Do you believe in the sustainable future? Do you want to live in a place where you can breath clean air? Do you know what small thing that you can do for achieving those goals? Here is an idea: you can start by planning on how you move around the city. If it’s still in walking distance, you can just walk. You can also ride a bike. It’s healthy, it’s cheap, it’s fast, it’s trendy, and most importantly, it’s environmentally-friendly. Start your journey being involved in this sustainable development by planning your journey more eco-friendly. Unfortunately, we have to admit that this whole “start your journey from your journey” slogan will not work if there are only a handful of us that have the willingness to change and to improve.
The highlight of this month
June was a very busy month for us. We have been experimenting with our micro space in front of our shop display. One week it was a music stage, another week it was a library, and then the week after it was a living room. Also this month, we participated actively in the events promoting clean air for Southampton. We have our exhibitions and our little activities during the “Let’s Ride Southampton” and also “Clean Air Day Southampton”. We also get our opportunity to introduce ourselves to Research Cafe under the theme of “air pollution and our health”. The question is “why Mutrend Lab was invited in all of these activities?” and “why clean air has something to do with Mutrend?” For us, the answer relies on this buzzword named “sustainability”.
What is sustainability?
Imagine that you have three overlapping circles labeled with “Social”, “Economy”, and “Environment”. Sustainable is the “sweetest spot” laying among them, which gives us the best-combined advantage from all those three aspects. Focusing too much on the economic aspect, may sacrifice the social features and cause environmental damage. It works in all directions. Focusing too much on social and forgetting about economy and environment also potentially jeopardize the balance. This model is well-known as the “three pillars of sustainability” which is first introduced in United Nations World Summit 2005 and this model has been widely used in the various studies in sustainability.
Mutrend Cares
We are very conscious about creating a sustainable community. Even though it may sound superficial, we ought to believe that the sustainable can only be created if all those parties who care about the cause are willing to collaborate. On a micro level, our practice so far has been largely focused on social, cultural and economical aspects of daily life in Southampton, but we also have the power to engage with wider audiences. It is crucial because in order to create a systemic change the first step would be “to educate”. We believe that given the appropriate platforms and also opportunities, like the ones we had in June, we could probably engage more audiences to spread the message of sustainability in a more coherent and holistic way. So again, “why we got invited to combine our force for the clean air in Southampton?” The answer is because we care.
My final words would be: don’t forget to visit our space at 1/2 Portland Street. Our space is pedestrian and biker friendly.