You only live once, so celebrate life and enjoy it. Sustainable living, that’s just a hassle. So much that is not allowed, so much that is right… Global warming? Phew, it will take your time! Although… Sometimes you wonder if there isn’t some truth in it after all. Those icebergs seem to be melting a bit quickly. A guilty blush appears on your cheeks when your ecological footprint is mentioned during a birthday party. You are a Burgundian and value luxury, so what? Is that sometimes not allowed?
- Energy-consuming hobbies
- Hotel room of the future
- Speed demons without CO 2 emissions
- Harley-Davidson
- Food and drink
- To meat or not to meat
- Home and hearth
- Light a fire
- Pellet stove
Energy-consuming hobbies
Do you recognize yourself in this? You can then take big steps without sacrificing anything. In March 2019, I&O Research concluded in a study (commissioned by the Ministry of the Interior) that higher educated people and people with an above-average income emit the most CO2. According to this study, men and CDA and VVD voters fall into the same group. Fortunately, there are simple solutions for your energy-consuming, environmentally polluting hobbies, or for the luxury products you think you should avoid. Enjoying Burgundian food fits perfectly into an environmentally conscious, sustainable life. And vice versa! It all starts with awareness, you often hear. Now, there is some truth in that. Once you get to know them, you will see sustainable alternatives for your Burgundian lifestyle all around you. Designers and developers now realize that people (consumers, customers) are increasingly switching to sustainable solutions. As long as they experience that you don’t have to compromise on comfort and luxury at all.
Hotel room of the future
For example, Eindhoven’s designer team Happy Green introduced their HideAway during the 2018 Dutch Design Week: the hotel room of the future. You can assemble this modular, portable package in no time and provide it with all kinds of luxury depending on your wishes. The sustainable hotel room can be placed anywhere in the world, even in unspoilt nature, without causing damage. It is completely self-sufficient and looks beautiful, is practical and affordable too.
Speed demons without CO 2 emissions
Crazy about speed? On two or four wheels? Then it is nice to know that there are also many developments with electric propulsion in the field of car and motorsport. This way you can go karting with electric karts. In addition to the fact that it is much more sustainable than fuel karting, this e-karting has the great advantage that you do not spend your afternoon or evening in a closed hall full of unhealthy exhaust fumes. To create a real racing experience, the e-kart concept uses a darkened room with black light, 3D screens and sound effects. This makes you feel like you are in a lifelike computer game. The electric racing class Formula E has also been gaining popularity and fame since its start in 2014. There are many similarities with Formula 1. However, a race is not called a Grand Prix but an E-Prix. In the 2019-2020 season, the sixth season already, there are 14 rounds in 12 different cities on the calendar, on street circuits all over the world. Plenty of action, but a lot more environmentally friendly.
Harley Davidson
Even Harley Davidson, pretty much the founding father of roaring CO 2 emissions, has been working on the development of an electrically powered motorcycle since 2014: Project LiveWire. The ultimate motorcycling experience, but without polluting petrol. With the Project LiveWire motorcycle experience, HD traveled through Europe in 2015 to get feedback from the public. At various events, motorcycle enthusiasts, even without a driver’s license, could experience what it is like to ride an electric Harley through the Jumpstart demo. Although many are skeptical about the actual appearance on the market of a fully electric Harley Davidson, the manufacturer announced in early 2018 that the first copy will roll off the production line in the summer of 2019. At the end of 2019, cautious reports emerged that the HD Livewire will finally be for sale in Europe from 2020 for 34,000.
Food and drink
A good glass of wine is almost synonymous with Burgundian. A sincere Santé! sounds all the better when the Burgundian knows that no artificial fertilizers and pesticides have been used to produce this fermented grape juice. An organic wine is not only better for the environment. The quality is usually of a higher level and the taste refined. Useful to know if you like to import wine yourself or are looking for a nice bottle during your holiday: sometimes wine is produced organically, but does not have a certificate. Small producers (and that doesn’t just apply to wine!) often cannot afford the high costs for certification. While they are the ones who, out of love for nature and the beautiful product, work extremely sustainably on a small scale.
Source: Meditations, Pixabay
To meat or not to meat
Of course you have heard it said that eating meat is a heavy burden on the environment. Greenhouses, animal suffering, manure surpluses. In 2018 it was calculated that the price of a piece of meat would be as much as 53% higher if the environmental impact were included (source: CE Delft). This already happens with most other products, why not with meat? A tasty steak is not to be missed by most meat lovers. Just like a quick, easy bite at a fast food restaurant. But it is becoming easier and tastier to avoid meat. For a good vegetarian meal you no longer have to go to an exclusive, specialized restaurant. A vegetarian menu is certainly not a meal without meat, but balanced and refined, full-fledged and complete. In 2020, meat substitutes are the most common thing in the world in the supermarket. Away with the tasteless, dry vegetable burgers: the choice is huge! And even the pizzerias and snack chains offer products that go one step further than vegetarian: vegan dishes, for which no animal products have been used.
Vegetarian smoked sausage Eating no meat one day a week already has an enormous positive impact on the environment. On the other six days you could choose not to eat beef, but chicken or fish. Or at least buy your meat from an organic butcher. It has been proven to be more animal-friendly, healthier and tastier. But you can even buy fake meat from the vegetarian butcher. It tastes like meat, looks like meat, but it’s not meat. This way you can shamelessly enjoy a sausage on your sandwich, or chicken satay with your noodles. Major meat producers such as Unox are also aware that vegetarian is the trend and no longer hip: at the end of 2019, an advertising campaign was launched on TV in which the ‘head of the family’, the man of the house, a butcher by profession, even his daughter supports if she replaces the smoked sausage in the stew with a vegetarian version. According to this advertising agency, you can apparently safely choose vegetarian, without losing your masculine, macho image, drenched in testosterone… although opinions remain divided on this.
Home and hearth
It’s totally hip: a sheepskin rug on your lounge sofa or on the floor. They appear in every housing program. You see it a lot on terraces at restaurants and cafes, it simply invites you to sit there and enjoy yourself in a cozy and cozy environment. With cute little curls or lusciously long locks, they are beautiful to look at and feel wonderfully soft. It’s just a shame that an animal had to die for it. Tanning the skin is not exactly an environmentally friendly activity. It is easy to imagine that that thought does not make you happy and that you do not want to put a dead animal on the ground for decoration. Fortunately, there is a fantastic alternative: an animal-friendly sheepskin rug, without leather. The wool is ingeniously ‘stitched’ together at the bottom with felt and the sheep still happily hops around in the meadow. Good for your conscience.
Source: HG Photography, Pixabay
Light a fire
Enjoy, with an organic glass of wine, sitting on an animal-friendly sheep rug, on your beautiful FSC wooden floor in front of a crackling fire. That is perhaps the ultimate pleasure for the Burgundian person. Bad luck for the environmentally conscious, because such a wood stove or fireplace is terribly polluting and bad for the environment. There is no ban on burning wood stoves in 2020. But heating advice is already being given, a kind of code orange in certain weather conditions. You can also check the air quality yourself and whether it is wise to ignite a wood fire: the so-called combustion guide. To start with, you can burn more environmentally friendly with reverse firing. With this Swiss method you can adjust the structure of your wood pile. This ensures that the wood burns from top to bottom instead of the other way around. This means that combustion is complete and your stove will hardly smoke at all. The condition is, of course, that you use clean, dry wood.
Pellet stove
A better alternative is the pellet stove. Pressed wood pellets are the food for these stoves and they emit much less particulate matter. The heat output is also much more efficient and therefore more economical. If you choose pellets with the EN+ and A1 quality marks (quality of composition and clean combustion), you will put the least burden on the environment and your stove. The Better Biomass quality mark guarantees that the wood residues from which the pellets are made cannot be used for anything else (more environmentally friendly) and are therefore a 100% waste product that would just as easily be burned if you did not put it in your stove. In 2020 there is still a lot of discussion about the sustainability of a pellet stove, because after all you burn something with it and that by definition produces emissions. If you replace the fireplace or wood stove with a pellet stove, this will in any case be an environmental benefit and you can therefore still receive a government subsidy for this. Provided that the stove is included in the RVO list and is installed by a recognized company. If that isn’t a nice reward for Burgundian enjoyment