so
there's six main things that i want to
talk about with you today and um
i'm just going to go over those today
and then provide some background and
then we'll get more in depth with those
uh six main topics and the first is with
the relevancy question that we come into
with cooperative extension so i just
want to talk about some some of the
arguments that have been made about
extension relevancy and tie that in with
sustainability demand
and just to provide some background on
on my thought process as i form this
statewide initiative
and then i'd like to talk a little bit
about how i define sustainability
and the definition that i i like and use
in my initiative
and
and then also
then i'll transition into the usu
extension sustainability initiative talk
about the direct background that led to
the launch of the website and
the other educational materials and then
what's going on presently
and lastly where we're going in the
future and so
hopefully by the end you'll have a
really good understanding of the
initiative and i'll walk you through the
website and the materials that are
currently available and with the future
i really want to talk about
opportunities to collaborate at this
point now that we have some materials
baseline materials that have come out
and so feel free anytime during the
presentation ask questions and i'm
really flexible with that so i'd be
happy to answer questions during
so just to provide a brief background on
my experience a lot of my my education
comes in the field of communications and
with my phd research i used predictive
modeling to predict which types of
cattle ranchers would be more likely to
permanently preserve their land and
conservation easements
and
so by nature of the research i was very
familiar with conservation easements and
land conservation practices
and
to backtrack a little my master's
research was on
public perceptions of organic versus
conventional agriculture so i was just
really interested in how the public was
perceiving these terms
and
when i went to
finish my phd program i really started
to research community-based social
marketing as well and i use some of that
in my research but also on the side in
fostering community behavior and support
to
mainly get outdoor recycling bins at
university of florida and since then
i've used it
in the classroom and in the field
and
so my role at the university as
assistant professor in the department of
environment and society
and a sustainable communities extension
specialist is to
foster individual and community
pro-environmental behaviors
and
the focus that that i have on that is
with waste reduction in local
consumption because of my background
but by nature of working in
sustainability that has expanded out
into five primary areas which i'll talk
about
in today's broadcast and
the main tools that i use to communicate
are conservation behavior theory and
community-based social marketing
and so on campus my role is to teach one
course a year and this year i'll be
teaching communicating sustainability
which is one of the core courses for the
sustainable systems minor
and that that will be structured as a
service learning course where students
will learn about
how to communicate effectively with
regard to sustainability and messages
and then work with a community partner
to uh
almost as sustainability interns or
consultants
and
with that organization they're working
with at the community level
and last year i taught last spring i
taught sustainable living here on campus
as well
and
on campus part of my role is to serve as
the environment and society
representative for the sustainability
council i'm also the advisor for sosner
the society of students and natural
resources
and the student sustainability office
faculty representative
one of those and then also
coordinate earth week here on campus and
this year the student sustainability
office will be taking on the lead on
that and i'll just be providing a
consulting role with them
helping them out as they plan earth week
and so when i came to the university the
stated position goal was to assist utah
citizens in reducing their environmental
footprint through actions at the
household neighborhood and community
levels
and
and so
with this
the position before i came to the
university a primary role was to manage
the utah house and
um
so it was a bit of a an open-ended
concept when i came in of where i would
take it and um and that's been really
exciting to have the flexibility to and
the time to do the research to launch
this initiative
and um so now to get into the the six
points i wanted to talk about the first
is
the relevancy question with cooperative
extension
and i'm going to draw on four primary
documents when i talk about this and the
first one is the extension system a
vision for the 21st century and then is
extension relevant for the 21st century
extension's future time for disruptive
innovation and that was a recent journal
of extension article that came out this
year
and then
documented by the
national network of sustainable living
educators called a vision for relevance
and so
i want to just touch on these because
they
were
where i drew some of my primary thoughts
on how i would shape a new initiative on
a newer subject matter here
in utah and so
to talk first about the extension
committee and organization policy
document i just want to read a quote
from that
and it states
that they had a vision for the extension
system that addresses contemporary
issues relevant
to constituents residing within and
beyond its traditional rural and
agrarian heritage
and so this is just calling on the need
to respond to changing societal needs
and this document in 2002 did prompt a
whole conversation with an extension on
where our programming has been and where
we're going
with changing societal needs and then
the next document just one quote from
this
states
that
we should ensure continued world
leadership and agriculture and the
stewardship of the nation's natural
resources and so just calling on
that we are doing a really great job in
certain areas that we're very familiar
with but then also the need to um
to move into stewardship of natural
resources and then also it states
extension is a living evolving
market-driven organization that responds
to society's changing needs
and
in a few minutes i'll talk about what
those needs are and provide some some
data about
shifting demand when it comes to
sustainability
but with the next document that came out
in 2012 this was interesting to me
talking about disruptive innovation and
large change and um just one quote that
i really resided with was that extension
has been considered change averse by
some scholars and practitioners and they
claim this inhibits organizational
growth and relevance i disagree with
that
to some extent but this is where i
really like what the authors were
talking about
pockets of individuals and teams across
the nation have worked independently
as entrepreneurs to enhance extension's
relevance
by introducing organizational processes
and programs that greatly differ from
past practices
supporting a culture of innovation to
enhance relevance and sustainability
and so i thought about that and
and then i started to do some research
which i'll talk about in today's
presentation as well across the nation
on what these pockets of individuals
were especially with regards to
sustainability what was going on and
was there a concerted effort
and then to transition i just want to
read a couple quotes from the last
documented vision for relevance and so
this was put together by 10 nationally
respected extension sustainability
educators in 2008
and
they
there were some quotes in there that
resided for forming a sustainability
initiative and the first they drew from
the american association of the
advancement of science and stating
in addition to rapidly reducing
greenhouse gas emissions
it is essential that we develop
strategies to adapt to ongoing changes
and make communities more resilient to
future changes
delaying action will increase the
environmental and social consequences as
well as the costs the time is now we
must rise to the challenge we owe this
to future generations
and then from that they stayed in
in this document our clientele need
guidance to reduce their carbon
footprint
and prepare to make a living and a life
in a world whose natural resources are
being reallocated by earth's changing
climatic system
and lastly we need a crash course on how
to live in sync with earth's limits for
humans we need to focus on
intergenerational transfer just as we do
with family resources
living within those bounds is the real
meaning of sustainability
and so in looking at these major
documents that had come out
this is where i i really saw
a need to do a comprehensive
sustainability program in the state
instead of
just
odd programs that
didn't link together in my mind
and so i'm going to transition now and
talk about sustainability demand
and
this is a really exciting area for me to
talk about because there has been a
dramatic increase in demand in the last
even just two years
and so there's three main things i'll
talk about the first is incoming college
students so just providing some
statistics on that
and then
the explosion of majors minors and
certificates in energy and
sustainability related programs that
universities across the us are offering
and then
there is a great article that just came
out this year on business sustainability
across the world with over four thousand
executives from major businesses and
looking at sustainability as being part
of their business plan
and that graph depicts on the powerpoint
depicts the the increase of
sustainability being part of business
programming and i'll touch on that in a
second
but
um
so going back to the the vision for
relevance document this is where it
discusses the need for
offering programs because of public
demand
and
just one quote from that
to finalize to effectively address the
need for sustainable living education
extension must immediately refocus and
retool
we need a state by state implementation
of sustainable living programming to
help clientele break from excessive
consumption patterns held up as societal
norms but if extension is not prepared
to be a leader in providing education on
this overriding challenge of our time
the public will go elsewhere for it and
indeed the public is already doing so
and so where is this demand coming from
and
um
so i found a state or a nationwide study
by the princeton review this year and
every year they do a review with college
students
and this year was with over 12 000
college applicants
and the responses showed that 65 percent
of respondents said they would value
information about a college's commitment
to the environment so they would value
that information but what was
interesting to me is that of that
statistic 24
said that such information would very
much impact their decision to apply or
attend a school
and so sustainability has become a focal
area and a marketing opportunity for
thousands of businesses colleges and
universities across the nation
and just one statistic to support that
in 2009 alone
u.s colleges and universities created
over a hundred majors minors and
certificates in energy and
sustainability related programs what's
significant about that number of 100 in
2009 is that in 2005 only three
documented initiative or programs were
added
and so um we're just seeing a peak right
now in in demand and offering of
sustainability across the nation
and then lastly is the point about
business sustainability and um so this
is from an article entitled
sustainability near as a tipping point
and it's by the mit sloan management
review and the boston consultant group
and it's their third annual worldwide
survey with managers and executive from
companies around the world so as i
stated over four thousand
managers and executive had replied from
over 113 countries
and so the two quick findings from that
the first is that some seventy percent
of respondents who say their companies
have put or say their companies have put
sustainability on the management agenda
say they have done so in the past six
years
and from this group 20 percent say it
happened in the past two years
and so this is where you see on the
graph on the powerpoint the um
the escalation that's happened now
and then also
it stated most survey respondents say
sustainability is on the company's
management agendas to stay
what's more a substantial portion of
respondents say their companies are
profiting from sustainability activities
and so we're seeing a a real chance
for businesses to buy in and it's
already happening
but what was great about that document
is it stated at the end the opportunity
that exists now that this sustainability
has become such a hot topic
for collaborations with ngos with
educational institutions that that
opportunity is there
and so i'm hoping that with a
statewide program that we can help to
address and meet that opportunity
through offering
programs and
so that was a bit of the background on
the my initial thought process and doing
some research on sustainability and
where it stands right now
and with that i i really had to come to
terms with a concrete definition of
sustainability
and as a lot of us know it's become a
very widely used term
there's even sustainable facebook
talking about sustaining
facebook as an entity
and there's sustainable eye shadow
anywhere you look if you type any word
in sustainability you'll probably find
something come up and so
i knew it was important from from the
start to really wrap my head around my
personal definition of it and how that
would guide my programming
and so
i define sustainability as the capacity
to improve environmental economic and
social conditions
i don't feel that um it's enough for us
to sustain where we're at but i feel
like we should live with an ethic to try
to improve these conditions
and i believe that sustainability has a
basis in natural resources
and that it follows an ethic not a rigid
set of rules
and i will say that
when
sustainability is communicated i feel
like a lot of the time it is
communicated in a way that we have to
give up something and sacrifice and i
don't feel that it has to be that way i
feel like we could take a positive view
and perception of sustainability
and
and communicate in the terms of gain so
what are you gaining economically
health-wise et cetera by engaging in
specific sustainable behaviors
and
so one definition that i liked was from
the
national network of sustainable
sustainable living educators and
they state that
they talk about the three elements that
we typically see with sustainability so
the environment
societal needs and the economic aspect
and
um so from those three elements they
state to understand the relationship
between these three elements of
sustainability visualize a pair of
overlapping circles representing social
and economic sustainability set within
and constrained by an encompassing
circle of environmental sustainability
without which sustainability of the
other two circles is not even a
possibility
why that resonated with me is that i
feel in sustainability especially if
we're communicating about environmental
sustainability
that the ultimate goal could be to
improve environmental conditions and yet
where
those messages resonate with people is
with the health benefits or the societal
benefits and the economic benefits
and so that is how i shape my message
framing
and so now to go into the actual
background of the initiative
and
um
i'm going to read you a couple final
quotes um from that document of the
sustainable living educators because
this directly leads into the the themes
that are out now on the sustainability
initiative
and
it stated that in the document over the
past several decades extension has
offered programs on environmental
education
climate change
renewable energy and sustainability
all topics that fit under the broad
heading of sustainable living education
each received its day of attention from
various sectors but those efforts have
been scattered and not connected to or
supported by a national level
programmatic identity impetus or policy
and so they go on to say that
such an initiative must be
multi-disciplinary address our
individual carbon footprint must be the
model for others to emulate
and constituency or constituency ready
to affect community change so educating
a constituency that would affect that
community change
and
what i didn't want in launching a
sustainability program was just um one
program on air quality or one on food
and just have no overarching theme
connecting everything together
and so
what i did was
when i was here for
just over half a year i went back and
started looking through the emails that
i had been sent on sustainability
related issues and i had started to
categorize all those emails into
major topics that i i was seeing common
themes with
and that's where the five themes for the
initiative had come out
and
the first is on the left is energy and
so that's the focus with renewables
and then we have air is the next major
topic area and that includes air quality
and climate change
and then food with a focus on local food
movements community supported
agriculture farmers markets
and then land for land conservation
and reducing reusing and recycling
and then water is the final and that
includes water supply and quality
and what's great is that usu already has
a really good water quality program and
so i've been able to tap into a lot of
their resources for that that portion
but in branding the initiative one thing
that i still am trying to work with and
always keep in mind is
it relates to a research that a
professor on campus is doing in
marketing ed stafford
and he talks about making green more
macho and kind of a funny topic area but
he just wrote an article on this for the
solutions journal in 2012
and he stated that drawing from
interviews of environmental experts
ethnographies of urban consumers and
1800 survey respondents representatives
of the u.s adult population
this research study confirmed that the
green gap is driven partly by avoidance
of the crunchy granola hippie and rich
elitist snob images of going green
and so that terminology is really strong
but really resonated with me that i i'm
hoping that my initiative doesn't come
across that way and then he also stated
in this article men like emmanuel so
this is someone in his uh case study are
often self-conscious about using canvas
shopping bags because um he calls this a
man purse and drinking from reusable
water bottles and or driving prius
hybrids and so ed stafford goes on to
talk about the need to communicate the
the more manly side of sustainability as
well and i i try to take that account
with my messages and have it gender and
neutral
and
um and so that's something that also
guided some of my background on forming
the the look of the initiative and the
messaging
and
so now i'm going to go into the actual
um present so where i'm at with with the
entire initiative
and
in the past couple months i
sent out a survey to the north america
or the national network of sustainable
living educators and
asked them i'd done some preliminary
research on what sustainability programs
existed through cooperative extension
throughout the united states
and um but i needed some help with
educators who's work who have worked in
this field for several years and so
we're formulating this document right
now and what we've found so far is that
there's 16 states
to date that we have that are identified
with a sustainability focused program
through usu cooperative extension
and eight of these states offer
trainings to the public
there's one master type program that is
growing in demand each year and that's
offered in florida it's offered at the
county level and it's called sustainable
floridians
and
however i didn't find any programs in
usu cooperative extension so in the
united states
that had an overarching sustainability
theme for the state with those
individual trainings offered
in that overarching theme and so i found
states with an energy masters program
like colorado
or sustainable floridians but it was
offered at the county level and the
programs varied per county and
i really
i saw a need
that existed in offering this
comprehensive
sustainability initiative
and so
what i'm going to do is i'm going to go
in and guide us through what exists
right now and then
focus on
where i'm going with future programming
and
so even though with my title i'm a
sustainable communities extension
specialist i
i try to communicate to both the
individual and the community and i'll
talk about the connection of that with
the trainings i envision which will be
the next step of the initiative
but
the nnsle document stated that
sustainable living education cannot be
valued neutral it cannot be without
goals for society to embrace individual
by individual and yet they go on to
state and i agree this this is the most
important
part of our messaging with
sustainability
impact-centered sustainable living
education must increase public awareness
and knowledge about environmental
economic and social issues it must
provide the critical thinking skills
essential to making informed decisions
and taking responsible actions it must
or it needs to be tailored to individual
change
and individual choices about change
above all it must be based on objective
and scientifically sound information
and
lastly
most people can't visualize changing the
world but combining errands to reduce
fuel consumption recycling supporting
local businesses and eating organically
or locally grown foods are doable first
steps and so what's stated by these
educators across the us is that
if we focus on these tangible behaviors
that that is our starting point in
communicating about sustainability i
personally feel it is important to focus
on those
easy behaviors but also
to
get at the broader issues that we're
dealing with and
and how we can address those
individually and at the community
community level
and so here is what the website looks
like and
i'm just going to walk us through like i
said what exists right now
and
the
the main part of the website just has
news features and so if you click on any
of those it'll tell you about the news
story and so
the utah governor's office this is the
most recent news story we have offers
recycling incentives to businesses and
so you can find out more by clicking the
link
below
and then also some other stories i try
to connect all the news stories back to
utah so it's relevant here in the state
even if it is a national or
international news story
that it connects back to
utah so we know what's in it for us and
so here's an example of that
2012 is the international year of
cooperatives
and um as stated by the united nations
and
um so i talk about that and then link it
back to utah and so utah currently has
one
one cooperative sorry food co-op
and that is in moab called moonflower
market
and
currently there is a plan in place for
the wasatch cooperative market and so if
you click on that it links to the
wasatch cooperative market
and um but that isn't open yet so i'll
just talk about where we're at with um
providing food co-ops in the state
and then if you want to see a an archive
of the news story so you just go into
the news tab here and you can click any
of these old stories that have been up
so
intermountain sustainability summit save
the date and another for
this spring is the first inaugural
national energy extension educator
summit
and that will be april 29th to may 1st
at colorado state university and i'm
excited for that because it's providing
um a really great precursor to my summit
that
i'm launching
with help of the western world
development center and educators across
the west on sustainability and i'll talk
about that at the end
and then the calendar link just goes
into events that are happening
that are sustainability related again
primarily in utah and if they're not
they're generally webinars
and so
you can find those on here
and
there's a they're all related to the
themes of sustainability
and
then
there's a gallery for just providing
pictures that are positive about
sustainability successes throughout the
state and so if you click here's a
picture of aggie blue bikes
and this is a free bike rental service
offered through utah state university
and then we go to zion and
see some of their initiatives they have
going on solar
shade panels that are available for the
staff in zion and so that's just there
for people to explore if they just want
to look at some pictures of
sustainability in utah and we'll be
expanding that
in the future
and then the about page where i provide
a definition well first of all what is
extension sustainability
what's the purpose of it what is
sustainability
and then a brief definition of my
position in my focal area and then my
assistance so
this january i'm taking on a master's
student blake thomas and his research
focus will be on
extension programs that relate to
renewable energy and so he's going to
look at
right now we're thinking
the demand of
a certification type program in
renewable energy in utah and then who
some key individuals would be to help
provide trainings in this program and
then looking at current
extension models and renewables like
montana state university and wyoming and
colorado and
gleaning from them
successes and then areas for improvement
and i have two undergraduate research
assistants that help me with some of the
social media and that's paige gardner
and haley wall billing and so
they've been great assistants to me as
well
and then lastly is just a brief contact
but what the the bulk of the information
on the web page comes in the sub pages
and i'm not going to walk through each
subpage because the format is the same
for each one
but since i've been talking about energy
i'll go to the energy page
and so there's a brief introduction
about the page so
what you might find in
that particular page
and then fact sheets related to the
subject matter and so the fact sheets
that are on here right now are related
to montana state universities fact
sheets on anaerobic digesters biodiesel
etc and i'm going to be adding more
continually as time goes on
and um
then journal articles and reports
related to renewable energy and so there
was a lot of economic impact studies
that happened in utah with regard to
wind power so showing the potential
economic gains
from wind power
and then some other articles like
harvesting utah's urban winds and
a lot of these were from ed stafford but
and then lesson plans so these are for
educators so you can click in any of
those lesson plans
funding opportunities for grants that
are available
and
there's an energy resources page there's
a resources page for each of the the sub
pages
and then below that are some
documentaries so
switch is a great documentary on energy
that takes an unbiased
perspective on
where we're going with energy
and then when unlimited and wind up
rising are two utah state university
documentaries
and so lastly just to go into the
resources page
so
the resources right now i have
subdivided into energy efficiency and
renewable energy and then
energy extension programs and those are
the three i mentioned with colorado
state montana state and university of
wyoming you'll see that the focus on all
the information on here is in the west
because a lot of the issues we deal with
and the
the opportunities are very different
than in the east
and
so
just to show you what the other ones
quickly look like there's the land
subpage water
air
and
food
and then lastly we have social media
that's out right now and
the first is a facebook page so if you
click on there
74 likes currently and
the facebook page mainly provides fun
tips to engage in sustainable practices
and
then
there's a twitter
and i'm personally learning what twitter
is so
hopefully i'm doing okay with it but um
so this is the twitter that we have up
and the last two are
there's a blog
and so if any of you have smartphones
the most recent blog on
on here is about apps you can have
related to sustainability there's an
irecycle app a green map
seafood watch app etc so
and then also
past articles on upcycling urban edibles
and
energy so quick tips to reduce your
energy bill and then lastly is pinterest
and pinterest i'll be honest i'm
learning completely brand new i didn't
know what pinterest was a few weeks ago
so this is our current pinterest page
and
what's been great so far is the reaction
that i've had from the general public
that received the information and i've
been keeping a database of
emails and
any quotes that i have on how the
information is being used and so
i've got some some information about
teachers now that are using some of this
with their students in the classroom and
i i've done some trainings on worm
composting and those have been really
popular as well so
that's been really exciting to see that
reaction so far
and
um
i'm just going to go back to the
powerpoint
i think i can just quit this yeah okay
and
um right now there's a few fact sheets
that have come out so far with the
template of the sustainability template
and um those are being repaired reviewed
right now and should be out in january
and so here's one from
worm composting and
an example of the easy steps to reduce
your energy bill
and
so to finalize i want to talk about the
future and um so that's what currently
exists
and
it's mainly information but where i want
to take this with those five thematic
areas of energy land air food and water
is to offer statewide certification
trainings for
the general public so professional
development type trainings
in those topic areas and
i've received some grant money to do
preliminary research on what currently
exists and then also
with the master's student i'm taking on
but
i'm really looking for
experts at the county level and
and also at in logan to help design
these trainings so come up with a
concrete set of curricula that can be
used and administered
at the county level in sustainability
and so i'm happy to talk with anyone on
that and because it's very early in the
planning process and i'm just wrapping
my head around it
and um
then also in the future where where i'd
like to go there's some some fun topics
we've written about
to draw in attention and for example
creative ways to reuse household items
and ones that are more light but i do
want to
in the future focus on research-based
fact sheets with faculty and potentially
yourself if you're interested and
two that i'm working with right now are
darren mcavoy and dallas hanks on a
biomass fact sheet
and xiaomi and seth cook from
environment and society on a carbon
sequestration fact sheet and so these
are a little more technical and in depth
and
and yet i feel like those need to be
offered as well and need to be the bulk
of the program
and
one thing that's fun that just came up i
was talking with sally upton from
swatter eco center and she would like to
do a sustainability camp
with kids this year she ran one last
year but um
we've been talking about using the five
themes of this initiative to design the
camp and
certify them kind of like the junior
rangers are certified as junior rangers
when they're done so
that's a fun thing that we're coming up
with and hopefully developing a
curricula to use
um and be able to use be used across the
state
and then lastly um
the last thing that um
wanted to chat about is this
sustainability summit and so
i'm just gonna
link to the western rural development
page that has this save the date flyer
and
so here it is and this has just come up
so if you haven't heard about it don't
worry we just
created this save the date flyer and
the summit will be october 2nd through
the 3rd in park city
and
we're going to bring together
educators
that include specialists and county
level educators across the west that
have sustainability focused programming
or are planning on designing programming
and
the reason that
well this all started with a
conversation with the western world
development center and they were really
excited about
getting people together to talk about
what's going on right now with
sustainability and extension
and i was excited because it provides
the perfect opportunity at this phase
where i'm transitioning from basic
educational material to wanting to
offer
programs with county level educators
in sustainability and i can look at what
currently exists now through this summit
we're going to be doing a lot of
planning at the summit so
inland we're going to have a panel of
people who teach programs on land
conservation or reducing reusing recycle
and so those educators will be there and
then at the end
we're envisioning right now that will
reconvene um at tables and have a
visioning process where we look at well
what has worked well with these programs
what are we missing in our teaching when
it comes to these major areas so in all
those land air water food and energy
and so the call for abstracts for this
summit will be coming out in january
and
um
i'm really hoping this will help me
guide where we go with the certification
trainings where i've got a team of
people that have been in the field for a
long time because i am new i'm trying to
draw from all of your experience and
and design
these materials that can be used
and so that was the final point with the
summit and
with that
i will ask if there's any questions from
anyone
all right well
thank you all for coming out and um
i appreciate your interest and
feel free to contact me by email or
phone for follow-up and there's
definitely more to come in the future
so thank you