By Our Correspondent
BERHAMPUR: Youth for Social Development started month long campaign on the theme “Sharing Community”. On Green Action Week 2019 a city level campaign has been organised on Sustainable Consumption at Ecos Eye Hospital, Berhampur Odisha. More than 45 participants from civil society groups participated and understand the concept of sharing community, best practices and benefits of Collaborative Consumption and also signed the pledge for sharing community.
In this occasion environmental activist, Guru Patro, Shankar Narayan Bej of Eco Club, Saktidhar Rajguru, Sabuja Bahini, Robin Hood Army, Eco Club and Anchalika Vikash Parishad, Mahatma Helping Club, Boxing Club, Team clean city joined and narrated responsible consumption. Bibhu Prasad Sahu of YSD set the context for collaborative consumption and Chandan Kumar Sahu, Abhiram Kanhar and Tapash Ku. Patra of YSD coordinated the entire workshop.
Sharing among human beings has existed since the earliest civilisation. Humans are hard-wired to share and be social animals. The barter system might have been the earliest form of sharing. From sharing content and media online, Internet has now enabled people to share physical things like homes, vehicles, appliances, furniture, etc with each other. Earlier, people preferred buying from big brands but are now considering pre-owned and refurbished options; people gradually looking at alternative options of sharing or renting a car only when required and people shares/unwanted/unused things could be used by someone who needs (through wall of kindness) these are few examples have now become mainstream and are a part of our daily lives. A sharing or collaborative consumption is a movement which is rapidly growing and will play a pivotal role in shaping our environment and economy.
There are a paradigm shift in idea of ‘me’ to gradually evolving to ‘we’, people are more willing to share, sharing economy applies to all walks of life like goods sharing, knowledge sharing, land sharing, transport sharing, space sharing and labour sharing are few examples. Some of the benefits of collaborative consumption are (1) ensures products are cycled and reused to its complete life cycle, thereby, reducing the effects on the environment, (2) offers economic benefits there by creating self-employment opportunities, (3) instilling trust amongst community members, (4) a desired lifestyle without burning a hole in your pocket, and (5) assets became a liability and owning became scarier (cutting down hyper consumption and wastage). Now time has come to create a sense of ‘sustainable consumption and lifestyle’ among the people to understand collaborative consumption and its benefits to environment and economy.
