Thinking About Sustainability at a Community-College Conference

Ithaca, N.Y. — Conferences that focus on sustainability sometimes make gestures toward the ideals of the green movement. Take, for instance, the continental-breakfast table here at a sustainability conference at the Institute for Community College Development at Cornell University.

Yes, the eating utensils were biodegradable — made of cellulose. The plates were bio-plastic, the sort that would easily break down in a compost bin. There was also organic soy milk offered on a table near the bagels.

A handout in the conference folder discussed the various ways that the conference had “gone sustainable”: The napkins were biodegradable and unbleached. The clamshell sandwich boxes were compostable. The wraps for the cookies were made with soy wax, not petroleum wax. And the paper was recycled.

But gestures like this often seem to highlight the gap between what we have done and how far we need to go. The other breakfast offerings were standard conference fare: Colombo yogurt, distributed out of Minneapolis, came in plastic cups; a conversation overhead at breakfast focused on whether they were recyclable. Water came in plastic bottles, despite recent praise for tap water as the most sustainable option. The food may or may not have been local or organic.

There was fair-trade coffee, but also conventional coffee, which might have been produced by laborers working under conditions akin to slavery. Lee Riddell, assistant director of the Institute for Community College Development, said two types of coffee were offered to make people think about the choices they were making. She said that she was hoping the sustainability conference would push Cornell to offer more sustainable options at conferences like this.

Debra G. Rowe, president of the U.S. Partnership for Education for Sustainable Development, said in her opening remarks at the conference that she was tired of “armchair pontificators” — know-it-alls who are a lot of talk and no action. (In pointing out the shortcomings of the fare, this is probably the role I am playing right now.)

But over the course of her talk, Ms. Rowe also pointed out that sustainability is a complex and comprehensive undertaking — and absolutely vital. Look around, she said: Everything single thing in the room is a product, directly or indirectly, of petroleum. “This is about everything we consume,” she pointed out. Americans are not educated enough about sustainability, and we need education to change consumption patterns, she said.

As Ms. Rowe outlined the various organizations working in sustainability and the ways that people can change attitudes and take action on campus, a conference attendee turned to a colleague and said: “She makes it sound so easy, but we know better.”

Sustainability is not easy. It goes beyond recycling cans and bottles. It goes beyond green buildings. Sustainability will not happen until people think broadly, make hard choices, and do hard work.