It was about time we revamped this series with some novelties.

Meet a Member presents an interview with a member of the community we are honoring. We invite you to discover the background and talents of our members as well as their experience with coliving.

For this new interview, we had the chance to meet Camille Navarro, a French Corporate Social Responsibility Officer living at Cohabs Botanique 28, Brussels.

She is passionate about sustainability and eco-friendly products. She shares with us her experience with Cohabs in Brussels as well as several tips to consume responsibly.

Please enjoy the restart of the show and Camille’s interview.

Feel free to ask your questions in the comment section below the article.

Table of content

• Who is Camille Navarro
• Her internship
• Onmygreen_way project
• Experience with coliving
• Life at Cohabs Jourdan
• Cohabs community
• A story to tell

The Essentials

• Born in 1996, in France and lived in Spain and Brazil
• Work as Corporate Social Responsibility Officer @EXKI
• Shares her sustainable discoveries on her onmygreen_way Instragram page
• Lives at Cohabs Jourdan 20 for a few months with the Brohabs, an extraordinary story to discover below.

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Who is Camille Navarro?

Can you tell us more about your internship?

Being an environmental enthusiast, I wanted to participate in a project that would have an impact on the environment. 

A great opportunity opened up for me at EXKi.
Position: Corporate Social Responsibility Officer. 
Mission: Social and environmental responsibility and sustainable development.

That was the job for me. 

I am specifically in charge of internal communication relating to all aspects of the company’s social and environmental responsibility. One of the more concrete projects I’ve worked on involved changing packaging to replace plastic with more environmentally-friendly components. I equally set up awareness-raising workshops for all our internal teams. These workshops were a fun way to learn how to design eco-responsible products, such as toothpaste, washing powder, or even beewraps! 

Since then, I’ve committed myself to assist companies in their sustainable transition and to further develop their environmental and ecological responsibilities.

Camille, what’s a beewrap?

Well, it’s a fabric made from cotton impregnated with beeswax. As soon as you crease it to warm it up, it becomes a sticky, malleable fabric that can replace the use of aluminum and cellophane.

It has a wide range of applications, from wrapping food, covering Tupperware to forming a pouch for snacks, etc… And most importantly, zero waste is produced as it is reusable! 

And it seems you share content on onmygreen_way?

In 2015, my ecological side was triggered after reading Frédéric Lenoir‘s “Petit Traité de Vie intérieure” and shortly afterward, a report, “En Quête de Sens” in which the author presented his book.

Before that, I had absolutely no real ecological awareness. 
Seeing this documentary, which was my first on the subject, awakened my environmental awareness.

I said to myself, “Wow, this is the purpose I want to give to my life, I was telling everyone I want to save the planet.”

Naïve and very utopian, but since then, I continue to believe in it and to do everything I can to contribute to it. People around me think it’s complicated, but it really isn’t. It’s just habits to adopt. You just need a trigger to get started. 

I created my Instagram account and sustainable onmygreen_way project to share my discoveries and experiences with my community. The content I share on social media aims at helping people who are new to the subject and who are hesitant to get started. I want to support them in this transition, and being part of this adventure is evidence for me. 

I make most of my cosmetics myself, my toothpaste (made with coconut oil, white clay, and baking soda, among others), my shampoos and conditioners, just to name a few. Day cream and night cream are definitely banned from my bathroom. Organic oil, argan oil, only natural and organic, no more plastic. 

3 easy tips for adopting for a more eco-responsible consumption?

• Start with bathroom products, it’s the easiest way to start an eco-responsible consumption.
• Having an easily transportable water bottle in your bag eliminates the need to buy plastic bottles.
• Keep a set of bamboo cutlery. 

Tell us about your experience with coliving

Although I had never really ventured into the “coliving” experience, I had the opportunity to live communally. During my studies, I had the chance to study in Brazil for a year. Back then, I lived in a big house in the Brazilian lands, together with 40 Brazilians 🙂 It was my first familiarity with colocation. Very different from what I experienced afterward at Cohabs. The experience was very rustic. We managed the house autonomously (painting the walls, maintaining the gardens, etc.). I learned Portuguese over there. A lovely story that I recommend.

What’s your life like at Cohabs Jourdan? And why Cohabs?

Social media helped me to discover Cohabs. A friend shared photos of the house where he lives, Cohabs Parvis 16. I found the home so beautiful that I immediately turned to him when I got my professional internship in Brussels. An expat himself, he then explained to me the concept and functioning of Cohabs. 

What fascinated me straight away was the design and decoration of the houses. They are all stunning. Living with people of different nationalities is a crazy complementary experience too. Another aspect that totally won me over was the fact that we have everything we need in the house. Cohabs has put everything in place to make my daily life as straightforward as possible. 

All I have to do is use the Cohabs mobile application, create an incident ticket, the Cohabs team receives the alert and manages the problem for me when I’m at work. In the evening the problem is solved. I lived in other shared flats before Cohabs, it wasn’t coliving like here, the experience was really more complicated. We had to manage the incidents, the daily bills, the relationship with the real estate agency, etc. ourselves. 

In case of a technical problem in the house, everything is in place to make my life easier.

The Cohabs Coliving experience is simplicity itself, we know the interlocutors and the team, it makes all the difference.

Though I hesitated at first, because the monthly cost was a little above my initial budget, I quickly realized that it was more advantageous than many other housing solutions. All I had to do was some quick math and realize that with everything included in the package, it was really more advantageous (Wifi, Netflix, house cleaning, common groceries, events, community, mobile application, etc).

One thing I also really appreciate is the monthly events. The afterworks too. It allowed me to get quickly acquainted with the other members of the community, and to create ties with them. 

And what does a Cohabs community member’s day look like?

In our house, we are 17 expats, of various nationalities (there are Flemish, one Italian, seven French, one Spanish, one German, …). More than just sharing our spaces, we live together: we organize many activities, dinners, and parties all together. 

There is real sharing between the members. We often get together to play board games like Doodle, or Jungle Speed. After work, we often eat together. Parties are usually organized afterward. We bond really nicely together. Sometimes we even organize trips. Soon we will go to Marrakech for a few days with a group of girls. Between housemates. Or girlfriends rather 😉

One room in which we like to spend a lot of time is the Netflix room (Cinema Room). We watch series and movies together. It’s nice to be there because it allows us to discover films we don’t know.

Any good memory or story to tell?

There’s one that comes to mind, but I can’t tell it. The person will hold it against me. Biiipppp. Another great souvenir to share: five of my roommates got the Cohabs logo tattooed with “Brohabs” on their ankle. 

They arrived in December, they kept on calling each other ” Bro, bro, bro,” and then one of them nicknamed them the Brohabs because it’s the house with the “Bros.” They wanted to get the Bohabs tattooed because they are having such a crazy experience that they wanted to mark it in an original way. One of them even added the zip code of the town :). 

It was one of the most beautiful days at the Maison Jourdan, I believe. Everyone lived the moment together, from morning to night, a great sharing and unique experience. 

The final word?

There are no small actions when there are 7 billion of us making them.