Lucie's Q&A

How do you do your day to day transport?
I use a combination of ways: bike, train, walking, bus, car…
I am a member of two car sharing systems. The commercial car sharing system Cambio, and Dégage, which is a private system where car owners decide to share their cars. More informally, I sometimes borrow the neighbour’s car if needed. It is not about choosing one way of moving around. I really like multi-modal mobility.
I have flown twice in my life, both times for professional reasons.

Where do you buy your food?
I order much of my food through the voedselteams where a group of organic farmers and food makers deliver directly to the consumer their fresh products. There is a pickup place close to where I live and I go once a week to pick up my order.
I also belong to a group of people, where we organise ourselves to buy in bulk, especially for grains and such, and then we split the products between us. This reduces packaging and is less expensive. It also limits the temptation of impulse buying, because I go to the supermarket less often. But of course I do sometimes go to a normal supermarket, and I do have my impulse buys.

Explain the concept of a co-operative  like your Natuurfrituur project
Co-operatives and social economy projects like the Natuurfrituur, works in a way that individuals buy shares, and it is up to people to change the way business is done. A person who invests in our co-operative leaves his or her investment in the company for at least two years, and gets a limited dividend (limited by law). The priority is to create jobs, create a sustainable company and to build a realistic economy.

How exactly do you manage staying nicely dressed in a sustainable way?
It is all about dematerialisation of the economy. I get my clothes in second hand shops or reuse shops, or through swishing (events where a group of people meet up with their own clothes that are unused in their closet, and walk home with “new” clothes that someone else has stopped using). There are also many other options, such as Pimp up my dress and Style me green.

Other hints for collaborative living?
There are so many systems that are about open source and sharing, such as the Transition network movement, and Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS).
These facilitate the exchange of knowledge, capabilities, work, and all kinds of other things on a non-monetary basis.