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Northwest Earth Institute courses have been used in the business community and at workplaces of all kinds since our founding in 1993. In fact, the first discussion course to take place was in a law office, setting the template for thousands of organizations to follow in gathering employees to discuss pressing environmental and social responsibility concerns. As the former Director of Business Partnerships for NWEI, I was particularly excited to find a communications blog, Change Conversations, where blogger Sally Kieny wrote about how NWEI’s discussion course on Voluntary Simplicity prompted a business group to reflect on how our written and verbal communications can be simplified through getting back to basics. Read below for Sally’s reflections and find the full post here.
Recently I signed up for a discussion course entitled Voluntary Simplicity, offered by the Northwest Earth Institute. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but was intrigued at the thought of bringing more simplicity into my life. Immediately I was conjuring up ideas of clean and organized closets, a streamlined home office and less stuff in my life. And while I hope to reach that level of uber-organization in my personal life, I’ve also come to realize that this concept offers much for the marketing-communications world.
I think this particular quote on the course booklet says it all:
“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.”—Hans Hoffman
Think about it. Removing the clutter from your marketing, your written and verbal communications, is so important. It ensures that your message is clearly defined and to the point—and that’s essential if you want to be effective. It’s all about being focused and deliberate with your marketing...
Simplifying and Getting Back to Basics: We use a tool called a positioning worksheet to help our clients bring focus to their marketing activities and determine how they want to be perceived in the marketplace. Through a series of work sessions, we work with our clients to develop a statement that identifies the business they are in, the specific needs of their customers, who their competitors are and the unique benefits of our clients’ products or services. Using this statement, we are then able to evaluate all potential marketing activities (advertising, sponsorships, PR activities, etc.) to determine if a particular activity would support—or detract from—the client’s positioning. This tool simplifies and brings a clear focus to their marketing activities.
So the next time you find yourself weighing various advertising options or determining which trade shows to attend, ask yourself, with your positioning statement in hand: Is this activity taking my business where I want it to go? Will it meet the needs of my customers? Is this activity “on position” for us?
If you can’t answer “yes,” then ditch the activity and move on.
The bottom line: Simplicity can be a wonderful thing in your life and your work. Don’t make things more complicated than they need to be. Don’t try to do too much. Simplify to bring clarity, to discover what’s important and to be deliberate in your marketing activities.
A good reminder that simplicity can work in all areas of our lives…
NWEI recently learned that Menu for the Future, one of our sustainable food discussion courses, inspired Pat Wilborn and Amy Otis-Wilborn to initiate the Port Washington, Wisconsin Aquaponics Model through their organization, Portfish. Portfish’s vision is to create a working model of an aquaponics system based on best practices that can be replicated to promote and engage communities in local sustainable food production. They are actively working to raise awareness of issues and concerns regarding our current and future food supply and to educate local communities about sustainable and healthy alternatives to food production and supply. They’ve also started a Winter Farmer’s Market and have compiled a local foods database for their community.
Below is an excerpt from their organization’s website:
Pat and I initiated the Port Washington Aquaponics Model in March of 2009. Our interest in local sustainable food production, however, developed over time – and, only in the last few years has it taken on a more urgent tone.
Pat and I come from very different food “histories.” His includes a very large family garden, necessary to feed a family with 8 children. His mother stretched and used everything in creative ways. This included okra, not one of Pat’s favorite vegetables to this day. And, he can only eat spinach in certain ways. Pat’s memories include being assigned a row in the garden to take care of. Punishment also included going to the garden to weed. Canning was an annual event to supplement winter menus. My history is like many my age – we were a city family growing up in the 50’s. My food memories include meals from cans and boxes. Cream of mushroom soup had a million uses and a treat was a TV dinner.
In 2006, we were introduced to Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). We signed on to receive fresh vegetables from Wellspring Farm in Newburg, WI. I couldn’t name most of the vegetables we received in the first year. I also had no sense of the growing season. We continue to buy shares from Wellspring and have learned how to cook “root” vegetables and anticipate the lettuces we receive early in the season and the black radishes, celeriac, and squash that come later.
But, our commitment to doing something about food grew out of a Menu for the Future discussion course. Menu for the Future was developed and sponsored by the Northwest Earth Institute in Portland, Oregon. Pat and I met with friends weekly for eight weeks, hosting our group in our homes. We read articles, talked about our food histories, our concerns about food, the environment, and sustaining healthy lifestyle options for our children. At the last meeting, the question posed was, “What do we do next?”
Pat took this question very seriously. His first idea was to develop a local food council. We had read about food councils and ways in which a council could help to focus communities on local food, sustainable production practices, and to serve as a catalyst to creating local food options.
While the group didn’t settle on this idea, it did decide to visit a local food operation in Milwaukee; Growing Power. Growing Power was receiving a lot of attention, locally and nationally. According to its website, Growing Power “is a national nonprofit organization and land trust supporting people from diverse backgrounds, and the environments in which they live, by helping to provide equal access to healthy, high-quality, safe and affordable food for people in all communities.”
Growing Power’s founder and director, Will Allen, attributed his growing success to worms. He has perfected growing worms as an organic medium for growing plants. He also has developed quite a composting system that heats hoop houses, sustaining a growing season through the winter. But, the project that most intrigued Pat was raising fish. Growing Power raises tilapia using an aquaponics system. Aquaponics is a system that cultivates plants and fish in a recirculating system. It is a combination of aquaculture and hydroponics.
What is the advantages of such a system to food production? It’s local, it is safe, and it is sustainable. A closed system continuously moves water from the fish to the plants. The plants take up the nutrients provided by the fish waste and send clean(er) water back to the fish environment – the cycle continues. The system relies on a natural relationship that maintains an environment that supports the fish and the plants.
Our interest in aquaponics as a means of supporting local and sustainable food production grew as we continued our research into food, food production, distribution, and the industrialized food system that has developed since World War II. Some facts that convinced us that investing time and money in aquaponics was important:
- Less that 1% of food is local; on average, food travels 1,500 miles;
- Most people, saddest of all children, do not know or pay attention to where their food comes from;
- Current large scale industrial farming depends heavily on petroleum products for planting, harvesting and distributing;
- Food safety is at stake with chemical fertilizers and pesticides that degrade farmland and waterways;
- Growing concerns about access to safe food sources, particularly protein-based foods;
- Increasing use of additives and genetically modified foods in processed food;
- Increase in obesity, illnesses, and diseases that can be attributed to poor diets and limited access to healthy food alternatives.
Thanks so much Pat and Amy for your work!
Can it be true? Is holiday shopping really upon us? As we turn towards the upcoming holiday season, many in the NWEI community are asking how we can shop sustainably and give socially responsible gifts. A recent Choices for Sustainable Living group in Kingston, WA at the Stillwaters Environmental Education Center wrestled with the question and wrote about it in the Kingston Community News. Read on for Naomi Maasberg’s musings on how to make choices for a sustainable future.
It seems like summer is barely over and it’s time to think about holiday shopping.
The holiday gift-buying season will be here soon! This is the time of year that gets some of us to the malls and the stores even more often than we would ever like to be. It was in the midst of that shopping season that a sustainability discussion group at Stillwaters Environmental Center was discussing the topic of “Sustainable Buying.” This is one session of the course, with readings from “Choices for Sustainable Living” by the Northwest Earth Institute.
While it was tempting and we felt motivated after the discussion, most of us in the class did not abandon our Christmas shopping entirely. We did discover some good ideas about how to make purchases count and help to determine the real environmental impact of products we might buy. These would apply no matter what the season, of course!
Any product or service is sustainable if it is made, used and disposed of in such a way that it could continue to be made, used and disposed of indefinitely. This is because it would not be extracting any additional resources from the Earth to do so.
In the production of a product, the natural resources used need to be available from generation to generation; this is what sustainability is all about — making sure future generations will have adequate resources to support them. Also, the waste from a sustainable product must stay within the manufacturing loop and not build up or cause pollution.
Right now, there are very few totally sustainable products in the marketplace, but some are much better than others, of course. As shoppers, there are some things we can look for and things to ask ourselves.
- Do I really need the product? Even if a product is “green,” if you don’t really need it, it’s better not to use up the resources — the greenest product is the one you don’t buy! Often, second-hand things will suffice or be better, and certainly not use up more resources.
- Is it safe to use? Check for toxins that are in so many products. They’re not good for you or the environment.
- Is it durable, well made, of good quality that will last? Inexpensive things that wear out quickly require replacement resources to be used. If you need to use some of Earth’s resources, make them last!
- Is it made from recycled or renewable resources? Are the materials taken in a sustainable way? Are the raw materials used renewable ones, like plants? Or non-renewable, like petroleum? How much of the content is recycled goods? Are the materials organically grown or sustainably harvested? It should have this information on the label.
- How will I dispose of it? Think ahead and look for things that have little packaging, and packaging that can be easily recycled. Then, think ahead to when you or someone else no longer needs this product; how can you dispose of it in a way that will not put it in the landfill? Can it be re-used? Recycled?
- How far was this shipped? We get products from all over the world now and think little of it. But many natural resources are used up in transporting things. “Buying locally” is not enough if the product has been shipped to our local store from across the world!
When shopping, try to think beyond the item you see in front of you. Consider all it took to put it in front of you, and ask yourself if it is worth it.
*If you are in the Kingston area, Stillwaters Environmental Education Center is starting NWEI’s newest discussion course, Hungry for Change: Food, Ethics & Sustainability. If you are interested in joining this group, call (360) 297-1226.
This month, Ellen Dawson-Witt is hosting Choices for Sustainable Living in her 192 square food home in Yellow Springs, Ohio. The group is discussing voluntary simplicity, ecology, food and money…and all things pertaining to living more lightly on the Earth. For more photos of Ellen’s ‘tiny house’ and for the full article entitled “Tour of a Tiny House” in the Yellow Springs News, click here.
When Ellen Dawson-Witt wanted to live a more sustainable life, she didn’t take half-measures. She moved to a farm, went off the grid, and downsized to a house the size of a shed.
Fitting her life into 192 square feet was easy for the 56-year-old — she long ago eschewed television and fashion, and got rid of the stuff she didn’t use — and so was living on a farm in exchange for taking care of goats. And she didn’t mind carrying water, using a composting toilet, keeping a wood stove going and lighting oil lamps in the off-the-grid structure that lacked indoor plumbing and a furnace.
She raised some of her food, carried the water she used for bathing and cooking from a nearby well, collected rainwater from her roof for washing, composted her waste and split wood for her wood stove. There were some modern amenities too — three solar panels, which provided some electricity for a lamp, CD player and laptop, and a 1934 gas range for cooking.
“It was fully living in line with my values,” Dawson-Witt said. “I like to know where my food comes from; I like to be in literal touch with the elements and to work with other people.” …
Thanks to Ellen for setting the example that living this lightly can be done – and for sharing it with others through a Choices group!
This month in the Sequim Gazette (Washington), columnist Beverly Hoffman posed a challenge about shifting our thinking and educating ourselves in order to create the changes we wish to see. She reminds us that Fall and Winter are times to come inside, slow down and gather with friends, family and co-workers in the spirit of educating ourselves more deeply as times change. We hope you’ll host others for an NWEI course this season, too! Read Beverly’s article below:
As I talk with my friends, it seems that many of us have shifted our thinking toward a greater consciousness. Like the Joads in Steinbeck’s “Grapes of Wrath” who, in the Great Depression, had to leave their Dust Bowl Oklahoma land and drive to California in hopes for something better, we know things are changing. And how we respond to those changes might define us, as individuals as well as a country.
At least three ideas seem to be intersecting right now — a sluggish economy with food prices getting higher, a wish to eat healthy food and a growing sense of the need to reduce our carbon footprint on earth. Many of us are thinking about a first-time garden or how to increase the size or productivity of existing gardens. I was at a friend’s house the other day and she was showing me how they planned to change a perennial bed into a raised bed where they could grow vegetables and include a hot frame. Another friend is experimenting with hydroponic (no soil) production. I also saw a class on hydroponics recently advertised. Another friend showed me a small second-year garden where she or her husband gather vegetables each evening for a stir-fry.
In Port Townsend this past month, the Northwest Earth Institute sponsored a weekend conference with Will Allen as the keynote speaker. Allen, the son of sharecroppers, who became a professional basketball player and later worked for Proctor and Gamble, shared hundreds of slides of how he has transformed cultivation practices, using raised beds, composting, aquaculture and vermiculture (composting utilizing worms). He is undeterred about his vision and feels he’s in the infancy stage of his wish for the entire world to have access to good food. He composts on a huge scale to create a rich soil — his answer to growing healthy crops. Then he transforms any offered space — asphalt-covered parking lots or an area where there is infertile soil — by heaping his composted soil on top. He teaches people how and when to plant, how to harvest and how to sell at local farmers markets or to restaurants and school cafeterias. He constantly is learning and experimenting. One idea I loved was his wish to build a five-story structured greenhouse of sorts with an institutional kitchen inside where people could learn to can, dehydrate and freeze crops.
On another weekend I again went to Port Townsend for its Film Festival and saw two movies on alternative gardening. One was about a man who created a garden in the back of his truck, adding a vapor barrier and rich soil. He literally was a gardener on the move, selling his herbs and produce around the city. Another film showed a gardener who was growing rows of produce atop New York buildings. He had to have an engineer figure out the amount of stress a roof with wet soil could handle and then with that knowledge, he laid out beds and was able to produce an abundance of food. Another lady, who lived in a city high-rise with lots of windows in the foyer, experimented with hanging gardens made of suspended plastic gallon bottles tied together and attached to a horizontal PVC pipe with holes punched in the bottom, that was the water source trough. Below the hanging plastic bottles tied to one another, another PVC collected the dripping water and pumped it back up to the feeder pipe.
People are thinking. And creating. And experimenting. And are problem solving. Like the Christ-figure Jim Casy in “The Grapes of Wrath,” many are recognizing that “we” is far more important than “I” and are trying to build communities where people work together and where Mother Earth is protected and honored. Recently I was at a lovely apple orchard party where the hostess invited her guests to pick apples to take home. She also had a cider press where guests filled containers with fresh apple juice. Even the pulp was saved … for a lady to take home to her chickens. While there, I went into the greenhouse and tasted tomatoes right off the vine. So sweet. So juicy. The entire afternoon was a celebration of the harvest and of good friends taking the time to be together sharing a potluck meal.
Times are changing. We might want to visit the Northwest Earth Institute website (www.nwei.org) and look at the courses they offer. During this fall and winter, as our lives slow down a bit, we might want to host a group of like-minded friends to study one of their books, such as “Voluntary Simplicity,” “Menu for the Future,” “Healthy Child, Healthy Planet,” etc. Each book is about $21. At the talk by Will Allen, we all were encouraged to find a way to plant something to eat in our surrounding gardens around our homes. We were challenged to educate ourselves more deeply as times are changing.
I pass on the challenge to you.
For the full article, click here.
NWEI was featured earlier this week on OPB’s Think Out Loud with guests Rich Bruer (board member for NWEI) and Kim Smith (PCC professor and third time participant in NWEI’s EcoChallenge). Here is an excerpt from that coverage:
October 1st marked the start date of the annual EcoChallenge. The event, created by the Northwest Earth Institute (NWEI), challenges participants to reduce their environmental impact in some way for two weeks. The event may have started small, but as awareness of the challenge increases, so do the participants. Mike Mercer, the Executive Director of NWEI says last year only 375 participated, but this year it’s closer to 1,300 people.
Participants can take the challenge by themselves or work in teams and are encouraged to track their progress daily. A few of the categories suggested on the EcoChallange 2011 website are water conservation, energy efficiency and sustainable food options. The website also has a “Check-In” page where participants can log every day that they meet their challenge.
Are you participating in the 2011 EcoChallenge? Did you participate in the past? What do you do daily to reduce your environmental impact? Click here to see the conversation online.
Let us know what you are doing! Learn more at www.ecochallenge.org
This just in from our guest conference blogger, Shelly Randall of SustainableTogether.com, who took the time to recap the events of NWEI’s multi-day biannual gathering a few weeks ago. Thanks Shelly! For those who weren’t able to join, this will fill you in on gathering highlights and outcomes.
Salutations from Port Townsend, a community that is still reverberating with the excitement of hosting NWEI’s biannual North American gathering last month (Sept. 15-18, 2011). The “Will Allen buzz” has yet to wear off, and every one of the 500-odd people who attended his public keynote address seems to still be talking about it. Everyone else in town is eagerly awaiting the video that was shot that night to be edited and released.
Our grassroots efforts to create a more vibrant and sustainable local food economy have gained visibility and been bolstered by the opportunity to host NWEI’s conference, “If Not Me, Then Who? Building Healthy Communities and Local Food Systems One Conversation at a Time.” (Thanks to NWEI for offering reasonable day rates that made it possible for many Port Townsendites to attend the conference part-time.)
In addition to the conversations that started, “Did you hear Will Allen?”, conversations here in Port Townsend are spinning off everywhere:
- Through new NWEI discussion courses that are starting up this month, in homes and churches;
- At a talk this week on reconnecting urban consumers to agricultural producers, presented by the director of our state Department of Agriculture and hosted by Port Townsend’s Citizens for Local Food;
- At this week’s kick-off event for Our Watershed, a NWEI-style, 7-week course being offered at no charge to participants, and available in two geographic versions: the Pacific Northwest and more specifically Puget Sound. Click here to learn more.
- At meet-the-candidate events with conference attendee and local economy advocate Deborah Stinson, who is running for City Council;
- Between my 3-year-old son and the 4-year-old son of a climate researcher I met at the conference whose family just happens to live four blocks from mine!
Best yet, our local Chamber of Commerce has invited me and Judy Alexander (chair of Port Townsend’s NWEI steering committee and Local 2020 leader) to present back-to-back in November, and is dedicating two of its weekly meetings to the topic of local sustainability. The Chamber director was inspired by local media coverage of the NWEI conference, and her phone message was waiting for me at the end of the day Friday. What a wonderful and direct outcome!
Before my inspiration from the conference is redirected to these worthy conversations, I want to present some easily scannable conference highlights from sessions I attended. Below, please find short summaries and relevant links to more information. The conference schedule contains details on all the presentations held Thursday-Sunday at Fort Worden State Park…
*Below are just a few excerpts from Shelly’s full post. To read the full recap, visit www.sustainabletogether.com
Conference Highlights – FRIDAY
Community Building, Sustainable Food and Neighborhood Activism: A Port Townsend NWEI Case Study
Imagine if every Menu for the Future course had a farmer or food producer at the table? That was the case for the 28 NWEI discussion courses organized in our county in 2010. Judy Alexander and Peter Bates (both NWEI organizers) and local Grange President Dick Bergeron shared how they found common ground to pull off this ambitious, and how it helped grow the customer base for local food.
It was an inspiring first session, notable for its outcomes (our county now spends 4% of its food dollars locally, compared with less than 1% nationwide, and there is a push to get that to 20% by 2020), its specificity (how a Google Docs spreadsheet enabled course coordination), and its enduring themes (partnerships, identity politics, how food brings people together).
Peak Moment TV interviewed these three in Fall 2010, and the interviewer’s notes nicely summarize this Town Mouse/Country Mouse collaboration. Click here to read them, and click here to watch the 28-minute video.
Accelerating Community Capital: Developing a Local Investing Ecosystem
I heard this called “the most paradigm-shifting session” of the weekend, and with the Occupy Wall Street protests now in full swing, learning how to promote local investing seems more relevant than ever.
One of the key factors driving Port Townsend’s relatively thriving local economy is the Local Investing Opportunities Network (LION), a clearinghouse between business owners who need capital and potential investors in their community. It’s not a pooled investment or a loan fund, and business owners are not making public offerings—transactions are based on one-to-one personal relationships (which gets around SEC restrictions). Since LION formed in 2006 (it was formalized in 2008), it has facilitated more than $2 million in local investments (primarily loans), with an average investment of $132,000 per active investor.
“It has been not only a huge economic boost for us, but also a profoundly hopeful thing to be a part of,” said presenter Deborah Stinson. She was joined by fellow LION investor Michelle Sandoval and locally financed business owner Crystie Kisler of Finnriver Farm “What we’re finding with LION investors is they have truly aligned their values with their actions and their bank accounts,” said Kisler.
LION’s website offers Local Investing Kits with templates of its legal agreements and forms. Peak Moment TV interviewed LION’s co-founder, an investor, and a locally financed entrepreneur in Summer 2011. Click here to watch the 28-minute video.
Becoming a Hyper-Locavore: Lessons from a 10-Mile Diet
I hadn’t read my conference schedule close enough to realize Vicki Robin would be here, and when I was casually introduced to the co-author of Your Money or Your Life—one of the most influential books of my past year—I couldn’t even speak, I just genuflected. So of course I had to attend Vicki’s presentation later that day.
Who knew it would be so funny? It turned out to be the trial run of her “relational eating” talk, describing her extreme eco-challenge to eat only what grew within 10 miles of her Whidbey Island home for one month in 2010—and she had us all laughing hysterically. Thankfully, she chose September. Thankfully her neighbors bootleg raw milk and cheese, and sell eggs and free range chickens. But at a “shocking” $5/lb, Vicki was forced to cut way back on eating the only meat available to her. In the midst of describing this protein dilemma to us, Vicki happened to look out the window and caught one of Port Townsend’s feral deer in her sights. Instantly, she leaped into a bow-and-arrow stance. “That would’ve been dinner,” she declared, to her audience’s great delight.
Look for her undoubtedly good-humored book to come out next year: Blessing the Hands that Feed Us: Lessons from a 10-Mile Diet (Viking 2012). Vicki blogs at http://ymoyl.wordpress.com/…
To read more about Kurt Hoelting’s keynote address about Harnessing the Power of Place to Build More Resilient Lives and Communities, workshops on community walkability, NWEI’s new course Hungry for Change: Food, Ethics and Sustainability and highlights from Farmer’s Market tour and the Farm Tour, click here.
Shelly Randall blogs at SustainableTogether.com and can be reached at shelly@sustainabletogether.com or 360-301-2540.
Meet Shelly Randall, our Guest Conference Blogger! She’ll be posting throughout this week’s conference on sustainable food and communities on what she’s seeing and learning, so if you wanted to join us but can’t, we hope this will be a way to share the learning. Also, its not too late to join us! There are still spaces available! Click here for this week’s conference info!
Salutations from Port Townsend, where I know many of you will be heading in the next couple of days for NWEI’s biannual North American Gathering. Let me introduce myself as the conference’s guest blogger.
I’m Shelly Randall, a 35-year-old freelance writer and mother of a just-turned-3-year-old, and I’m thrilled to be launching my new blog, Sustainable Together, concurrent with the conference. In fact, the impending conference date circled on my calendar has been the kick in the pants I needed to pull off the blog project. I first heard about the NWEI gathering through Local 20/20, our umbrella sustainability organization, and couldn’t shake the idea I had to be there. At the time, I was contemplating “my life’s purpose” as part of a personal finance plan, and when I inputted “sustainability” as the personal and professional goal, everything else fell into place.
So I registered for the conference two months ago and have been working steadily ever since to organize my thoughts into a mission statement and to essentially rebrand my communications business, shifting from a maritime focus to a sustainability focus. You see, I sailed—I really did!—into Port Townsend more than a decade ago. For two years after college I had been crewing as a shipboard environmental educator, first with a program on Long Island Sound, then with Sound Experience, on the schooner Adventuress. I met my future husband here at a contra dance and decided to stay. My first job was reporting for the weekly newspaper, covering the port and shipyard beats, among others. I later worked for the Northwest Maritime Center and freelanced for maritime publications.
It was my newspaper’s publisher who encouraged me to take my first NWEI discussion course, Choices for Sustainable Living. This was in 2000 or 2001, and he had just completed the course with other city and county leaders and thought it would be worthwhile for his staff. Obviously, it was!
Back to the present: I have enrolled in NWEI’s EcoChallenge from Oct. 1-15th (view my profile) to kick off my own “ecochallenge” for Sustainable Together. My year-long experiment, which I’ll be tracking on my blog, is to strengthen my community networks by and for living more sustainably. My hypothesis is that support systems (of family, friends, and institutions like food co-ops) are absolutely necessary for and a happy byproduct of moving along the sustainability spectrum. To that end, I will be getting involved in Local 20/20, joining the barter network Fourth Corner Exchange, and using an NWEI course this fall to bond with other like-minded parents of young children. These are all worthwhile activities I have meant to do for years, but have not prioritized until now. You can read all about these endeavors and more on my blog, and subscribe to get ongoing free tips and inspiration for “going sustainable together.”
Thank you to Deb McNamara for offering me this plum position (!) as guest conference blogger, and I look forward to posting throughout the conference on the lessons learned at presentations and break-out sessions.
P.S. At the conference, I’ll be actively seeking success stories of “going sustainable together” to feature on my blog over the coming months, so if you would like to impart how you share the journey toward a more sustainable life, please seek me out!
Shelly Randall blogs at SustainableTogether.com and can be reached at shelly@sustainabletogether.com or 360-301-2540.
This past year, the Northwest Earth Institute was fortunate enough to have Melanie Horton, a recent graduate of Naropa University’s Environmental Leadership program in Boulder, Colorado, do an applied leadership internship project looking at how NWEI’s work intersects with environmental justice issues. Her tenure with NWEI helped to bring the complexity of environmental justice issues to the fore. We are grateful to Melanie for helping NWEI craft a plan to address environmental justice in future operations and programming. Look for more articles in our new course books that address these issues – and read below for Melanie’s reflections on her work with us.
Over the past couple of years, my definition of sustainability has become much broader. I now think sustainability is as much about the relationships between humans as it is about our relationship to the earth. Unfortunately some communities suffer more harm from things like industrial pollution and the health issues that come along with it. The neighborhoods where industry is located are usually lower-income areas or places where the majority of residents are people of color. Environmental racism describes this unfortunate situation and refers to “the enactment of any policy or regulation that negatively affects the living conditions of low-income or minority communities at a rate disproportionate from affluent communities” (Environmental Justice Group. National Conference of State Legislatures, 1995). These communities suffer from pollution and environmental degradation first and worst, but ultimately we all suffer from the areas we sacrifice to polluting industries. Traditionally activists and social change agents have dealt with environmental and social issues separately, but the environmental justice (EJ) movement is working to connect social inequity and environmental degradation while mobilizing to address needs in both areas. EJ activists recognize that the injustice of diminished health of people and planet in our most vulnerable and underrepresented communities affects us all.
The United States EPA (http://www.epa.gov/environmentaljustice/) defines environmental justice as: “the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies.” Furthermore, the agency says that EJ “will be achieved when everyone enjoys the same degree of protection from environmental and health hazards and equal access to the decision-making process to have a healthy environment in which to live, learn, and work.” I first encountered the term environmental justice in the Political Ecology course I took last year during my graduate studies. My exposure to this movement—through case studies and the work of activists like Van Jones and Majora Carter—made me passionate about wanting to spread the word about the connections between environmental and social justice issues.
I chose to do my Master’s thesis project with NWEI because I was inspired by the course guides and how the courses encourage participants to explore their own values, attitudes, habits, and actions through discussion with others. I spent the fall semester learning as much as I could about NWEI and participating in a Sustainable Systems at Work course. My assessment was that there are some ways in which justice and equity issues can be addressed more directly in NWEI’s courses and programming. This is not to single out one organization, however—considerations of justice and equity are either overlooked or not very prominent for lots of environmental organizations. Thus, for my project, I chose to advocate for more of a focus on environmental justice issues in the organization’s programmatic materials and to provide them with a list of resources and action steps by which they can begin to more overtly give voice to the EJ perspective.
In studying NWEI’s course guides, I learned that the organization already addresses environmental justice somewhat in its courses. For example, Choices for Sustainable Living has a great interview with Van Jones called ‘Bridging the Green Divide.’ Global Warming: Changing Co2urse has several articles in Sessions 2 & 3 that deal with issues like equity, socio-economic disparities, and green-collar jobs. Session 5 in Menu for the Future, ‘Towards a Just Food System,’ highlights issues of justice & equity. And Globalization and its Critics has many articles that deal with EJ issues, especially session 6 entitled ‘Social Equity.’ This was all very exciting for me to see and indicated that the organization shared my values of justice and equity. It also provided a platform on which I could advocate for a more overt focus on these issues in course content.
By conducting a written survey of NWEI stakeholders including former course participants, course organizers, members of partner organizations, and staff members, I learned from the more than 40 responses I received that:
- 90% of respondents agree or strongly agree that environmental issues and social justice issues are inextricably linked.
- 59% of respondents want to learn more about EJ
- 83% of respondents think that educational discussion courses can lead to the empowerment of low-income and communities of color to form local sustainability initiatives.
- 68% of respondents want to learn more about how to work with low-income communities and communities of color to increase civic participation, civic engagement, and to redress long-time neglect.
- 88% of respondents want to learn more about how to create more inclusive organizations through relationship building and collaboration
- A majority of respondents said they would be likely or very likely to participate in and/or organize a course on EJ
I am excited to see so much awareness and interest in environmental justice amongst NWEI members and look forward to seeing the results of the organization’s bolstered commitment to focus more on EJ. Taking responsibility for Earth also means taking responsibility for the health and well-being of each other. The discussion courses are a great tool in which we can all learn more about the environmental degradation in underprivileged communities and what we can do as individuals and within our organizations to take action. - Melanie Horton
Our Fall EarthMatters newsletter is here, a little in advance of the change of seasons. In addition to the latest NWEI program news, inside you’ll find articles from:
- Scott Dodd, who writes for OnEarth Magazine
- Duncan Berry, a values-based business man, who also writes beautiful poetry about his place, the Oregon coast, and
- Barbara Duncan, a long-time NWEI volunteer and director of the Catamount Earth Institut
Inside, you’ll will also find all the latest details about the 2011 EcoChallenge. Join us from October 1-15, 2011 as we collectively prove that many people taking action adds up to real change!
Click here to download your electronic copy of the Fall EarthMatters newsletter.
Please join NWEI and the Port Townsend Co-op and Farmers Market for a special presentation from Growing Power’s Will Allen!
He’ll share his remarkable work in creating sustainable, urban, community based agricultural systems in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and inspire us to be part of what he calls “The Good Food Revolution.” The event is the keynote address for NWEI’s bi-annual conference to be held September 15-18th. Can’t join us for the whole weekend? Please come for Will’s evening presentation only – to be held Saturday September 17th at 7pm at McCurdy Pavilion in Port Townsend, Washington.
For more information and to buy tickets ($12), please visit: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/177350
As many of you know, the faces of the Northwest Earth Institute extend far beyond the walls of our Portland, Oregon office. YOU are the face of NWEI: course organizers, discussion course participants, EcoChallenge participants, partner organizations, board members and volunteers alike. Thank you for all you do to take responsibility for Earth!
Here are a few of the faces from our Portland, Oregon staff. From front to back: Lacy Cagle, Director of Curriculum and Community Engagement, Monica Pham, Office Manager and Accountant, Kerry Lyles, Development Director, Rob Nathan, Director of Outreach and Technology, and Mike Mercer, NWEI’s Executive Director. (Not pictured are staffers Deb McNamara and Carolyn White). The photo was taken for a giving campaign hosted by Standard Insurance, who has been organizing NWEI courses for many years.
We thank those of you who have worked with us for being one of those fellow people to step forward in the spirit of creating a more sustainable world!
The following is an excerpt from the National Catholic Reporter, which just profiled Sr. Claire McGowan, a Dominican sister and Northwest Earth Institute discussion course organizer since 20o7. She has been using NWEI guides as part of her efforts to transform Springfield, KY into what is now known as “the greenest county in Kentucky!” Claire’s efforts inspired the creation of a local non-profit, New Pioneers for a Sustainable Future. To read the whole piece, please visit http://ncronline.org/blogs/eco-catholic/green-pioneers-organized-dominican-sister-transform-town
New Pioneers is owned by the community of Springfield. The Preamble to the International Earth Charter serves as its guidepost. “We stand at a critical moment in Earth’s history, at a time when humanity just choose its future…we must join together to bring forth a sustainable global society founded in respect for nature, universal human rights, economic justice, and a culture of peace.”
In their six and a half year history, Sr. Claire and the group have been busy. They sponsor lunchtime learning meetings, drawing upon the Northwest Institute’s educational materials around such topics as food security and global warming. Study groups recently wound up an eight -week series on “Menu for the Future.”
Sustainable communities study groups for local business and civic leaders exist, as well as Earth Day celebrations, a downtown Farmer’s Market ,“smart growth” and farmland preservation workshops, and occasional sustainability columns in the Springfield Sun.
In light of the smart growth and farmland preservation topics, New Pioneers created a video as a visioning tool for Springfield citizens. The video posed a question: What did people want their town to look like in 2025? With the help of the State Extension Office, New Pioneers compiled a questionnaire Some 650 people participated. Then New Pioneers organized a day of visioning, open to the public. Nearly 100 individuals showed up…
To help further the rural heritage vision, New Pioneers has encouraged Springfielders to buy locally.
“If we could get people to spend just five percent of their food money on locally grown meats, fruit, honey and sorghum, instead of relying totally on the area’s two supermarkets, that would go a long way to build a sustainable food system,“ said the nun. To help promote this idea, New Pioneers has made a list available to residents with names and contact numbers of local farmers.
Sr. Claire’s current projects are encouraging the schools, a local college, and three motherhouses (The Dominicans, Loretto, and Sisters of Charity of Nazareth, Ky) in the vicinity of Washington County to buy local foods. “We are currently in a monthly education process with our own motherhouse and college food service directors about their buying locally grown food occasionally for special days.”
Restaurants are also in New Pioneer’s line of vision: The group is inviting eateries to offer one menu every week featuring locally-grown food.
“We always start small, with suggestions that are practical and doable.” said Sr. Claire. Why not big? Because “local food is more expensive than what can be bought from large industrial food producers,” she explained.
Sr. Claire McGowan admits to wishing for more progress on the environmental sustainability front, but she acknowledges that one has to proceed slowly when it comes to changing people’s minds and hearts…
Her one bit of advice to groups looking to broaden Earth-centered views. “Make it fun. Build relationships. Do small changes in small ways.”
This week NWEI’s Executive Director, Mike Mercer, shares his reflections on what it takes to act on what you care about. Let us know what you think!
“Those who know, care, and those who care, take action.” I heard this recently from a young woman speaking before an audience of business professionals at a sustainability conference. A short, sweet and valid point. Perfect! Problem solved– all we have to do to change any intractable problem is to shower people with information. If they would just listen! However, with this cliche, like many others, there is a bit more between the words that needs filling in. Let’s talk about “care” for a moment.
Do I care enough to change to more sustainable behaviors when I am crazy with work, or Need to get the kids fed and off to soccer practice, or I’ve got no milk for the morning cereal? For many perfectly sane, intelligent, caring people, the answer is “no”. Not an explicit no, but many people mean to make sustainable choices, but just don’t get around to it, or are too swamped with other responsibilities.
We all live with multiple priorities. I personally care about the atrocities occurring in Sudan and homelessness and the child prostitution occurring right in my home town. While I don’t perpetuate these actions, do I take any direct steps to ameliorate them or give to these causes? No. And it is not because I am callous, lazy or even lack a few bucks to give. It’s because I am focused on taking action on my other priorities – like a healthy planet that supports healthy people and helping my kids get through school and adolescence.
Changing behavior is one tough nut to crack, particularly when the existing behaviors feel like the norm. So, how do we get people to care enough to make the change?
- We need to feel empowered and that our behaviors do make a difference in the grand scheme of things. Use the power of story! Stories paint a picture of hope. I am inspired by the quote of Rainer Maria Rilke, “If I don’t manage to fly, someone else will. The spirit only wants that there be flying.”
- Most often, it’s not about doing more, but doing what we already do differently. Disarm the time concern. Most of us have too much on our plates already. How can we tweak what we already do, without adding too many new “to do” items to our already long list?
- Tie changes to values many of us already hold and respond to – health, economic interests and wellbeing of ourselves and those closest to us. When we want to change draw on what most of us care for: family and health, for starters.
- Use the power of social norming and support. The single most predictable indicator of our behavior? Look and see what others in our network of friends are doing. Most of us don’t want to be outrageous or boring, we just want to fit in. Use messaging that creates a norm, like “75 percent of the employees in Jane’s department copy double-sided.” Be authentic. When we can point to what others are already doing, we can create momentum for positive change.
- Most of us don’t want to be judged on our current behaviors. If I am going to change, let me figure that out, but do provide me access to a variety of options that might fit my interests. We all start somewhere on the continuum of change. It does us well to be non-judgmental and an open minded!
Knowing and caring are not enough to elicit the change we desperately need to see. Caring enough is! What are our priorities? What can we commit to starting or doing right now that will align our care with our actions? Let’s do it!
Just in case you missed our big announcement, yesterday we launched EcoChallenge 2011. The EcoChallenge will change your life. No, really! it will! My first EcoChallenge was to take on the hyperlocavore 100 mile diet, and since then I’ve thought about food, food transportation and the import/export systems nearly every time I grocery shop. Last year I took on a no-plastics challenge, and attempted to live plastic free for the 2 weeks of the EcoChallenge. Note that I said “attempted”. Lesson learned: plastic is everywhere. Since then, I’ve continued to eliminate as much single use plastic from my life and don’t think I’ll ever consider packaging and single-use items in the same light again.
This October we hope you will take on your own personal EcoChallenge and maybe you too will change for good.
We’re seeking participants who are interested in being EcoChallenge Bloggers. The EcoChallenge always leads to great stories, fun anecdotes, and shared learning, and we want you to help us tell the fun, compelling, thought-provoking stories of making a positive impact through sustainable change. The EcoChallenge runs from October 1-15, and we’d love to find a few folks who will commit to blogging at least 2-3 times each week.
In exchange for your words, wisdom and tales of challenges and success, we will feature you here on our blog, on the EcoChallenge website, and in our social media posts during the EcoChallenge. If you’re interested in blogging your adventures in changing for good email me at kerry at nwei dot org. If you’re already blogging elsewhere on the web, send me a link to your blog too.
If you’re up for the Challenge, we look forward to hearing from you!
Ryan Harper
Deborah McNamara
Kerry Lyles
Mike Mercer
Lacy Cagle
Carolyn White
Rob Nathan
