Osoji, in Japanese literally meaning “big cleaning”, traditionally happens by the end of December. As the old year comes to an end, in order to greet and invite the deities in for the new year, people engage in a deep clean by discarding anything old, unnecessary, or broke items that may have piled up in the past year. How exactly is cleaning linked to sustainability? Cleaning helps to get clarity on what you already own and appreciate every item you have, calming the need to buy the latest trendy gadget. Also consider the time and space you get to inform yourself when you are not looking for this mismatched pair of socks. I also truly think that cleaning your physical space helps a great deal with your mental one as well (take the word from a formerly messy person…). Here are some tips to do your very own Osoji. Create a vision for what you want your year to look like For the past few years, I have been a huge fan of vision boards. Take a white sheet of paper, write your goals and...

I can't say that I feel an overwhelming urge to try something new at the start of the new year, but I can assure you that many people do. My friends have been pestering me to reveal my new year's resolution for 2013 and most of my answers have been met with some rather underwhelmed expressions. I guess you can't get away with "typical" resolutions when you are a sustainability manager. So I started to do a little bit of research about what would be an appropriate resolution for 2013, you know one that is meaningful and easy to do and is good for the planet. But at the same time, the resolution has to be a bit of a sacrifice  I decided to narrow down my resolution to something related to CO2 production. I know that there are a lot of other issues out there to focus on but with so many of my friends coming back from DOHA with stories to tell, it kind of seemed like the right thing to do for this year. The next challenge was to find one of the biggest sources...