Heather Bellamy spoke with author Ruth Valerio about caring for the environment, eating less meat, using money well and her new book Just Living.

Ruth Valerio

Ruth Valerio is a community activist, academic, mum, author, veg grower, wife and pig keeper all rolled into one. She is also Churches and Theology Director for a Christian conservation charity and a founder of Cred Jewellery, the world's first Fairtrade jewellery company. Just Living is her new book that asks the question: "How can Christians live well in a globalised consumerist society?" Heather Bellamy spoke with her to find out the answer.

Heather: What is your book about?

Ruth: It's looking at the society we live in, that brings with it some good stuff, but also a whole lot of challenges. It's asking: "How do we live well in it?" My particular interest is from a Christian perspective, but a lot of the things that I'm looking at go right across the faith and non-faith spectrum. How do we live in ways that look after other people, look after ourselves and look after the wider natural world?

Heather: What are some of those challenges that you look at in the book?

Ruth: Consumerism has brought with it a whole number of benefits, but it can also be quite damaging. We live with a constant expectation that we've got to be upgrading, getting more things and buying the latest things. That all takes time and effort and the result of that is that we live very pressured, crowded lives. We live in families where both partners need to go out to work, often full time, in order to bring in the amount of money needed. It can be quite detrimental and harmful to our relationships. We also often have to move in order to work and so we lose our connections with our family, neighbours and friends. The book is about trying to help people think through if we can rebuild some of those relationships and how we can live in ways that put those connections back into place again.

Heather: And where does globalisation come into this, because you're talking about living well in a globalised consumerist society?

Ruth: Globalisation is about the way that we are increasingly connected with different countries all around the world, through the products that we consume. If you think back to the last meal that you ate, the clothes that you're wearing, or the telephone that you're talking to me on, all of those things have been made by people all around the world and they've all come through globalisation.

Globalisation is about how we touch these people through our everyday lives. So for me then, it's thinking about how we can touch those people in ways that are positive. How can we be buying things in ways that look after the people who have made them? How can we buy things that have been grown in an environmentally friendly way?

At the moment in the society that we live in, a lot of stuff that we produce is really harmful, so I want us to think through how we can do that well.

Heather: And is that where Fairtrade comes in, is that why that's important?

Ruth: Yes it is. When we think about consumerism, some of what I suggest in the book is about stepping away and saying no and consuming less, so that we don't consume so much of the world's resources. It's also about consuming well when we do consume. Fairtrade is one of the best and most recognised ways by which we can do that, whether it's everyday products, like our bananas and our coffee and tea, or whether it's thinking about our clothes and the cotton, making sure the cotton is Fairtrade, or whether it's for my luxury items like pieces of jewellery and the gold that we might buy occasionally. All of that we can buy though Fairtrade routes, so we then know that we're supporting the people who have made them.

Heather: So what is your view of wealth?

Ruth: That it can be a good thing and it can be used positively, but it can also be quite harmful. The message I'm trying to get across in the book, is that it is not about moving from rampant materialism to abject poverty, I'm not against wealth per se, but I do think that wealth brings a lot of problems. Often people's wealth has come about at the expense of other people and the wider natural world.

When we talk about wealth, let's remember that on a global level, whatever we might think of ourselves, nearly all of us in the UK are actually wealthy. Where we have got wealth, my encouragement is to look at ways we can use it to bless others. So let's use our wealth well and give some of that money away; when we're using our bank, what about the way the banks are using our money? Let's think about that as well. So wealth doesn't have to be bad, but it's got to be used well.

Heather: You refer to 'simple living' in the book, what does simple living look like?

Ruth: Simple living is partly around frugality. It's trying to live in ways that use less of the world's resources.

If everybody in the world lived in the way that we do in the UK, we would need about three to three and a half planets to sustain that lifestyle. I'm sure many of the people wouldn't think of themselves as rich or greedy, but by living in our society, we consume more than we should do.

Simplicity is about looking at how we can consume less. Thinking about the food that we buy, about the way that we travel, about the energy that we use, about our waste habits, how much we throw away, whether we recycle and whether we reduce. All of these things are a part of living a more simple life.

Heather: If people wanted to make adjustments, how much is enough? What sort of decisions would we need to make?

Ruth: When we think about our food, one of the biggest decisions that we would make would be to eat much less meat. Our high meat diet is one of the biggest contributors to the environmental problems that we see. You don't necessarily need to become vegetarian, but moving away from meat so their diet is predominantly grain and vegetable based, with a little bit of meat and fish thrown in there as well, for those who want it. If we all changed that, it would make a big impact.

Another really good thing that people can do, is to switch their energy supplier to a renewable energy supplier. There are companies out there like Good Energy and Ecotricity that invest their money into renewable energy. It's really easy to do too, it just takes a switch and it doesn't cost much more. You make a big difference by doing that.

It's very hard to set the absolute line on what is too much, what is too little, or what is enough. What I would encourage people to do is to be taking steps in those different areas. Their food, travel, waste and energy. Taking steps to be using less in all of those areas.

Heather: What is living out those values in your day-to-day life like?

Ruth: It's been wonderful. It's been a challenge and hard work, but as a family we've loved it. It's led to us living a much more interesting and joyful life than we would have otherwise lived. So things like the pig keeping and the vegetable growing have all been a part of that. Also, thinking through where we go on holiday, so not just jumping on a plane to some island somewhere, but trying to holiday a bit more sustainably in the UK, has led to us going to some amazing places. We've been able to get solar panels, which was fantastic. It's sometimes hard work and sometimes it's a lot easier to go with the rest of the crowd, but I know that we have really enjoyed it and it's been a really positive experience for us.

Heather: What made you choose this topic for the book?

Ruth: It's been a culmination of an adult life of trying to live like this. Once my youngest daughter got to nursery age, I then decided that I wanted to do a PhD part time. I wanted to look at this concept of simplicity from an academic angle and really do some thinking and reading around it. The book, although it's not academic at all, is based on the thinking that came from that.

Heather: Where can people buy your book?

Ruth: It will be available from a number of different places. If people want to buy it online they can Google 'Just Living' by Ruth Valerio and it will be easily found. People can also go to valeriobooks.com and they'll be able to buy it there.