In the climate space, we rightly emphasize the need to include women in decision-making, policy processes, and climate negotiations. But beyond these important discussions lies another truth: for generations, women have already been practicing climate-conscious living in their everyday lives; quietly, consistently, and often without naming it as climate action.
Many of us working on climate change often speak about solutions such as the circular economy, sustainable consumption, waste reduction, and resource efficiency. We attend conferences, write reports, and discuss climate strategies and policies. Yet, when we look closely at everyday life, we see that many of these practices have long been embedded in the lives of thousands of women managing households, even if they are unfamiliar with the formal language of the circular economy or sustainable consumption.
I have seen many of these practices closely in the lives of my mother, grandmother, and mother-in-law. In their daily household management, they use resources with great care and thoughtfulness, often ensuring that nothing useful goes to waste. Around 90% of the quilts (khatha) in my home are made from my grandmother’s old sarees. This is a very common practice in villages. By contrast, people of my generation often prefer to buy new quilts from the market, increasing consumption where earlier generations naturally chose reuse.
My mother-in-law, who wears salwar kameez rather than sarees, has her own innovative ways of reusing old clothes. She makes thick quilts that can also serve as an alternative to mattresses. In her local language, these are called Dhokra. She uses old jeans, pants, T-shirts, shirts, and lungis to make them, ensuring that almost no fabric is wasted. She never allows me to buy lusni “a kitchen pot holder” because she makes them herself from used cloth. What many today might see as small domestic habits are, in reality, powerful examples of reuse and resource efficiency.
The same care is visible in how food, energy, and water are managed. My mother-in-law often uses pressure cooker to avoid unnecessary gas consumption. Leftover food is saved for the next meal rather than thrown away. She is equally careful about electricity and water. She walks around the house to check whether lights or appliances have been left on in empty rooms and switches them off immediately. I often fail to notice these things myself, and I know many in my generation are similar. There was a time when I thought she was simply being too frugal. Now I see it differently. What I once dismissed as over-cautiousness, I now recognize as responsibility.
Their habits of reuse go beyond food and energy. They prefer reusable shopping bags, keep old containers for future needs, and avoid unnecessary purchases. Once, I suggested that my mother-in-law buy waste-disposal bags for daily household use, but she refused, pointing out that the shopping bags from regular market trips could easily serve the same purpose. She reuses large water jars and containers to store rice, lentils, and other household items, and she rarely throws away a bottle that can still be used.
Even the care they show toward household furniture and appliances reflects the same mindset. Chairs, tables, sofas, televisions, and refrigerators often last many years longer in their hands than they do in ours. Where my generation is often quick to replace, they are more likely to repair, preserve, and continue using. Durability, for them, is not a slogan. It is a way of life.
These practices closely reflect what climate experts today describe as the 3R principle: reduce, reuse, and recycle. Economists and sustainability specialists frame similar ideas under the concept of the circular economy, where resources are kept in use for as long as possible and waste is minimized. But for many women, these are not theories learned from workshops or policy papers. They are habits shaped by experience, necessity, wisdom, and responsibility.
This is why I believe we need to rethink how we talk about climate issues. If climate action is ultimately about how we produce, consume, and manage resources, then the women of previous generations are already among its most practical and effective champions. They have quietly built everyday systems of efficiency, reuse, and care within households and communities, without recognition, without awards, and without being invited to conferences to explain what they do.
I work professionally in the field of climate, sustainability, and circular practices. Yet the more I reflect, the more I feel that my mother and my mother-in-law have practiced these values far more consistently, and far more naturally, than I or many others of my generation have managed to do.
Perhaps the lesson is simple: before we try to invent new language for sustainability, we should first learn to recognize the climate wisdom that has been living in our homes all along. And perhaps the real challenge before our generation is not only to talk about these values in seminars and policy forums, but to carry them back into everyday life.
