Don't wake up in a roadside ditch: Resuscitate campus sustainability by connecting the dots 

It's easier to connect the dots in peoples' brains if each step along the way has a personal impact.

If you watch television, you will see a series of ads for a satellite TV service that comically connects problems with cable television to some sort of personal mayhem. The ads promote an in-your-face brand of systems thinking. One ad, the "Don't wake up in a roadside ditch" segment, goes like this:

When your cable company keeps you on hold, you get angry. When you get angry, you go blow off steam. When you go blow off steam, accidents happen. When accidents happen, you get an eye patch. When you get an eye patch, people think you're tough. When people think you are tough, they want to see how tough. And when people want to see how tough, you wake up in a road side ditch. Don't wake up in a roadside ditch. Get rid of cable and use Direct TV.

Direct TV has six of these type ads running and I chuckle at most of them. I want to rip off this same comedic formula for campus sustainability (if only I were funny...):

When you throw cans and bottles into the trash instead of recycling them, your kids do the same thing. When your kids do the same thing, they grow up wasteful and edgy. When your kids grow up wasteful and edgy, they elope with somebody wearing a dog collar

When they elope with somebody wearing a dog collar, you get depressed. When you get depressed, you stop caring at work and get fired. When you get fired, you can't pay your bills. When you can't pay your bills, you borrow money from the Mob. And when you can't pay your bills to the Mob, your house blows up. Don't have your house blow up: recycle!

It's easier to connect the dots in peoples' brains if each step along the way has a personal impact. Simply depending on altruism to stimulate systems thinking about the interconnectedness of our world-and sustainability's role in it-may be a bit of an overreach.

Starting a few months back, AASHE began promoting systems thinking among us "sustainabilistas" by "Connecting the Dots" in its weekly email news capsule "The AASHE Bulletin." The goal of this series is to help readers understand "how sustainability encompasses and connects multiple dimensions," AASHE hopes. And we certainly need that.

But after I listened again to environmental psychologist Doug McKenzie-Mohr talk about Community Based Social Marketing's barriers and incentives approach to creating behavioral change for a few days in late May, I began to wonder anew about the typical boosts and hurdles that get people to connect those dots.

McKenzie-Mohr teaches to seek answers first in the literature-and indeed this is not a new question. The research includes noted heavyweights like Peter Senge, Peter Drucker, and even Erich Fromm. And within the research is a finding by MIT's HL Davidz that should make all sustainabilistas feel right at home:

"Although there is not agreement on how to define it, or validate it, or measure it, the construct of 'systems thinking' is nevertheless a priority in academia, industry and government."

Wow, sounds just like the definition of the term "sustainability." Nothing like a muddy definition to give us aid and comfort that we can somehow achieve a goal we can't describe. We are used to that.

However, more comforting is the notion that an individual's ability to perceive interconnectedness can be enabled and even enhanced. In "Enablers and Barriers to Systems Thinking Development: Results of a Qualitative and Quantitative Study," Heidi Davidz writes:

The "three categories of key enablers of systems thinking development are experiential learning, individual characteristics, and organizational design."

Davidz defines experiential learning far more broadly than what could be achieved in even the most ambitious service learning program. "When asked about how 'systems thinking' develops, respondents emphasize past experiences.... These include: on-the-job training, working on cross-functional teams, training and education coupled with application, key lessons learned, active mentoring, childhood experiences, and hobbies." Direct TV ads are spot on: it's about personal mayhem-or personal achievement.

In terms of personal attributes required of systems thinkers, these include: tolerance for ambiguity, curiosity, openness, strong interpersonal skills, strong communication skills, ability to ask the right questions, ability to navigate complexity, and analytical ability.

These personality characteristics look familiar among sustainabilistas, but are they common among the general public? I have my doubts. Indeed, Davidz' research finds that, "some people will never be systems thinkers. Systems thinkers are born not taught." However, among those who have the capacity for systems thinking their natural predisposition can be triggered. That's our job.

To put that challenge in a broader context though, Davidz finds the biggest barrier to systems thinking is an organizational structure that is highly stove-piped, silo-based, and reductionist. Can you say "higher education?"

So, how do we move campus sustainability off its deathbed by connecting it to people, not just bunnies and trees? I suspect the answer is grounded more in our one-on-one, small scale conversations than in our broad hopes and efforts to change an academe organized in the very monolithic and cloistered structure seen as anathema to systems thinking. But those myriad small efforts add up.

In our individual work, we can test for someone's propensity for systems thinking such as those traits identified above. We can evaluate personal barriers and incentives to sustainability such as McKenzie-Mohr teaches. We can use the vetting criteria identified by Bob Doppelt and his recommendations for overcoming personal and organizational structural barriers to sustainability.

We can work as mentors, advisors, and colleagues with small groups of likely students, faculty and staff-and urge them to do the same. It's a pyramid scheme. We have a shot at creating real change when working with individuals.

That's tougher when working campus wide because higher education's stodgy organizational inertia chokes off interconnectedness of disciplines, concepts, and even many administrative units. Ever try to talk with your CFO about non-monetized soft costs, life cycle analysis, or license to operate? Ever try to talk to your diversity office about inclusive engagement? Ever try to talk to a curriculum committee about crediting experiential learning? These can be difficult conversations.

Campus sustainabilistas are in a tough spot. Higher education blunts systems thinking, it's the nature of the beast. The highest achievement in the academe is a terminal degree in some reductionist academic pursuit. Interdisciplinary efforts swim upstream on most campuses. Yet we must work within that system to promote personal awareness of interconnectedness. We must articulate those interconnections in the programs and efforts we run every day. In a recent AASHE Connect the Dots essay, Cynthia Klein-Banai offered sound advice as to how to make that happen:

"We must strive to make sustainability the lens through which we talk about intergenerational equity, equal access and distribution to global resources. We must evaluate and connect our work in areas such as diversity to curriculum innovations...."

I think Direct TV nailed it: people think about systems when personal benefit or risk take them there. We have the opportunity to promote systems thinking and so sustainability every day with the students working with us, the staff we partner with, the faculty we reach out to, and the community members we engage with. It's all about those personal, individual conversations; making them touch peoples' lives--and that works even better when it's fun too:

When you only talk about solar power's impact on the planet, you leave out its impact on people. When you leave out solar power's impact on people, many people don't have a reason to care about solar power. When many people don't care about solar power, the planet suffers. When the planet suffers, those impacts are felt by lots of people

When lots of people feel negative impacts, they get upset. When lots of people get upset, they start riots and wars. When they start riots and wars, your taxes support armies instead of solar power. When you pay taxes for armies instead of solar power, you join the Occupy protestors and get thrown out of parks by the police. And when you get thrown out of parks by the police, you get clubbed in the head and end up in a roadside ditch. Don't end up in a roadside ditch. Connect solar power to people.

Indeed, don't wake up in a roadside ditch.

What's Hot About Food: Putting Your Fork in Climate Change

A sustainable food expo and conversation with author Anna Lappé

CU will host a sustainability expo and conversation with author and sustainable food advocate Anna Lappé on Tuesday, Sept. 18. The discussion will provide a prelude to Food Day on Oct. 24, a celebration of sustainable food practices on college and university campuses across the nation.

The event, entitled "What's Hot About Food: Putting Your Fork In Climate Change," will feature an expo of non-profit and sustainable business representatives followed by a conversation and book signing by Lappé, founder of the Small Planet Institute.

Lappé's message supports the principles of the Real Food Challenge, a movement that encourages sustainable food practices on college campuses. "Real Food is food which truly nourishes producers, consumers, communities and the earth," proponents of the Real Food Challenge explains on realfoodchallenge.org.

Non-profit or sustainable businesses interested in exhibiting at the event must complete the expo application form by September 7. Exhibitor space is very limited.

Students, business representatives and locals can come early to Eaton Humanities Room 1B50 at CU-Boulder to browse the expo at 5 p.m., followed by Lappé's presentation, discussion and book signing at 6 p.m. Admission cost is $12.50 for the general public, and $8 for students; the event is free for CU-Boulder students with a student ID.

Co-produced by CU Environmental Center, the Restorative Leadership Institute, and Best Organics, the presentation will explore global climate change through food choices. Lappé will also sign copies of Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do About It, her book on sustainability and justice in the global food chain.

"In a summer where more than half of all U.S. counties have been declared natural disaster areas due to drought," says Seana Steffen, executive director of the Restorative Leadership Institute, "it is more important than ever for Americans to understand Anna Lappé's message about the relationship between our agricultural choices and climate change."

Lappé and her mother conceptualized the Small Planet Institute in 2001 to support grassroots democracy movements worldwide addressing the causes of hunger and poverty. They also co-founded the Small Planet Fund, which channels resources to democratic social movements worldwide.

Sustainability Spotlight: Transition Colorado and the Local Food Shift

Transition Colorado, a Boulder-based non-profit dedicated to fostering self-reliance among local communities, initiated efforts to catalyze food localization through the Local Food Shift campaign.  

The campaign strives to achieve 25% locally-grown, locally-produced, and locally-sourced foods in Boulder County over the next ten years through their 10 percent pledge, in which residents and local businesses allot up to ten per cent of their food budget to local food.

Sustainable Commuter Fair  

International Conference on

What's Hot About Food: Putting Your Fork in Climate Change, a sustainability expo and conversation with author Anna Lappé   

September 18

Attend a sustainability expo and conversation with author and sustainable food advocate Anna Lappé at CU on Tuesday, Sept. 18. "What's Hot About Food: Putting Your Fork In Climate Change," will feature an expo of non-profit and sustainable business representatives followed by a conversation and book signing by Lappé, founder of the Small Planet Institute.

Visit http://ecenter.colorado.edu/ for more information.  

September 17 & 18 

The 2012 Energy Justice Conference will    examine how the international community and local citizens might deploy Appropriate Sustainable Energy Technologies (ASETs) to offer  sustainable energy for "The Other Third" of the world. The conference will begin with a Keynote Opening Session addressed by the world's premier advocate of sustainable energy for all, Dr. Kandeh Yumkella, the Chairman of UN Energy, and the Director-General of the United Nations Industrial and Development Organization (UNIDO). He will be joined by Timothy Wirth, the President of the UN Foundation, which spearheads the global campaign to promote clean cook-stove technology.

The Technology

Expo provides an opportunity for individuals, organizations, and companies to display and demonstrate examples of ASETs such as simple and inexpensive, yet largely ignored, technologies that already exist to deliver some of the clean and sustainable energy needed by The Other Third. The ASETs will include efficient cook-stoves, pyrolytic cook-stoves, nanoparticle water filters, urine-diversion dehydration toilets, ceramic and sand filtration devices, solar powered LED lighting, solid state lighting, solar rickshaws, treadle pumps, and improved plows, harnesses, and yokes for draft animals.

For more information, visit http://www.colorado.edu/theotherthird/.  

Place-Based Education: Test Scores and Beyond Test Scores, a presentation by David Sobel

October 18

Place-based education connects students to resources and learning in their local communities and landscapes. Due to a concerted evaluation and research effort, there is now a solid foundation of data that indicates that environmental and place-based education can raise test scores across the curriculum, improve student attendance and engagement with learning, increase teacher motivation, improve school climate, increase stewardship behavior, and even improve environmental quality. Come to learn what place-based education is, what research shows about its outcomes, and how to form regional networks for evaluation.    

Learn more at http://ecenter.colorado.edu/.    

Food Day 2012 

October 24    

On October 24, CU-Boulder will join universities and colleges around the nation for Food Day 2012, a day to celebrate and promote sustainable food practices. Food Day is the equivalent of Earth Day for the "Real Food" movement. It's an opportunity for folks from all walks of life to unite around a common passion for food and sustainability.  On the CU-Boulder campus, students, faculty, staff and community members will come together to learn, eat and advocate for a more just and sustainable food system.

Learn more at "What's Hot About Food: Putting Your Fork in Climate Change" on September 18, or visit  http://realfoodchallenge.org for more information.

10th Annual Colorado Bioneers - From Breakdown to Breakthrough:

No-sort recycling in CU housing and dining

helps make landfill diversion easy

Recycling bins located throughout Housing and Dining Services at the University of Colorado Boulder are now single-stream receptacles, helping to make landfill diversion as simple as can be.

The new system, implemented this week in residence halls, dining facilities and at the Center for Community, allows all recyclables to be tossed into one container, alleviating the task of sorting materials.

Recycling throughout the rest of the campus will remain a dual-stream system with "paper" and "co-mingled container" categories.

"The change balances the need for added convenience in the residence halls and dining areas while retaining the more valuable stream of materials -- which is processed and sold, generating revenue for campus -- from academic and administrative buildings," said Edward von Bleichert, CU-Boulder environmental operations manager.

The improvement also presents a good opportunity to remind the campus community of what not to toss into recycling, according to officials.

While plastic bags are the biggest contaminant to the recycling process, loose shredded paper, coffee and soda cups -- which have plastic linings -- and neon or heavily dyed paper also are non-recyclable products.

"Now more than ever, we must pay attention to the types of materials we are throwing in the recycling bin to ensure that we keep a high-quality recycling stream leaving campus," said Dan Baril, CU-Boulder recycling program manager.

The campus has a 2012-13 goal of reducing landfill waste per person to 147 pounds -- down from about 175 pounds per person in 2011-12. It also has an overall landfill diversion goal of 90 percent. In order to reach the goals, the campus must continue to lower the amount of materials entering the waste stream, as well as double the amount that is collected for reuse, recycling and composting, said Baril.

Students started CU-Boulder's recycling program in 1976. In addition to collecting and processing recyclables, the program teams with campus entities to offer a number of zero-waste events, including Ralphie's Green Stampede. The stampede transforms Folsom Field into a trash can-free venue during football games -- a first-of-its-kind program in the nation.

Some of the program's student employees have been going around to Housing and Dining Services bins that previously were labeled by categories and retrofitting the receptacles with stickers that simply say "recycling."

For more information on CU-Boulder recycling visit http://recycling.colorado.edu.