Sharing - across workplaces and in your community

Welcome back to term 3!  This weeks blog I thought I would introduce the concept of sharing.  

At the very core of sustainable practice is sharing:

• Sharing is good for social aspects - to share you have to talk to other people!  
• It is good for the financial bottom line - if you share resources, you reduce investment required in plant and equipment.  For example you could buy a top of the line ultrasound machine, spending a little more capital, but share the costs of it over 3 veterinary clinics and have it last far longer than the slightly cheaper version you might have brought for just one practice.  
• It is good for the environment - if you share there is less stuff needing to be made, and to dispose of at the end of its life.

Image source

Have a look at these pod casts to consider more about sharing:

• Story of Stuff - Sharing Part 1 
• Story of Stuff - Sharing Part 2 

Getting started:

At home:

• Share some produce that you have grown with friends, family and neighbours.
• Share a lawnmower, power drill or gardening equipment between neighbours.
• Share a second car between neighbours - perhaps often one car sits in your driveway most of the time but on occasion you need 2.  If all households had one car and then there was a communal share of a second car.
• Share clothes with friends.

At work (veterinary clinic examples):

• Consider sharing large outlay items - ultrasound, digital radiography, CAT scan machines. 
• Share staff - perhaps there is a veterinary nurse who has a part time role but would like a full time role and a neighbouring practice needs a part time nurse - collaborate and create a full time job.

Tell us about sharing that you undertake either at home or work.  We look forward to hearing from you.

Have a great week.