Everyone benefits from responsible living

14.09.2016
Everyone benefits from responsible living

Our everyday lives are full of choices to make a better future. It often makes us wonder, do our own environmental actions: not buying something totally unnecessary, biking instead of driving a car or recycling cardboard, actually have an effect? It feels like the big decisions, committing to the Paris Agreement, for example, are done someplace else and we cannot really affect them.

However, the world changes constantly even by the actions of individuals. Who would have thought in the 1990’s that in 2016 being a vegan would be the biggest food trend and that in the same year more people would prefer accommodating in each others’ homes through Airbnb compared to hotels? What may today feel radical can in a few years be the new norm to our behaviour. It is comforting to notice that our actions and consumer habits can affect in the fact what kind of a world we live in already in a couple of years.

Organizations and other actors must also think how environmental issues are taken into consideration. Here at DAS the environmental perspective is more widely connected to responsibility. It means responsibility for the environment, fair actions, economy and long term property maintenance. The greatest environmental issue regarding living is energy efficiency to which DAS as an organization is committed.

Energy efficiency and taking care of the environment do not mean reducing the comforts of living but a chance to affect the common well-being with one’s own actions. It can be seen in everyday DAS life as diverse opportunities to recycle: there are several different sorting out points for garbage in front of the buildings and you do not have to take your trash to the recycling points of the city or in front of the grocery shops.

Energy efficiency is also visible as regularly released tips on energy saving and campaigns, with environment and energy themed events for tenants and also changing into energy saving lamps and LED-bulbs, also regularly maintaining our plumbing and piping systems. While living at DAS tenants have a responsibility to inform DAS whenever you notice a leaking pipe or an open door.

As an extended term responsibility for a DAS tenant could mean an interest for the common issues, such as participating in tenant committee actions and by that increasing the living comfort in your own housing area. If that cannot be fitted in your calendar, even the smallest actions can add the common living comfort: greeting your neighbours or organizing a sauna night together. A wonderful example of the sense of community is the co-operation between the tenant committees and ‘Rovaniemi city growers’ from this summer. Perhaps from this summer onwards DAS tenants will grow their own lettuce with neighbours in the planting platforms delivered by the city growers?

Together more energy efficient?

By acknowledging our consumer habits and changing them e.g. with tips regarding saving energy we can affect the bigger picture in practice. We might think of our electricity, water and heating consumption even from the perspective of how it affects the annual energy consumption of the building. And by that all of DAS. Reducing our own individual carbon footprints can lead into a noticeable reduction in energy consumption on a yearly basis. This environmentally friendly action is one way of ensuring that living at DAS remains affordable in the years to come.

As a DAS tenant you have the chance to follow what amounts of electricity, heat and water are consumed in your building. Under the ’SERVICES’ section on DAS website you can find a link through which you can find real-time and comparative information from last year about energy consumption. Check that out and see how much energy is consumed in your building. It is also interesting to follow how the change of seasons affect the energy consumption in your building: in which month most water is consumed and how the heat consumption increases during cold periods.

 

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