If given a choice would you be the person with amazing ideas? OR would you like to be the person bringing amazing ideas to life?

Hello & welcome to Circular Business Podcast, a series where we look into circular economy from the Indian context. I’m your host & dost Sreepriya Sridharan and today we will talk about taking action & elaborate on the 4 easy steps to get started with your 1st sustainability project.

In today's times participating in climate strikes without knowing & understanding its agenda can become overwhelming. However that shouldn’t stop anyone from working on climate action.

If you are reading this right now, my intuition tells me that you already have an amazing idea waiting to spread its wings.

Therefore I want to help you make that process faster, as I’m gonna share with you 4 steps that I followed to successfully execute my 1st project on climate action.

Step 1 : Identify the problem

No matter what stage of life you are in, you very well know that one PROBLEM which always makes you want to speak up and challenge the status quo.

3 years ago I was working with a multi-national engine manufacturing company and one Friday I noticed that my colleague urgently needed a sanitary pad while I was in the washroom.

Hey I just got my chums..could you pls get me a pad (low voice).

Now the thing is, I switched to menstrual cups few years ago, so those days of extra pads in my bag are long gone. But somehow I was able to reach out to office supplies and help out my colleague at that time.

But wait a minute, I don't know if you noticed when she used the code word "chums" in a women's washroom! It's 2021 ladies, why do we still hesitate to call periods---> PERIODS?

She was even hesitant to say the word pad out loud.

So as soon as my colleague got out I asked her the same question, to which she said- Maybe because I've been trained to hide the word and anything related to "periods" ever since I hit puberty..

And I was shocked!

Later the conversation carried on over coffee with more colleagues joining in and at that time I realized that-

There you go..that’s how I identified my problem statement.

Step 2 : Ideate a feasible solution

That day’s conversation over coffee was so hard for me to digest, that it gave me a sleepless night.

Therefore on that weekend I penned down a plan to organize an awareness session around sustainable menstruation in my office and presented it the following week it to the leaders of Women Empowerment Network within our organization.

That brings me to step no. 3: Identify, network and connect with influencers / decision makers who will help transform your idea into an impactful project.

My urge to help women with knowledge of eco-effective menstruation was so high at that time, that it passionately reflected during the presentation and they agreed to support me to launch this event.

And now its showtime baby..with Step 4 : Execute with dead lines

Within a month we pulled together team and a panel of NGO speakers & gynecologists and hosted #PeriodForChange 

Tune into the episode to find out what happened next.

You can reach out to me on [email protected]

LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/sreepriyasridharan/