The first phase of the project included interviews with active citizens, influencers and movements that aim to promote and share ideas on everyday circular practices, such as waste prevention, reuse and recycling.
During 2021, the Circular Citizens project team in Finland interviewed influencers and other people who follow and/or promote ecological and sustainable lifestyles. The interviewees told about their transitions to ecological lifestyles: what inspired or provoked them to change their consumption habits. Interviews give insights into people's different motivations and to the challenges they have encountered, and inspire to adopt circular habits.
At the same time the Circular Citizens project team in St. Petersburg collected interviews with eco-leaders and members of eco-communities. We discussed the history of the emergence of eco-communities and their transformation into full-fledged organizations, the personal life experience of eco-leaders and their transition to ecological forms of life. In 2022, many changes have taken place in the world. The collected interviews became a kind of archive and covered the practices of eco-communities and eco-initiatives in the past.
Today, many of the groups, with anticipation, are reorganizing their activities in a different way, have switched to standby or emergency work. Some eco-leaders have moved and their teams have completely switched to an online format that covered the process of the COVID-19 pandemic. Other communities have acquired a new complex status that hinders the implementation of activities. Still others continue to be active in protecting the environment, keeping the best practices, despite new risks.
The environmental agenda does not disappear - in St. Petersburg, the number of activists and people who want to follow eco-habits in everyday life is growing. A focus on a constructive natural lifestyle agenda and a desire to change aside from the outside what everyone can control for themselves are important motives for leading our work as well. This archive of interviews should be perceived in the current situation and in the light of the above.
