week has been Sustainability for me. At home, and at work. So, it's only logical that I complete the trifecta with Aalayam! On Thursday, I passed a certification exam on Sustainable Planning & Design from the Institute of Sustainable Infrastructure. On Friday, the impact of the process of working for, and on the exam, just got me thinking of how much for granted we take the world and its resources around us. Here I am, on Saturday, crafting a blog post filled with heart-warming drawings from Virginia Beach School children, promoting Sustainability messages - stimulating a discussion perhaps?

Do you know that the United States alone consumes as much as four planets worth of resources (not just one!)? We owe our quality of life to the industrialization and "drop-of-a-hat" innovation. But do we even pause a minute to see how much we are contributing as a result to waste landfills? 

Before I get too verbose and pedantic in my soap box, I will pause and say - we can make a difference. At Home. It's simple. 

Reduce, Reuse and Recycle - Your "At Home" Sustainability Mantra.

I am fortunate to have worked with leaders in the Virginia Beach Department of Public Utilities as part of my work. And this utility does something really cool to reinforce that "At Home" Sustainability concept. They partner with local public schools to spread water conservation messages to school children and the community in general. 

The annual Water Awareness Calendar that consolidates prolific art work by Virginia Beach elementary school children with “Using Water Wisely” messages is an initiative that reinforces our client's community engagement. And all these are the images of the art work from the calendar. A jaunty copy of the calendar is on my desk at work, reminding me of my responsibility towards a "green" lifestyle. EVERYDAY.

HR Green is a regional awareness campaign our utility participates in, aimed at educating citizens on how to conserve resources and protect the environment.

More than 1 trillion gallons of water are wasted in U.S. homes each year from easy-to-fix leaks. Initiatives like the Fix a Leak program championed by our local utility aims to reduce this wastage of water through running toilets, dripping faucets and other household leaks.​

I have started to have discussions with my girls about saving water, recycling, using electricity wisely and not buying EVERYTHING that we WANT!

We have quite a few posts filled with "Green" design ideas lined up here in Aalayam. Would you be interested in those? What areas would you like for us to focus on? Up-cycling? Reused and Refashioned Decor?  Let us know!

Just check out the sweet, simple and effective ideas presented in these drawings! It is my hope that my kids will participate in the contest and submit their art work which will get picked to be on the calendar! It would be truly a meaningful event for me that my work and family worlds are coinciding in that fashion.

I just had to share these images with you. Because they were on my mind. And I wanted to bring that idea up for discussion. What do YOU do to be Sustainable in your home?

Lets talk!

Supriya

p.s. Stay tuned for the next post on regular programming. A visual treat, the stunning home tour of ex-decor blogger Kamini Raghavan!! You will NOT be disappointed.