The document outlines the nine elements of a sustainable culture/campus: infrastructure, community, and learning. Infrastructure includes energy, food, and materials. Community includes governance, investment, and wellness. Learning includes curriculum, aesthetics, and interpretation. Each element is described in 1-2 paragraphs, outlining key aspects and questions to consider to make progress toward sustainability in that area. The overall goal is to train a new generation of sustainability leaders through experiential learning and leading by example with campus initiatives.

1. The Nine Elements of a
Sustainable
Culture/Campus
Mitchell Thomashow, Director Second Nature
Presidential Fellows Program
President Emeritus, Unity College
(Mthomashow@secondnature.org)

2. Sustainability is a Response to a
Planetary Emergency
The Sixth Megaextinction
Plunging Declines in Biodiversity
Rapidly Changing Climatic/Oceanic Circulation
Biogeochemical Imbalances
Rapidly

3. The Consensus of International
Peer Reviewed SCIENCE is Clear

4. Sustainability requires that we think about the
Whole Earth as an Ecological, Economic, and
Creative System

5. A Sustainable Approach to
Economic Decisions
Encourages:
Frugality
Debt Reduction
Living Within Our Means
Protecting Future Generations
Conserving Natural Resources
Creative Problem Solving

6. As a former College President I suggest that
Sustainability is the single biggest challenge for all
of education, ultimately linked to:
Turbulent Economy
Accessibility and Affordability of Schooling
How We Think about the Future of the Planet
Our goal should be nothing less than to train a new generation of
sustainability leaders, graduates who understand the intricate
connections between economics and ecology, place and planet, how we
live and the consequences of our actions.

8. Collective Impact
5 Year Review
Climate Education for
Leadership Sustainability
2020 Campaign
8

9. The Nine Elements of a Sustainable
Culture/Campus
Culture: How We Think, Organize,
Communicate,
Campus: Where We Live, Work,
Play
A TEMPLATE FOR ACTION relevant
for schools, businesses, hospitals,
and any organizational setting

10. THREE BROAD
CATEGORIES
Infrastructure
Community
Learning

11. Imagine these categories as dynamic,
unfolding, emergent, and intrinsically
interconnected. Any sustainable practice
may involve multiple categories.
Energy Food Materials
Infrastructure
Community Governance Investment Wellness
Learning
Curriculum Aesthetics Interpretation

12. ENERGY
Energy refers to the ability to do work, involving the transformation of
matter to produce heat and electricity.
The point of sustainable energy practices is to maximize the efficiency of
those processes so as to minimize unwanted byproducts.
We require a new energy algorithm that enables us to heat and cool our
buildings, move people and their goods from one place to another, and
power our machines, without simultaneously altering the biosphere.

13. HOW TO MOVE TOWARDS ZERO-CARBON
ENERGY USE
Ingenious Technical Innovations
Renewable Energy Sources
Rigorous Conservation and Retrofitting
Energy Cost Accounting
Monitoring Cooperatives

14. Energy Structures Serve as
Institutional Landmarks

15. FOOD
(Everybody has to Eat!)
A food-producing, edible landscaping,
demonstration-garden laboratory
Lawns bisected by garden strips and
permaculture shrubbery
Administration buildings with small
greenhouses
Cafeterias serving local and organic food
Regional center for cooperative food growing

16. FOOD AS LANDSCAPE
Inviting Hard Questions
Where does your food come from?
How much energy is used in its production and distribution?
What policies will support more sustainable food operations?
How does the history of the food we eat reflect ourselves in this place?

17. MATERIALS
refers to the manipulation, rearrangement, and heating and cooling of matter
to produce the stuff of our goods, appliances, dwellings, and tools
minimize energy use and toxic byproducts
resilience, durability, recyclability
procurement, life cycle accounting
from green cleaning materials to recycled
carpets

18. Responding to the challenge
Inviting Hard Questions
Unravel and expose the full cost of
What is the supply chain?
building materials and
How can we minimize ecological impact? construction products.
Can we find materials that are recycled, Creatively use recycled and
reclaimed or re-imagined? reclaimed materials.

19. COMMUNITY
Energy Food Materials
Infrastructure
Community Governance Investment Wellness
Learning
Curriculum Aesthetics Interpretation

20. GOVERNANCE
The role of organizational culture
Alignment between mission, governance, and
curriculum (or work practice)
Job descriptions and performance evaluations
Guidelines for procurement, events,
procedures and protocols
The capacity to change and innovate

21. GOVERNANCE: The Importance of
Leadership
Boldness and Tenderness
Urgency and Patience
Innovation and Tradition
Two caveats: (1) Sustainability is not the political philosophy of an
esoteric, green politics. It is beyond traditional left/right categories,
embodying elements of traditional conservative and progressive political
approaches. (2) Decisions related to governance will be complex and
controversial, and not always consensus-driven.

22. INVESTMENT: Where
Capital Goes
Every college campus has a significant impact
on the surrounding community
Colleges serve as dynamic economic
mulltipliers
Their investment decisions have profound
ramifications

23. Investment Questions
Is the college working with schools,
communities, and businesses to transform the
region into a thriving sustainable community?
Is the campus an incubator for new
sustainability research and design initiatives?
Is the endowment invested in ecologically and
socially responsible businesses?
Is the college considering sustainability
workforce training?

24. WELLNESS
Ultimately the point of a sustainable campus is to provide a
nourishing and supportive learning and work environment that
promotes personal, community, and planetary well-being.

25. WELLNESS Questions
Is stress impacting performance of students,
faculty, and staff?
Does the college promote healthy living?
Is wellness an integral part of the academic
curriculum, staff training, and professional
development?

26. LEARNING
Energy Food Materials
Infrastructure
Community Governance Investment Wellness
Learning
Curriculum Aesthetics Interpretation

27. CURRICULUM
What you know and how you think is
always a reflection of how you live
The best sustainability curriculum is one that
provides the hands-on experience of living,
implementing and designing a sustainable
campus

28. CURRICULUM: The Hard Questions
Is climate change and sustainability education a core component of
the curriculum?
Are students involved in campus-wide master planning?
Are service learning opportunities available that bring sustainability
initiatives into the community?
Are the professional schools involved in sustainability initiatives?

29. AESTHETICS
The Art and Sensibility of
Sustainability
At the core of understanding sustainability, biodiversity, and climate
change is a perceptual challenge: scale and the biosphere.
Art projects use imagination to convey scale and are a bridge to
scientific understanding
Art projects catalyze the emotional responses to the planetary
challenge
A deeper cognitive advantage

30. The Aesthetic Challenge
Are there vivid, imaginative and evocative
campus exhibits, art projects, and installations
that support sustainability initiatives?
Is the campus used as an exploratory
“canvas” of environmental art using recycled
materials for sculptures, soundscape designs,
native plant arrangements, watercourse flows
and patterns?

32. INTERPRETATION: Making
Sense of Sustainability
Every sustainability project should have an
interactive, dynamic explanation
The campus is a sustainability learning
laboratory
Hide nothing
Measure, keep records, and share information
in compelling ways

33. INTERPRETATION
Some Questions
How can we use buildings, gardens, and
campus facilities to exemplify the campus as a
living laboratory?
How can we best tell the story of the campus
as an ecological place that is located in a
dynamic environment?
How can we make our sustainability efforts
transparent and interesting, rooted in the
history of the campus and projected into the
future.

34. AN INTERPRETIVE LANDSCAPE

35. NOW IT’S YOUR TURN
This is my narrative as a sustainability
explorer, a former college president, a writer,
and now a Second Nature Presidential Fellow
What is your narrative? How will you be a
change agent? What catalog of ideas and
possibilities will you initiate?
When you come up with a great idea and
you’ve accomplished something, tell your
story, too!