How I got here
I started writing about sustainability almost by accident. I had just moved back to Portugal after a few professional adventures between Germany and Finland, and I was starting out as a freelancer in innovation. The pandemic unexpectedly handed me some free time, and with it two certainties: I needed to find work that would pay the bills, but I also wanted to do something that mattered.
For years I had felt a quiet discomfort about everything I was seeing: reports, numbers, urgency, but very little of it translating into real life. And besides, what was the point of reading, learning and looking for solutions if it all stayed with me?
It was that urge to share that gave rise to the first articles. Almost as an experiment on myself: what would change if I took the small choices seriously? What if I replaced one thing a month? What if I accepted that I would fail, change my mind, even backtrack?
What changed for me was not starting to know everything. It was accepting that nobody does.
I came to see that these subjects are complex, and that even I can find the full technical picture hard to grasp. But I also came to see that sharing what we learn can prompt thinking and, above all, collective action. That is what makes this space worth having.
I learned three things quickly. First, that much of the communication around sustainability is done in a moralising tone that pushes people away rather than drawing them in. Second, that saying “take it slowly” and “you are allowed to fail” is, oddly enough, one of the most effective ways to keep someone going. Third, that this is not only about the environment: it is about how we want to live and the future we want to build.
Today I live between two worlds: consultancy and content creation. I like to think they complement each other, and that both can have a positive impact. In one, I help think through systems and cities; in the other, I work with brands and organisations that want to do better.
This space grows out of that intersection, and above all it aims to be a place for sharing. Here, on Instagram, on TikTok and in the newsletter. The thread running through it is always the same: simplify what is complicated, and bring within reach what at first seems far away.