Aashima Aghi Trading Corporate Job For Sustainability: A Young Woman’s Pivot to Green Content
A passionate advocate for sustainable living. She left a successful corporate job at Zomato to focus on full-time content creation centered around sustainability. In an interview with
MOSAIC, Aashima shared her journey and insights into how simple lifestyle changes can make a significant impact on the environment.
MOSAIC: What inspired you to change your lifestyle and advocate sustainability?
I am very conscious about my lifestyle, paying great attention to details from eating healthy, staying fit, and starting the day early so that collectively it all reflects in my attitude. My journey with greener living began with reading books on human psychology and then more on healthier life choices, I would say this shaped my mindset with sustainability. Coming from a marketing background, and having worked a successful career with Zomato, where I was leading interesting projects and working a challenging profile, I understand the importance of living a balanced life, then came a time that working in corporate was not the thing I wanted to do further, but to create something of my own. During the pandemic times, a lot of discoveries happened, a starting point for me, knowing for example a lot of things in my wardrobe or the kitchen pantry that I did not need. A lot of times we feel we are distinct from the environment but we are not, we are one with the environment and we need to live making important sustainable adjustments. Post-pandemic my inclination to live a healthy life and advocate for others through my practices was largely enhanced, content creation was never a problem being a marketer, so I certainly knew it was through social media that I could showcase my greener lifestyle and motivate others to join too.
MOSAIC: Which sustainable changes you adopted in your lifestyle?
It begins with the change in the mindset, being aware of what adverse impact your actions have on the environment. Once awareness comes in then your actions naturally are accountable, and you find better ways to live your life. I started by understanding how and why plastic use is so bad, what harm is it causing to our planet and our health, and next then is to know ways in which one can reduce plastic use and therefore plastic waste. For those who want to get started, the easiest and most important thing to do is to carry your own water bottle. Like how we used to carry our own bottles everywhere rather than buying bottled water everywhere we go. We can then move to avoid plastic cutlery, and paper and plastic plates which is the reason for big disposable waste our cities are dealing with.
Also, would like to encourage people to start with composting waste at their homes, this is easy and will take just a few minutes in a day, and one can use that as fertilizer for the garden. There are many benefits of composting, and one can make a great positive impact on the environment, as then you prevent this wet waste from mixing with other types of waste and entering the landfills because there it is difficult to manage.
MOSAIC: Can you share some benefits of living sustainably and also the positive ways it impacts the environment?
Sustainability is for all of us, a lot of people may believe sustainability to be just a trend. However, there are those who want to change and truly are conscious about making a positive impact. It is important to demonstrate the many benefits of living a sustainable life, then others will also join in. There are many benefits of conscious living – it is better for the environment, and in turn better for the water we drink, the foods we eat, and the air we breathe. Our choices reflect in our health and wellbeing – and therefore living a wholesome, healthy and mindful life is important for all of us.
MOSAIC: How the community of content creators and influencers advocating a sustainable lifestyle is developing?
More content creators are coming into the space, I see a lot of interest, enthusiasm and even creativity in advocating why a sustainable lifestyle needs to be adopted by everyone, and it is not a trend that will die soon. There are serious creators, who have made drastic changes in their lives, and this is one bold change in lifestyle in showcasing care for the planet is easy to do. It is a very good niche, which will push for large-scale sustainability across businesses, homes, institutions and even corporates. Content creators are working with relatable concepts and even collaborating with companies or NGOs with sustainability-focused work.
MOSAIC: Is a sustainable lifestyle difficult to practice, how can one begin and what are some easy ways to adopt sustainability in lifestyle?
No, it is not! It is all about changing your mindset, moving away from fast fashion, to hoarding home supplies or over-consumption of food and water. Also, those who are animal lovers must also need to be nature lovers, and I feel it is a big miss in our society. We have pet parents but I wish they also took care of trees and our environment. One can begin with simpler things moving away from fancy commercial alternatives. For example, use homemade rakhis over overly-packaged fancy rakhis, or go for handmade terracotta diyas over fancy wax candles or lights. Don’t be tempted by everything you see online or in malls or markets – know that we don’t need so many new things. I would say replace material joy with real experiences – like celebrating festivals with friends and family, with homemade foods and gifts. Moreover, gifting should be something of value, not anything we see on the shelves.