Cross-posted from Its Getting Hot in Here

Macalester College released its Sustainability Plan on September 15th. In the midst of a flurry of action on the national policy level, internationally around Copenhagen, and in the local fights against mountain-top removal and other dirty energy, one more college sustainability plan seems almost insignificant. What’s important about this plan, however, is not what its goals are (though they include carbon neutrality by 2025, zero waste by 2020, and more) but how it plans to achieve them. I hope this focus on the method as well as the goals can inform and inspire the rising movement for a sustainable future. Here’s a brief synopsis of the key features of the how, which I’ll explore in more detail below the fold.

1. Going carbon neutral will be revenue positive, meaning a carbon-free future is as much commonsense smart decision-making as it is a moral imperative.
2. Designing the vision was participatory – 400 students, faculty, and staff contributed at a college with a student body of 1900 – and implementation will continue to be. The plan clearly states that it is a baseline platform, not a ceiling.
3. The changes really matter – with a few exceptions, the plan identifies strategies to that make actual change, rather than check the boxes of conventional practice.
4. The college plans to create ripples of change that extend far beyond campus – emphasizing pathways to broader change through the supply-chains, education process, and community relationships it engages.
5. Sustainability is defined holistically as the ongoing process of nurturing a healthy environment, social justice, and a strong economy. It is a guiding quality of all the institution’s core values, not an addition to them.

This plan is a bold step forward for Macalester, and one in which we all have a stake. I’m hoping that in whatever field of work we’re engaged in, this plan and the process that it grew out of as both a model for how to dig deeper into the how, and to inspire new and renewed innovation and action. The process of getting to this point through the past several years of work has been particularly illuminating – stay tuned for more stories.

In the meantime, check out more details on what’s important about how Macalester seeks to achieve sustainability below.

So the carbon goal itself is decent – the initial Environmental Studies Senior Seminar that did much of the grunt-work creating recommendations for the report ran several scenarios, including carbon neutrality by 2020, 2030, and 2050 (which we consider business as usual, regardless of what about half of Congress things), and recommended the 2020 goal. 2025 as a final target is a small concession considering the systematic, big-picture thinking that the overall plan employs. There are many other main goals in the plan itself, including Zero Waste by 2020, and a vast set of strategies that a wide range of campus entities will employ to achieve them. Many of these strategies are still pretty vague, but they identify the general processes and clear principles by which the college will advance towards clearly specified goals. I actually see this as a strength – the 16-year implementation process will be vast and complex, and (like the rest of society when seeking a post-carbon future) we don’t have all the details figured out. Having clear and powerful principles that act as a strong platform for future effort towards a clear objective is a great start, and as we’ll see, many of these principles are pretty compelling.

1. Going carbon neutral will be revenue positive

Macalester will focus first on energy efficiency, improving campus behavior, and waste reduction. The college has yet to figure out how it will actually make the shift in budgeting procedures, but Macalester intends to dedicate the substantial savings that these changes achieve to fund the rest of the process. This approach took inspiration from the student-initiated Clean Energy Revolving Fund and subsequent campus projects that have demonstrated that sustainability, when done right, saves more than it costs – which makes sense when you think of it as not throwing resources down the drain left and right – the modern standard practice. While thorough research still needs to be done, initial study by the previous Environmental Studies Senior Seminar suggests that shifting to a non-fossil heating source will also be revenue positive for the college (research was for an off-site biogas purchase from agricultural cow manure production that is becoming increasingly popular in Minnesota – I’m even more fond of the ground-source heat approach, which hasn’t been thoroughly evaluated, both because it’s more sustainably scalable and probably will have less price-volatility when linked with fossil fuels). Cost-effective, concrete, on-campus solutions will reduce our carbon emissions by over 50%, and also provide the funding needed to eliminate the rest through off-campus action. The focus on profitability may seem like a concession to a business-mentality, but it is actually vitally important to the climate movement – if the solutions we advocate are expensive and require sacrifice and loss (as opposed to gainful and meaningful investment) or resources, we rapidly make them inaccessible for low-income communities here in the US and most of the Global South. In other words, unless we can find a new approach to development where climate solutions make money and renew the economy, we’re going to be stuck at a global impasse while the world burns for quite a while.

2. Participatory vision creation and implementation

The President’s Climate Commitment, The Sustainability Office, and the Advisory Committee that helped develop this plan were all formed as result of several years of intense coalition building, innovation, and leadership, much of it by students. The position we took over these years was more than just that we need bold action, but that we intend to be co-creators throughout the process and share in the process of leadership – interestingly, this led to both less adversarial relations, greater openness to a participatory approach, and more power for the grassroots later on. Full-campus engagement has been a constant struggle, but by using a participatory facilitation process, we were able to get input from over 400 students, faculty and staff to inform the vision, strategy, and tactics of the plan – while not all of these people were students, that’s a number of campus participants greater than 20% of our student body. The final draft was compiled by working groups of students, faculty and staff, who also got to review and comment on revisions that were made after the final draft went to the upper administration. The important part is that campus departments and groups that will not play a role in implementation were part of the planning process, giving them both ownership over the vision and a community of support in making it happen. The process also made clear that we as a community are in it for the long haul, and that this document is just a start. The guiding statement introducing the plan clarifies: “Macalester recognizes that achieving sustainability is an ongoing process. The goals in this report are intended to guide the college’s progress and are not meant to be limiting” (p 8). Again, doing this at a small liberal arts college of 1900 students is all very well and good, but on the global scale, we know that solutions to climate change will take everyone – and making sure everyone has a stake is a pretty tall order.

3. The changes really matter

There are plenty of ways to call an institution carbon neutral. Several have already bought carbon offsets or renewable energy credits from outside corporations equivalent to their carbon emissions and declared victory (note that that also implies a significant cost, violating the first big principle of Macalester’s how). Ultimately though, we’re going to have to make a lot more very real changes in how we do business. Aside from the almost exhaustive list of specific actions the document describes (real and concrete goals ranging from paper reuse to fuel switching in vans, to encouraging hemispheric study abroad – and thus fewer, shorter flights), the plan provides some key guidelines. These include that we will offset OR develop off-campus renewable energy for our carbon emissions ONLY after exhausting opportunities for on-campus efficiency, waste reduction, change in practices, and energy generation. Many in the student community worked for a very long time before off-campus renewable energy generation was given the same weight in the plan as traditional offsets, and its inclusion serves as a major platform on which to build. In the long run, it makes no sense to be expending large amounts of money paying for vague, distant, and often dubiously sustainable carbon credits when we could act as an investor and coordinator of further investment for the profitable clean energy (mostly wind) opportunities that are springing up across rural Minnesota and even at rival (rural, windier) colleges like Carleton, St. Olaf, and Morris. Again, there’s enough fluff in the broader “climate solutions” field already – we need an approach that is dedicated, meticulous, skilled, and adventurous in making the changes that really matter.

4. The college plans to create ripples of change that extend far beyond campus

In the conventional carbon assessment method for institutions, ones carbon footprint – and thus what one has to deal with – ends at the campus or corporate boundary – limiting the assumed difficult and costly responsibility. Here’s a key extended quote, from page 8:

“Macalester is committed to being a leader among institutions of higher education to create the optimal educational experience, demonstrate sustainable business practices, and foster sustainable communities. Macalester understands that its commitment to sustainability must reflect its interdependency with other local and global communities and ecosystems. As well, we believe that our economic prospects rest on the flourishing of sustainable economic practices and activities, and we recognize the liability that unsustainable industries invariably pose.

Using the lens of sustainability, Macalester will teach and practice local and global citizenship. We will support sustainable community development beyond the campus by proactively engaging the broader community in the transition to sustainability. The college will use its purchasing power (alone or in purchasing pools) and educational actions to influence and provide examples of sustainable behavior. Macalester’s commitment to looking beyond its own boundaries to make the world more sustainable (rather than simply minimizing its institutional negative impact) is a crucial responsibility that is reflective of the college’s core values.”

More specifically, the plan commits to evaluating the supply chains of our purchases to identify ways to pool resources with community groups and peer institutions to leverage more sustainable practices and augment its educational program to foster multi-faceted student-community partnerships and the innovations in sustainable community development that result. Of course, that leaves a lot of details to be figured out (the commitments to action on the investing front are particularly vague), but the core principles, the statement that this is a guide, not a limit, and the participatory process that has been followed leave ample room for this outline to be grown to fruition. Another quote from page 10 that highlights this commitment:

“We will reach out to regional, national, and international higher education and sustainability networks for inspiration, assistance, and joint endeavors. Collaboration will occur across hierarchical lines, incorporating ideas of our students, staff, faculty, alumni, parents, and community experts.”

Right now, most Americans worried about climate change are engaged in mitigating the box that this their personal lifestyle. Most nations are arguing over what pieces of which pie who will be responsible for. Households separate from households, colleges separate from colleges, nations separate from nations. What would a strategy look like were we focused on the synergies of partnering across boundaries, and harnessing our influence to shape the sustainability of the vast networks of interconnections that all of us – personally and organizationally – are connected to in a diverse range of ways. This is obviously what the youth movement is trying to do, but I fear that we often get into “box” thinking too often.

5. Sustainability is defined holistically

Here’s the Macalester definition, expanded from the traditional Brundtland one:

Sustainability is the continuous effort to meet the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs by working toward a healthy environment, social justice, and a strong economy. At Macalester, sustainability is infused throughout our core values of academic excellence, internationalism, multiculturalism, and service to society.

I once heard a quote saying that the 2-word definition for sustainability is “one world”. A lot of us think that our movement is really about a new way of doing things at a society-wide scale, and that our work is not a separate issue from development, or justice, or health, or any of that. If we’re serious about that – that the climate movement is really about a new Industrial Revolution that this time is founded on sustainability and justice and improves everyone’s lot together – we need to get very careful about our language and what we say it is. Because to an awful lot of people, they’re still hearing only carbon, dirty energy, pollution, and other environmentally-coded words, along with confusing frames like “green jobs” that don’t resonate with their lived reality. Let’s find a way to say that the world we’re working for is what everyone has always wanted, and that we finally have a clear and compelling strategy for getting there.

I wrote about a week ago about the work I’m doing to help grow the Summer of Solutions – which empowers youth leaders nationwide as the cutting edge of a clean energy economy. Now you can help out with a quick online vote by Oct. 5 – it could help us get $1000.

The Summer of Solutions – Human Rights Heroes at Home 2009 – Green Alternatives

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Moving to a new town halfway across the United States over the course of the summer, one really can see the massive cultural differences that stretch across this land.  Houston and Seattle are really as different as cities can be.  One is humid, hot, and filled with a people who would epitomize those Protestants described in Weber’s Spirit of Capitalism, yet filled with an intense desire to stay indoors.  The other is alive with the bitter scent of coffee, fairly cool, and whose people are laid-back, more to willing to enjoy themselves and spend significant amounts of time hiking or boating or various outdoor activities.  Unfortunately for an IGC member, to say that I clashed significantly with the new Washington culture was an understatement, and over the course of the entire summer I never was able to understand such a laid-back and relaxed view of the world.  Gradually turning inwards and focusing on matters such as work and reading, somehow this American grew to sympathize with a group of people halfway across the world who marched peacefully in the name of justice and liberty despite the fact that the cultural gap between Iranians and Americans dwarfs that between Texans and Washingtonians.

Being someone who has had an interest in the Iranians and their people, I somehow detached myself from my neighbors and those who surrounded me and paid constant attention to the protests waged in the name of a moderate reformer.  Susbstantial amounts of time were spent reading every detail, raging at cable news for their incredibly negligent coverage of the events there, and helping the Iranian protestors, both through word and deeds (some of which could skirt the lines between legality and illegality, but that is another story).  However, when unfortunately the protests, while not completely vanquished, had faded to some degree, it left me puzzled and amused with the fact that I had spent so much time caring about those halfway across the world with a culture that as observed above dwarfs the gaps between those from Texans and Washingtonians, and I came to puzzle about it.  Was it because as I didn’t know personally know Iranians, I could romanticize their cultures and stay from the negative realities of it in a way that I couldn’t with Washington, and was it simply an inherent prejudice that I had towards Washingtonians and not Iranians.  I’ll freely admit that I really don’t know the answer, and when it comes down to it, maybe something like this can help give an answer towards a better understanding of well, understanding others.

I guess that’s my story of the summer, and my major question that I learned from it out of the mundane life I generally held.  So what other stories are out there in the end?

This May I walked (barefoot of course) across a stage on Macalester’s front lawn and accepted a slip of paper representing an asset, a tool, no one could ever steal from me.  This is what freedom of opportunity feels like when it is placed in your hands; this is what I hope everyone has a chance at if they so desire. When I shook President Rosenberg’s hand, he looked me in the eye and said, “if you ever need anything, ever, you know where to go.” Yes, I will go to my roots and seek some of that ancient wisdom.  But right now, it’s time to fly.

Despite going to a college that touts international and domestic diversity, the most diverse group I’ve ever been part of was the 200 some people at my Americorps training committing their lives to Volunteering in Service to America (VISTA).  People were from every class, race, age and culture—a real slice of the US—and there we were sharing incredibly personal stories with one another after only a few days together.

The mission of VISTA is to wage war on poverty in America (I couldn’t help but wonder if they ever sent VISTAs to Wall Street to help alleviate some serious spiritual poverty).  The melting pot at this training was composed of recent liberal arts grads (me!), recently unemployed laborers, or people who had struggled out of poverty and now wanted to give back in some way. I looked around the room and said to myself, “People are just people.”

Sometimes I hesitate about moving forward, about stepping up. I’m afraid that my home, my culture, the people I identify with will regard me as a stranger when I return.  They will look upon me with misunderstanding or even contempt.  But I need to remind myself that this is the richest part of the American story. We are founded by people who took a chance and hopped the Mayflower to a strange land.  Thank God there are pioneers still willing to take that chance today and step outside their known world for a chance at opportunity of choice.  Our culture of fusion depends on this constant influx of new ideas, new language, and new connections. I personally plan to be an immigrant of life for as long I live.

I have a long history of advocacy and activism but I am looking forward to a year of listening.  It’s literally in my job description.  I am a collector and teller of stories: stories from volunteers, clients, staff, and donors at the Capital Area Food Bank of Texas (CAFB).  These interviews will be turned into videos and written words that can be used to secure donations and volunteers for the organization.  I work in an office building attached to a warehouse that distributes food to over 350 local food pantries throughout central Texas.  I will admit, I choked back tears on my first visit to one of these pantries. Sometimes, people just want to be heard.

I am excited to be part of this generation of youth.  We are endowed with social networking tools and empowered by the need for change that we face daily.  So here I go: telling you my honest story and striving to fit it into the American story. Tell me, what is yours?

Well, summer is ending, and a semester starting. This is the last semester for me, so my past summer is particularly making me think about what comes next after I graduate in December. Like most things in these momentous times, the obstacles are awe-inspiring and the opportunities are dire.

I spent most of this summer helping facilitate the Summer of Solutions in St. Paul, as well as supporting the eight other Summer of Solutions programs that launched across the country this past year. if you haven’t heard, the Summer of Solutions is a summer program by and for emerging leaders (mostly college age) that helps them build skills in social innovation, sustainable entrepreneurship, and community organizing while working to develop cutting edge projects and programs that demonstrate the promise of a sustainable economy founded on clean energy, healthy food and industrial systems, strong locally-based job creation and economic development, and profound and creative community. Since helping launch the Summer of Solutions in Spring 2008, I’ve dived deep into the realm of non-profit fundraising, program development, and transformative leadership training around solutions for our pressing climate, energy, development, and social justice challenges. Its been a wild ride as the organization grew from a single Twin Cities program in 2008, to 9 nationwide this summer. Some of the press hits have been pretty cool too, like this one on Grist. If you want to learn more about what this is all about what happened this summer all across the country, check out our Solutionaries blog.

Looking ahead, I’m really excited as we start the process of launching even more great programs next year. I’m also excited to see the growth of the programs generated in the process, like Cooperative Energy Futures, the community-based energy start-up company that has emerged from the work of Mac students and community partners across the Twin Cities, and ongoing collaboration with national organizations like the Energy Action Coalition and campus groups like MacCARES. If you want to get involved, contact me at timothydht@gmail.com.

Zooming out, I’m starting to ask the broader question: not just how can I make a living by innovating, creating, and working for my values, but how can all people do the same? All summer, I’ve seen people light up inside when they find a space where they can do what makes them shine, where its most important, in a way that supports them to. As I join others in starting to create it it, I’m dreaming of a clean, just, and meaningful economy where that’s all we ever do. What if figuring out how to build that world and find your own niche in it was what being at Mac was all about?

Well, I have from now until December to complete the Mac journey and turn my work into something full-time that can support me. Better get back to it! I’ll keep you posted.

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Reflect on Macalester’s Roundtable Discussion: In what ways can we as Macalester students embody the lessons learned and envision the goals of a sustainable future?

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They say that you’re not a real Central American traveler until you’ve been super sick. Check.

I got some sort of intestinal parasites and learned that IV’s are truly wonderful things. But that’s not the important lesson here.

I had to leave one of my homestays to go to the hospital, so I missed out on a few days in the campo. As I was making my way back, I ran into some people from a different homestay who worriedly inquired about my health.

Not an hour after arriving back in the community, an earlier host father showed up to see me and ask how I was doing. I was blown away, but also confused how people in very disparate communities (two to four kilometers away, over mountains and tiny trails) had heard the news so quickly.

Apparently, as the gringo, I’m pretty well known around here, and some Solar Center people told my current host family how I was doing, who then wandered to my other families just to appraise them of the news and let them know I would be alright.

As I made my way back to the second visit with my first family, I wondered if they had heard the news, as well. They had, and all expressed great relief that I had made a full recovery.

I don’t know how to say this without sounding trite, but these people are amazing. I truly loved my second stay there, and I’m now an (unofficial) part of their family. I’m welcome back to visit anytime I want, and they have all told me that they’ll miss me.

It looks like I’m finally making those connections with people that are so important. I know that now, if we come back with a larger scale light study, we will have the full support of this community.

Check out some pictures of the families, the solar lights and my zany adventures: http://coloradophotoimages.com/v/ZachMcDade/

I’m just about half way done with my time here in Nicaragua, and I’ve now visited two of my three homestays. The experience has been eye-opening, challenging and rewarding. It has been far harder than I ever thought it would to establish those person-to-person relationships I talked of in my last post. This only reinforces my belief that it is the most important means by which I can affect change.

I’ve made an observation that I think is worthy of dialogue on this blog. I’ve noticed here in Nicaragua two distinct kinds of poverty.  I encountered the first in Granada, whose touristy nature attracts many homeless. Kids, adults, families and old folks live on the streets. They are hungry and sick and many have no shoes or teeth. They resort to begging tourists and wealthier locals for money, often asking for one córdoba (about $.05) at a time. The majority seems to be kids under 12 years old. 

The rural poverty is entirely different. The families with whom I live in the campo often produce large corn and bean crops, have chickens, goats, pigs, donkeys and horses, as well as vegetable gardens, mango and pineapple trees, and herbs. They have solid homes and plenty to eat. Yet they have no electricity, no running water, no mechanical transportation and no modern communication save radio. By any US standard, this is also poverty.

In the cities (as in any US city) most people do not live as the people on the streets do. In the campo, everyone’s standard of living is roughly equivalent. This difference only reinforces the nature of my project: small, empirical and focused. If, within several miles, the very nature of poverty can change so drastically, there clearly is no one solution for development.

The good news is that my results thus far have been quite encouraging. My nearly universal response has been that solar lamps would be a very effective incentive for improving elementary education, as well as general household productivity and livability.

In a week I will start returning to the households with the lamps. We’re all very excited to see how they are received!

I have been spending this summer in the Summer of Solutions in St. Paul – working to build a green economy – and my own future job – with about 35 other amazing youth leaders. It’s been an exciting mix of sky-high visions, community organizing, building an energy cooperative, and doing lots of leadership development. If you’re not here – we miss you!

Over the past two weeks, I’ve gotten particularly excited about looking ahead to where we’re going with the Summer of Solutions, a project that has now gone nationwide since we started it by forming the non-profit Grand Aspirations as a bunch of Macalester students in 2008. My eyes are always both here in the now and endlessly on the horizons of what all of our amazing allies are doing nationwide this summer – and what could happen next. The past few weeks for me have been about thinking bigger about where we’re going, and about exploring how to share this moment of possibility with everyone …

Fellow national coordinator Matt Kazinka (Macalester ‘11) and I pulled together this fireside chat on Thursday night with the help of camera-woman Abbie Plouff and editor Ruby Levine. Its basically an explanation of some of the things going on in the bigger national picture and an invitation to our planners all across the nation to start the process of dreaming with us as we go forward. Hey, if you have ideas of how we can be bigger and better and more creative – we’d love to hear!

Part 1: Welcome, what’s up, and why we’re talking:

Part 2: The big things happening, and next steps on collaboration:

We’ll be checking in, first with Summer of Solutions program planners, and then with partners, participants, and other supporters over the coming weeks.

Keep up the solutions!

As I moved from bustling Managua to small-town Granada, the smallness of the world smacked me on the face and reminded me why I’m here.

Just when I was starting to feel a bit lonely and wondering why, exactly, I had decided to come to Granada all by myself, the world opened itself for me.

Within 24 hours I randomly met four – yes, four – different people who will ALL be in Ocotal the entire time I will be, are in some way associated with Grupo Fenix and were quite happy to talk, listen and make plans for the summer.

My lesson now is obvious: the barriers between us all are no harder to overcome than a few minutes of conversation. We talk at Macalester of Global Citizenship, civic engagement and internationalism, and whenever I philosophize about these concepts I think on a macro scale, nations relating with nations, entire ethnic groups finding common ground.

But my project this summer is grounded in person-to-person relationships, and it’s only going to be successful if I can forge them one at a time. No one of us can really expect to alter humanity’s course; but by intentionally affecting a handful of important relationships with the intention that everyone will pay it forward, we can all move together toward our common ideals.

Please, use this forum to explore how you’re going to do that. Remember: this only works as a dialogue!