The UM Office of Sustainability is hosting an OXCM Low-Carbon Shopping Night to highlight the sustainability of shopping locally and the amazing work OXCM provides for our community. The Oxford Community Market is a passionate nonprofit organization focused on food access. Their programs make healthy, local food accessible to all people in our community, especially those facing barriers of cost and transportation. There are several reasons to support OXCM, read on to learn more.

Low Carbon Shopping Night Menu

Sustainable Farming – OXCM Vendor Highlights

Sustainability and Social Responsibility

Written by: Allegra Latimer

Allegra Latimer is the Fall 2022 Compost Collective Intern. She has worked at the Office of Sustainability since 2019.

As we transition from long, sunny days and the verdant green of the Grove towards more fluctuating temperatures and autumnal colorings of reds, yellows, and browns, one becomes acutely aware of the unwavering fluidity of our environment. It is in this way that our environment plays a critical role in how we structure our day. Conversely, our role as humans in a progressing society has a large and intrinsic role in the pace and magnitude of these environmental changes. While these changes are woven into long-term climate effects, there are often short-term impacts that we as humans have in contributing to variances in these environmental patterns. Quantitatively, the extent of this impact can be measured through our individual carbon footprint. True to its name, carbon footprints are just that, a measurement of the magnitude of individual consumption. These steps, whether big or small, contribute to the emissions of fossil fuels. This can exist in the form of transport, food consumption/disposal, purchasing, and a wide variety of other actions. 

Just as no two people are the same, no two footprints are the same. If we equate steps in reverse as a form of social responsibility, it can be concluded that while we all have an intrinsic partnership with our environment and an obligation to act in the best interest of society and the environment as a whole, carbon footprints and social responsibility are more aptly defined on a graded scale. 

So what does this look like?–a student perspective.

To live a sustainable lifestyle, do I have to be vegan, drive an electric car, compost, recycle, buy solar panels, AND never shop big business again?

While there are endless options to living a more sustainable lifestyle, each with its own merit, no one individual is responsible, yet alone capable of participating in these choices in the same way.  Each of us must make these choices based on our own capacity. One way to avoid sustainability burnout and guide us through these choices is to consider our personal scale of consumption versus contribution. It is simply impossible for each of us to transition in the same way, sustainable transitions must be both economically and personally equitable for each individual. Given two hypothetical scenarios, we can better understand what is required of individuals to contribute to a sustainable future. 

Scenario 1: A student lives on campus. They walk to their classes and regularly use public transportation or their bike for personal travel off-campus. This student does not buy food or clothing beyond the basic necessities and does not travel beyond what is required for school, work, etc. 

Scenario 2: A student lives off-campus and drives their personal vehicle to and from school, work, as well as extracurricular activities. This student regularly travels for school, work, and leisure activities and also regularly purchases clothing and technology. 

Given the resources available to Student 2 as well as their increased consumption, it would be apt to say that their level of social responsibility is greater. If they wish to contribute to a sustainable future, they may consider purchasing locally, and if faced with extra food/packaging waste, they could consider composting and recycling. As a frequent traveler both for school and for leisure, Student 2 could consider contributing to carbon offsets and if looking for a new vehicle, could consider an electric alternative. Because Student 1 does not economically consume as much as Student 2, it is not necessary that Student 1 consider themselves as having the same level of obligation to contribute to more financially linked forms of sustainability. For example, Student 1 does not have a personal vehicle or does not use their personal vehicle; therefore, it is not necessary that they consider buying an electric vehicle. 

A similar comparison can be made with regard to the fashion industry. There is increasing dialogue around businesses moving towards sustainable fabrics, more equitable working conditions for employees, and sourcing locally. While all of these factors contribute to a higher quality and more sustainable product, this often comes at a cost. For someone who regularly purchases clothes and is interested in fashion beyond wearing clothes as a basic utility, purchasing from more sustainable brands is an element to consider; however, if someone maintains a smaller wardrobe and does not consume much from this sector, then purchasing higher priced sustainable clothing is less of a factor of concern.

These are merely examples of how to begin conceptualizing your own social responsibility to sustainability. One of the first and greatest steps in sustainability is to simply be conscious and knowledgeable about the world in which we live. Being aware of the interconnectedness of humans and their environment allows for the dialogue of sustainability to continue and the initiation of remedial action both on personal and social scales. While it is important to consider this hierarchy of sustainability, particularly in relation to social responsibility and financial obligations, there are countless other ways to contribute to sustainable efforts. These examples are such that can be incorporated into any lifestyle with low commitment and high benefits. 

One of the easiest ways to incorporate sustainability into your everyday life is to save and reduce. Reducing meaning to reduce overconsumption of food and other forms of purchasing. Overconsumption stems from overproduction and leads to excess amounts of waste. This cyclic effect leads to environmental impacts such as land-fill build-up and greenhouse gas release. Saving can equate to reusing or opting for purchased materials that can be used multiple times such as reusable water bottles and packing lunches rather than purchasing from outside. Walking or using forms of low-emission or shared transportation are all great ways to lessen your individual carbon footprint. 

Within Oxford and on the Ole Miss campus, most everything is within walkable distances and otherwise has an available bus route. If you are a student and looking to get involved locally, joining sustainable and environmentally oriented organizations is a way to contribute to sustainable action and discussion both academically and socially. This list is non-exhaustive and can vary from person to person. Our impact as consumers, students, and humans has a profound impact on the world in which we live. There are endless options for living a more sustainable lifestyle and no two individuals’ social responsibility, carbon footprint, or capacity are the same. Being mindful of our impacts and responsibly choosing sustainable actions within our means is what will keep us moving toward a brighter future for tomorrow and future generations (rather than blowing all of our income on an electric vehicle we don’t use or can’t afford).

Written by Fall 2022 Compost Collective Intern, Allegra Latimer

Environmental Sustainability

In April, Earth Month, we will be completing our serious on the three dimensions of sustainability by discussing environmental sustainability. In previous columns, we have discussed the economic and social dimensions of sustainability.

There are several ways to define environmental sustainability, but Sphera, a company that helps mitigate environmental impacts, summarizes it as:

“the responsibility to conserve natural resources and protect global ecosystems to support health and wellbeing, now and in the future.”

Dr. Ann Fisher-Wirth

Understanding environmental sustainability requires us to understand science, but the arts have allowed us to understand it on a more personal level. That is why this month we have chosen to speak with a professor who has dedicated their life to understanding the environment through the Arts, Dr. Ann Fisher-Wirth.

Dr. Ann Fisher-Wirth has worked at the University of Mississippi for 33 years as a professor in the Department of English and has been the director of the Environmental Studies Minor since its inception. She has received fellowships from the Black Earth Institute, the Fulbright Foundation, and the Mississippi Arts Commission, among others. In 2006 she received the Mississippi Humanities Teacher of the Year and College of Liberal Arts Teacher of the Year. She has received numerous awards for her work, which appears widely in journals, online, and in anthologies (Find her list of selected publications here).

How have your life experiences shaped the way you understand the environment and sustainability?

I think a number of things allowed me to connect the dots. First of all, I was an army brat and traveled a lot as a kid which means I saw a lot of different places. I remember, my father was stationed in Japan in 1955 and we joined him there. And that was not long after WWII and Japan of course was pretty devastated. So I remember being a little kid driving in a Taxi somewhere with my mom, my sister, and my dad. And I saw this hillside or rather cliff side with a cave in it with a quilt hung down in front of the opening of the cave along with a women and some kids. And I said to my mother “what are they doing?” and she said “honey, they live there.” And I thought ‘oh my goodness’…so that was the first jolt I can remember to my idea that everybody had a kind of Dick and Jane childhood with a home and a dog and a mommy and a daddy. Because I grew up in a very safe, well cushioned environment.

So that was one thing that made me start thinking, as a child does, about the fact that there are such differences in the world and that there can be such a thing as poverty, destitution, incredible need, and incredible damage.

And then later, I grew up in Berkeley and I was really lucky to grow up in Berkeley as I did during the late 50’s and early 60’s because I had friends who were pretty political and I was dating this guy who would lecture me about the inequities of capitalism and so on and that got me started thinking about that too.

And I remember, so I was an English major at Pomona College and we were assigned to read Walden and I had not really spent that much time in the natural world, but I stayed up all night reading Walden and I was absolutely transfixed. I was so blown away by the combination of this retreat, this solitude, this spirituality to be found in that kind of view of the natural world. I was just profoundly moved.

So that was one thing, and then later, much later, I lived in Belgium and traveled Europe and I just saw a lot of things that didn’t really feed into my environmental consciousness, but just an awareness of the world. The incredible beauty of the world. 

Then a much later I moved in with my husband on a farm south of Charlottesville in this little guest cottage, and we had 5 kids between us. The house was tiny but the farm was big and so the farm sort of became our extra rooms. It was beautiful and you could just send the kids out to wonder around and there were barns, lakes, peach trees, apple trees, forest and so on. I learned a lot more about just being in nature and I felt like this is something I have always longed for, but I didn’t quite know it.

My husband Peter is a passionate walker, he loves to walk and he loves forests and he loves trees and so I started learning a lot more about the natural world by being married to him. And we started vegetable gardening and so on and so forth. Also Peter is very political and we would talk a lot about political issues and I started following environmental issues. So when we came down here, I knew that we needed an environmental group. Students needed to be able to share that interest and share that knowledge. So for a while we had these tiny tiny groups, I’m talking one or two people, that worked year after year to create the Environmental Studies Minor. Once it came into being, I became the Director for it and have been ever since, it has just been a really consuming passion for me. I really love it, I really do.

Can you describe the interdisciplinary work you have experienced?

I am not a trained scientist and as an undergrad at Pomona College I was so not a trained scientist that I didn’t do my assigned experiment to pass Botany, I just hated it. But I’ve learned a lot from teaching Environmental Studies 101 and I’ve learned a lot from reading science writing, I have good friends who are science writers, as well as my colleges like Jason Hoeksema and Steve Brewer in biology and Cliff Ochs, who I’ve done collaborative work with, and I’ve just learned so much from them. 

So actually to my delight, I am a part of a a new book edited by a woman in California named Lucille Lang Day, called “Poetry and Science: Writing Our Way to Discovery.” So we each wrote an essay and we each had some poems in this book. Environmental Writing needs to be knowledgeable about the world. Not all environmental writing needs to involve a lot of science, but it helps if you can write knowledgeable and in a real sense not just a fanatical sense about the world you are focusing on. That knowledge has been important for my poetry, I write an awful lot about what I would call poetry of place, because I’m not from Mississippi, although I’ve lived here for 33 years and it fascinates me, and I write a lot about, for instance, the Whirlpool Trails (South Campus Rail Trail) or the Catalpa tree on campus or my yard, the birds and trees and flowers in my yard. That is all interwoven with the lives of people.

I’ve worked with Maude Schuyler Clay who is a photographer to collaborate on  a book of poetry and photography called “Mississippi.” It’s her gorgeous photographs and then through those photographs I was able to, almost literally, hear voices that would tell me stories about people who aren’t in the photographs but people who were conjured for me by the photographs. They are poems about the Bayou about the trees or the waterways and the land or the ruined buildings and the lives that are connected with those places. 

And so it is all interdisciplinary, it’s all collaborative, the boundaries are nowhere. That’s what is so exciting about it. You can be interested in absolutely anything.

As you prepare to retire, what do you hope your legacy will be on our campus?

At the end of Environmental Studies 101 I ask students to write an essay about the course, just a personal essay, and it’s 5-7 pages. They talk about what they’ve learned and the books we’ve read and so on, but so many of them have said Environmental Studies 101 should be a required course for everyone on this campus. And I’m not asking them to say that, they are just feeling like we are learning stuff that really matters, we are learning stuff that is shaping our lives. And we are responsible for helping shape the world. And they are saying that they want this to be more widely a part of this campus culture.

That is the legacy I would like to leave. That there has been, oh I don’t know, a few hundred students that have taken my course and whose lives have really been changed. They have gone into career paths based on that or they have live differently, but I would like to see that much much more widespread. It is just so important. It might not be fun to think about but it’s reality. It doesn’t just go away by being ignored. And by it I mean, for instance I just read yesterday that something like 55% of all rivers and lakes in this country have water that is unfit for drinking and that’s not going to change just because we don’t want to think about it.  The damage caused by over use of pesticides and herbicides and so on that’s not going to change just because we don’t want to think about it. So it’s important to know. It’s important to know what’s involved with deforestation or with the pollution of rivers or toxic runoff and then find the energy and the courage and the knowledge to change it.

That is what I have found that is so meaningful about this minor and about these courses. As well that it is just so fun. It’s fun to take students to a farm or a nature walk or have them have to write nature journals and be quiet for an hour a week. And they often have said “this is the most peaceful time of my life”, “this is the time I can really rest”. Just because they have to not be using their phone, not be talking to their friends, just be under a tree quiet and it is just a healing experience. So there is all kinds of healing that is possible, all kinds of fun that’s possible and there’s all kinds of hard work that is possible.

What work has been most meaningful to you here at UM?

Creating the minor, definitely creating the minor. But I’ve also been involved with the MFA program since its inception, the MFA program in the English Department. And I’ve loved that too, teaching a lot of poetry workshops and so on has been a lot of fun. And since I have my PhD I can also teach graduate level seminars and I’ve done a bunch of those and I really loved that. I’ve taught eco poetry and the american long poem and women poets and that has been really rewarding for me.

Where do you find positivity in environmental sustainability work?

[Belly laughs] I’ll just have to choke a little bit. I don’t even know how to start answering that. I do see more people caring more. More young people caring more. The students I teach, caring desperately. I was just at the Associated Writing Programs conference, and I was on a panel again, and a young women stood up and said I’m apart of the Sunrise Movement, and I’m like yes that’s great. I think it’s great that young people are coming out, taking to the streets making their angers and their hopes and their determination known.

The woman said “you all have been talking about joy [in the natural world] but I want to talk about grief.” She said “where is the literature that is talking about grief that we feel?” Well there is plenty of it, but she wanted to insist on what’s called solastalgia, which is this great feeling of grief for the loss of a beautiful environment.I do think that our environmental situation is disastrous. I think it’s only made worse by this horrible war in Ukraine. I would like to think that raising gas prices would cause people to turn away from fossil fuels rather than turning away from the people they are angry at in the government. I think there is a lot more lip service than action when we have these climate summits and so on. People keep saying that great progress is being made and then you have to ask yourself “Well, how slowly do we slide backwards?” Well quickly or slowly it still is sliding backwards. I’m sorry if that’s not the hopeful answer you may have been looking for.

One thing I do think is really good is when communities spring up. For instance what the [Oxford Community Market] does here in Oxford, I think, is just phenomenal. It’s a real outreach program that is not only helping people have better food and more sustainable food sources but also educating people about raising food, eating in a nourishing way. There is a big economic component to that too. You know, reaching out  to people who have less money and just trying to provide really good food for them. That kind of thing I think is terrific. Things like Hill Country Roots with tree planting out at the Biological Field Station. I think that that is absolutely phenomenal. So sure there are things to feel really good about and take pride and take hope in, but at the same time with global capitalism, it’s not designed to provide sustainability. It’s designed to provide profit and there are a lot of governmental structures in place that help sustain that profit motive.

Sustainability work has no shortage of tasks in the coming years. Dr. Ann Fisher-Wirth is an example of someone who, despite all odds, continues to push for sustainable progress. While the task seems insurmountable, we can all do our part in creating a better tomorrow.

–Story by OOS Project Manager, Kathryn Kidd

Economic Sustainability

Our society has experienced rapid changes in just the past century. Since 1950, the population has more than doubled, global consumption of water has more than tripled, and the use of fossil fuels has quadrupled (Robertson, 2021). The driver of all of this change is economic; namely, the economic growth model that has been core to human economic activity since World War II. This model is linear with resources going in and waste coming out, but this economic system has consumed resources faster than can be replenished and released waste into the environment much faster than the natural system can process. Several ecological economists and other academics have recognized the flaws in the current economic model as not only bad but perhaps physically impossible to maintain (Daly and Farley, 2003).

Economic sustainability generally seeks to responsibly manage the planet’s finite resources in a way that is mutually beneficial to society and the earth system. It acts as the capital connection between the social and environmental pillars of sustainability.  The Oslo Symposium in 1995 defined sustainable consumption and production as:

“The use of goods and services that respond to basic needs and bring a better quality of life, while minimizing the use of natural resources, toxic materials, and emissions of waste and pollutants over the life cycle, so as not to jeopardize the needs of future generations.”

UM Associate Professor in the Department of Economics: Ms. Sharon Hayes

It’s only relatively recently that we have come to recognize the real limitations of our consumption and explored economic alternatives. Therefore, sustainable economic research is new in relation to social or environmental sustainability. It’s often the least understood dimension and most abstract in terms of solutions or action. That is why we have chosen a long-time ecological economist and University of Mississippi professor, Ms. Sharon Hayes to help us contextualize economic sustainability.

Professor Hayes is a full-time online instructor at the University of Mississippi since 2018. She has expertise in environmentally sustainable business, policy, and management with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Dole Food Company, Inc., and the White House Council on Environmental Quality. With this background, we knew Professor Hayes would be the perfect person to ask a few questions about sustainability and the economy.

We first discussed her background and her familiarity with sustainability. She highlighted three work experiences that shaped her understanding of sustainability. First, she described her 23 years working with the EPA and said that her work with the Pollution Prevention Act of 1990 was her first introduction to the notion of sustainability. She explained that this act “really introduced the concept of reducing waste at the source and not generating any residuals at all if you can help it.” Professor Hayes also explained that it wasn’t until the early to mid-2000s that the EPA explicitly decided to “go green” and formed a committee that she sat on to start working towards responsible consumption.

Next, she was the director of Global Social Responsibilities and Environmental Affairs with the Dole Food Company. She described her work there as the perfect integration of all three aspects of sustainability; working to improve the social and environmental aspects of Dole while balancing the economic demands. And last, she discussed two classes she has taught on ecological economics and specifically sustainable economics at Dominican University. It was there that she wrote an article titled “Accounting for Natural Resources and Environmental Sustainability: Linking Ecosystem Services to Human Well-Being,” published in 2010 by Environmental Science and Technology. In sum, she is extremely familiar with sustainability work. Fascinated by her background I had to know how she got started in all of this, she states:

“I was just a champion for the underdog. I actually first got into womens rights and I taught at the University of Maryland when I was getting my graduate degree. I taught the economic problems of women and the economics of poverty and discrimination, and then when I was doing my dissertation, environmental issues interested me more and I kind of got pulled toward that and that was my field.”

She explained that before she was introduced to ecological economics, during her dissertation research she constantly was looking for ways to “draw the natural world into what’s called neoclassical economics, which believes that there are no limits to growth. Ecological economics and sustainability both recognize that the planet is limited.”

With her vast experience in the public and private sector, Ms. Hayes explained that her view of sustainability has grown and it has become more obvious that “the economics, the social, and the environment are all intertwined.” She also learned that we have to give people a chance, “most of the people that worked in the organization [Dole] were just people, just like us, good people. They wanted to do the right thing, they just didn’t know what the right thing was.” It was her job to show Dole what the right thing was. She explained that showing social and environmental benefits of change was simple, but the economic side…” you know all these things had to pass the bottom line.” She had to find ways to quantify the benefits of lowering insecticide use, implementing better child labor laws, or improving working conditions. This is one of the primary topics discussed in subjects like environmental economics: How do we calculate the true costs? Professor Hayes explains that economic sustainability requires “benefits to be described as comprehensively and as completely as they can be, and they are described in quantitative terms.” She describes economic sustainability as: “Making sure all the benefits are described qualitatively, if not quantitatively and described personally, locally, community-wide, statewide, nationally and internationally.”

Throughout the interview, Professor Hayes described benefits as both the solution and the biggest challenge to economic sustainability. In her 2010 article, she attempts to take a stab at this challenge by providing a “relatively easy and cost-free way to measure environmental benefits.” Solving this issue means helping companies meet their bottom line AND raise the standard of living in both an environmentally and economically sustainable way. Not a simple task for anyone. Ms. Hayes did provide one example of how environmental benefits can become easier to quantify, “Actually, in Europe, the better Dole got environmentally, the more revenues went up there. And so, there were grocery stores that would buy Dule products just because we were working on environmental and social stuff.” While this is just an anecdotal example, it is important to remember that each of us has buying power that can be used to create the market we would like to see.

In conclusion, we asked Professor Hayes what we can do to create a more sustainable campus economy and she first and foremost explained, “I have no contacts with other folks in the university that teach environmental issues. I would like to see some interactions, you know. I have my own thoughts, I have no idea what anyone else’s are.” She suggested creating a committee/interest group of students or faculty to discuss and promote environmental research, policies, etc. Sustainability is a diverse topic and people from every field have to work together to come up with sustainable progress. If you’ve felt the same way Ms. Hayes has,  please contact our office with any questions, suggestions, or concerns and we’ll be happy to help get you connected.

About The Three Dimensions of Sustainability Column

Fig. 1: Frequency of papers published that include sustainability or sustainability in the bibliographic records over time (Kajikawa et. al 2014)

Sustainability made its grand entrance into American culture alongside the environmental movement in the 1960s and 1970s. In the past 20 years, we have seen a considerable uptick in publications on ‘sustainability’ (Fig. 1) and it has rapidly transformed into distinct fields of study (i.e. Sustainability Science & Sustainable Development). Within its brief 50 years of study sustainability’s meaning has been highly scrutinized, redefined, and refined.

Sustainability in the broadest sense means the ability of something to maintain or “sustain” itself over time. Academically, its precise definition has varied from person to person, field to field, but by and large, all definitions include three distinct “dimensions”: social, economic, and environmental. Some academics call these dimensions the three pillars, three components, or three aspects and make attempts to diagram this broad topic (Fig. 2). When attempting to define sustainability academics have found themselves teetering back and forth between vagueness and incomprehensibility. It’s no wonder people get confused!

Fig. 2: Common Sustainability Diagrams. Left, three intersecting circles, Right, literal ‘pillars’ and a concentric circle approach.

It is important to have a strong understanding of sustainability in order to make meaningful progress towards it. Without fully understanding what sustainability is and is not, we run the risk of trivialization and manipulation by those who have something to gain from its misunderstanding. I am sure we all can recall a company that has used sustainability buzz words to grab our attention while they stand behind their Green Washed curtain perpetuating the unsustainable status quo. This is why for the Spring 2022 semester, the Office of Sustainability will be tackling the meaning behind the three dimensions of sustainability. We will review the key points of each dimension as well as interview professors on campus that we believe will help contextualize each dimension of sustainability. We hope to leave you with resources to learn more, campus-specific examples of each dimension, and actions you can take to work toward sustainability.

Our office defines sustainability as:

A multi-disciplinary, problem-solving approach to creating a social system that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the needs of future generations or the needs of the ecological system in which huamsn exist.

By fostering education that encourages reponsible and equitable management of our envrionmental, social and economic resources, the sustainability framework challenges our university to consider the interdependent nature of our lives, the natural environment, our communities and the economy and especially the improvement of these relationships.

Key Terms:

1. Sustainable Development-development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (Robertson, 2021)
2. Sustainability Science-a field of study devoted to tackling the challenges of sustainable development in the transition toward sustainability. This field is interdisciplinary, defined by the problems it addresses rather than by the disciplines it employs. (Kates, 2010)

Resources & Recommended Reading:

Kates, Robert W., ed. Readings in Sustainability Science and Technology. CID Working Paper No. 213. Center for International Development, Harvard University, December 2010.

Robertson, Margaret. Sustainability Principles and Practice Third Edition. Routledge, Abingdon, OX & Routledge, New York, NY. 2021

Social Sustainability

Social Sustainability is the dimension of sustainability concerned with the well-being and longevity of a community. A community is made up of people as well as the places where they live; it is both a social environment and a physical environment. Work to improve social environments is nothing new, yet social sustainability is often the least well-known dimension of sustainability. Nonetheless, we live in a linked system of humans and nature. You cannot solve environmental issues without considering humans and vice versa. The Oxford Institute for Sustainable Development defines Social Sustainability as:

Concerning how individuals, communities and societies live within each other and set out to achive the objectives of development models which they have chose for themselves, also taking into account the physical boundaries of their places and planet earth as a whole. At a more operational level, social sustainability stems from actions in key thematic areas, encompassing the social realm of individuals and societies, which ranges from capacity building and skill development to environmental and spatial inequalities. In this sense, social sustainability blends traditional social policy areas and principles, such as equity and health, with emerging issues concerning participation, needs, social capital, the economy, the environment, and more recently, with the notions of happiness, wellbeing, and quality of life.

Ultimately, we live in a complex social-ecological system. Sustainability and more specifically sustainable development mean understanding this system as a whole while pursuing two main goals: human development and well-being and protection of the Earth’s life support systems. Tight links exist between ecological systems, poverty, and development (Robertson, 2021).

UM Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science: Dr. Marvin P. King, Jr.

Dr. Marvin King Jr. is an assistant professor of Political Science and holds a joint appointment with African American Studies here at the University of Mississippi. He has authored and co-authored several socially sustainable publications on racial polarization in the electorate, representation of the black electorate, and the effect of race in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Dr. King has also initiated the Garden Club at Ole Miss, sits on the Oxford Parks Commission, serves as an advisor to the Honors College, and is the Senior Fellow of the South Residential College. Dr. Marvin King is currently working on research addressing political inequality and how income and wealth inequality affects our politics. He also is looking at the work of the Mississippi state legislature and legislative staff diversity. We conducted a brief interview with Dr. King not only to introduce our readers to faculty on campus that work toward social sustainability but also to inspire subscribers to take sustainable action in our community and pursue new information.

First, we asked Dr. King how he understands sustainability and he said, “Like a lot of Folks, I have a lot to learn about sustainability. I consider myself an active learner though. I keep a lookout for sustainability news and share it with my students in order to encourage conversation and sharing of information. They learn from me and I learn from them.” Then he explains social sustainability and relates it to his campus garden experience, “Social sustainability is community building and in order to have strong communities, it helps to have things that bring us together. What brings people closer together than food?” he suggests. “I wish there were dozens of gardens on campus, mine shouldn’t be unique,” but “sustainability needs to be normalized so it isn’t anything special. It should be, ‘of course you have a tower garden, everybody does.”  He also emphasized that solutions to social sustainability should look different for every community, “every community is different, some are facing water scarcity, others are dealing with industrial pollution.” Therefore, he suggests that the solution is within “empowering communities to solve their own environmental problems.”

Dr. King believes that “Inertia-people settling into the status quo” is the biggest challenge to social sustainability work. He explained that the status quo is “not good enough, we have to move people.” He describes one way to do this is for students to get organized and ask hard questions like, “Why is it so hard to maintain a garden on campus?” He says, “we need that groundswell of support from students and then you can move the needle.” Dr. King’s suggested first step is to organize and “start a petition to get a campus garden in every dorm…it’s the inertia that keeps it from happening.” He wants to see students pushing for what they want to see and specifically, ” think about sustainability when voting at ASB and make student leaders make sustainability a priority. Then administrators, those who write budgets might listen and have to justify their inertia.” He explains, “It’s easy to maintain inertia when you don’t have to justify it.” It’s time for the younger generation to step up and become leaders, “the older generations’ moment of leadership has passed them by and they no longer deserve leadership on sustainability. The next generation has to sustain the effort to make sustainability a priority. I don’t think older generations deserve to be leaders, I mean we don’t have the results to back it up.”

Come back next month where we will dive into Economic Sustainability!

-Story Written By OOS Project Manager, Kathryn Kidd

About The Three Dimensions of Sustainability Column

Fig. 1: Frequency of papers published that include sustainability or sustainability in the bibliographic records over time (Kajikawa et. al 2014)

Sustainability made its grand entrance into American culture alongside the environmental movement in the 1960s and 1970s. In the past 20 years, we have seen a considerable uptick in publications on ‘sustainability’ (Fig. 1) and it has rapidly transformed into distinct fields of study (i.e. Sustainability Science & Sustainable Development). Within its brief 50 years of study sustainability’s meaning has been highly scrutinized, redefined, and refined.

Sustainability in the broadest sense means the ability of something to maintain or “sustain” itself over time. Academically, its precise definition has varied from person to person, field to field, but by and large, all definitions include three distinct “dimensions”: social, economic, and environmental. Some academics call these dimensions the three pillars, three components, or three aspects and make attempts to diagram this broad topic (Fig. 2). When attempting to define sustainability academics have found themselves teetering back and forth between vagueness and incomprehensibility. It’s no wonder people get confused!

Fig. 2: Common Sustainability Diagrams. Left, three intersecting circles, Right, literal ‘pillars’ and a concentric circle approach.

It is important to have a strong understanding of sustainability in order to make meaningful progress towards it. Without fully understanding what sustainability is and is not, we run the risk of trivialization and manipulation by those who have something to gain from its misunderstanding. I am sure we all can recall a company that has used sustainability buzz words to grab our attention while they stand behind their Green Washed curtain perpetuating the unsustainable status quo. This is why for the Spring 2022 semester, the Office of Sustainability will be tackling the meaning behind the three dimensions of sustainability. We will review the key points of each dimension as well as interview professors on campus that we believe will help contextualize each dimension of sustainability. We hope to leave you with resources to learn more, campus-specific examples of each dimension, and actions you can take to work toward sustainability.

Our office defines sustainability as:

A multi-disciplinary, problem-solving approach to creating a social system that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the needs of future generations or the needs of the ecological system in which huamsn exist.

By fostering education that encourages reponsible and equitable management of our envrionmental, social and economic resources, the sustainability framework challenges our university to consider the interdependent nature of our lives, the natural environment, our communities and the economy and especially the improvement of these relationships.

Key Terms:

1. Sustainable Development-development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (Robertson, 2021)
2. Sustainability Science-a field of study devoted to tackling the challenges of sustainable development in the transition toward sustainability. This field is interdisciplinary, defined by the problems it addresses rather than by the disciplines it employs. (Kates, 2010)

Resources & Recommended Reading:

Kates, Robert W., ed. Readings in Sustainability Science and Technology. CID Working Paper No. 213. Center for International Development, Harvard University, December 2010.

Robertson, Margaret. Sustainability Principles and Practice Third Edition. Routledge, Abingdon, OX & Routledge, New York, NY. 2021

Office of Sustainability Newsletter Interview – January 2022

Ian Banner, Director of the Office of Sustainability

Interview conducted by Kathryn Kidd

Ian Banner is the director of the Office of Sustainability, director of Facilities Planning, & university architect at the University of Mississippi. Ian has provided us with a brief update on sustainable progress at UM while reflecting on his lifelong career in sustainability and architecture.

Ian Banner became the director of the Office of Sustainability in 2012 and has a rich background in architecture. He grew up in the small village of Langham, located in a rural part of eastern England. At the age of 18, he left school and went to work in an architects’ office in Peterborough. He stated, “the building I worked in was the seventeenth-century Archdeaconry House in the grounds of Peterborough Cathedral. It really fired my aspirations to become an architect.”

He worked in Peterborough for 3 years where he was able to study building construction technology via a “day release” program offered by his employer. He went on to study Architecture at Plymouth and Cambridge Universities and eventually settled in the United States following several short visits while in college. A general architectural education led him to specialize in environmental issues and energy-efficient design. A major topic of his study focused on “designing with nature as opposed to taking a machine-driven approach to overpower the natural environment.”

Throughout his career, he has been fortunate enough to work in teaching, research, and architectural practice. For the last seventeen years, he has worked here at the University of Mississippi as the university architect, director of Facilities Planning (as of 2006), and director of the Office of Sustainability (as of 2012). Ian explained that in his career he regards “environmental responsibility in design as hugely important, and minimizing our global construction footprint remains central to what I do each day.”

Ian is currently responsible for the design and construction of the new STEM building, which itself will feature sustainability measures. This building is under construction just south of Hume Hall. According to Ian,

“This is a large, 4 story building with over 200,000 square feet of interior space. The building is important for 2 reasons. First, it has been designed for its specific site with careful attention to its place in the world regarding orientation, admission of natural light, and efficient systems to ventilate and admit fresh air for its occupants. Second, and of the greatest importance, will be its ability to provide a place for young scientists to learn about their environment, to progress, and to become leaders themselves. Hopefully, this building will support and contribute in the regard for many years to come.”

When asked about his work at the university, Ian often circled back to the importance of the social impacts. He said that he is proud of the University of Mississippi for enabling the design and construction of several buildings over the last fifteen years that are considered ‘energy-efficient.’ He explained that publicizing these successes is beneficial; not for professional advancement or gratification, but “because our environment benefits from students talking about sustainability, efficiency, and social responsibility. As they graduate and move out into the world, many as leaders, their influence in designing and building a healthy world cannot be understated.” He explains his pride isn’t “in a sustainability-related building project like the Law School, or the Science Building.” Instead, he finds pride in “the positive power of the potential influence of the people who leave here.”

When asked about his most important lessons learned at the university, Ian responded: “listen–we might just learn something!”

He explained he is “always surprised how many people there are at UM who are making amazing contributions to an improved natural environment. These people are teachers, researchers, students, and staff. They turn up in unexpected places and are making significant contributions.” 

Our interview came to a close with one final question: what advice do you have for people working for sustainable progress?

“Don’t give up. There are serious environmental issues out there. Your generation has inherited them which is unfair. But they are there to be solved through your ingenuity, creativity, and tenacity. Don’t underestimate the positive effect of the individual. We all have valuable contributions to make individually and as teams.”

Sustainable projects, like the construction of the science building, provide physical examples of progress for our campus, but Ian reminds us to pay attention to the social impacts. While harder to spot or define, social impacts may have the largest ripple effects. Listen closely to those around you and never underestimate your contributions, as positive sustainable change can come from anywhere.

-Story by OOS Project Manager, Kathryn Kidd

Gifts at the OXCM

A drive through Oxford in late November is a moving picture of colors and Christmas. From the spectrum of fall leaves embellishing the Ole Miss campus to the luminescence of Christmas lights decorating the historic Square, the intrinsic charm of Oxford during the holiday season is something that you can’t help but come back to. Like ornaments adorning this picturesque image, Oxford’s many local restaurants, shops, and groups decorate the city in a unique charm. Rooted in that charm is the Oxford Community Market (OXCM), illuminating the craftsmanship and hard work of local vendors and farmers alike. The market features the best local produce for every season. From summer’s hibiscus, to fall pumpkins, and carrots in winter, you can always find fresh and locally sourced produce perfect for any dish or celebration. While a trip to the Market offers a wonderful opportunity to shop local, it is equally as likely that you will meet and talk to some amazing local vendors–focusing their businesses on the intersectionality between accessibility and sustainability. The result paints a portrait of community in a way that is hard to recreate elsewhere.

“The market is on Tuesdays, but the community is every day,” Valley of Giants owner Nathan Richardson aptly puts it. While community members can visit and shop at the Oxford Community Market every Tuesday at the Old Armory Pavilion, OXCM has engagement in the community throughout the week. From the neighborhood resilience garden to food days, and weekly meal deliveries, OXCM is a hub that sets the stage for all sorts of positive activity aiming to address larger, systemic issues of health and food insecurity. What makes OXCM so unique is that aspect of “community,” attracting vendors, community members, and students alike, all engaging around common interests. As owner Betsy describes it, “community is at the heart of the market…building support for the entire local food [and social] system.” There are countless opportunities for people to bring their own skills and ideas to the table and to implement them in ongoing community projects.

Even on a smaller scale, one does not have to undertake any large or ambitious project to make a difference within the community. It is possible to support your local businesses and food systems while also getting your holiday shopping done and OXCM is a great place to start. OXCM is currently hosting its annual Holly Jolly Holiday series. For the first three Market Tuesdays in December, farmers will be there with late fall and winter produce that people can use for their holiday meals. Keeping with the holiday spirit, vendors will have special holiday items and packaging. Whether locally sourced foods, homemade goods, or gift packages, holiday items from OXCM make great, wholesome gifts. Buying your holiday gifts from the Market is truly a gift that keeps on giving, providing a meaningful gift to the recipient, a good holiday experience for the shopper, and a sense of community support and boosted repertoire for local vendors.

For more information, follow Oxford Community Market on Social Media

-Story by GSIP Intern Allegra Latimer

The United States neighbors an uncharted island that is twice the size of Texas. Between Hawaii and California, this island is unrestrained, untouched, and inarguably the most undesirable tourist destination because it consists entirely of plastic and pollution. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a combination of plastics and marine debris caught in circulating water currents. It currently weighs about 80,000 metric tons and is continually growing (Lebreton et al., 2018).

Thailand Beach 2019

The United States is not entirely at fault for the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, nor plastic pollution as a whole, but Americans are leading contributors to the plastic pollution crisis. The United States generates more plastic waste per person per day than anywhere else in the world. The United States ships this plastic waste abroad to developing countries with inadequate waste management infrastructure. As a result, this plastic waste is mismanaged, often discarded into the environment or burned. The top five countries responsible for more than 50% of mismanaged plastic waste globally are recipients of United States plastic waste. These countries include China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Thailand (Ritchie, 2018).

In December of 2019, I traveled to one of these leading contributors to help with clean-up efforts. In Thailand, I completed a Plastic Pollution and Coastal Conservation internship. Despite having spent each day in awe of the country’s natural scenery, I laid in bed each night feeling disheartened. Alongside my team, I spent hours clearing plastic off beaches to return the next day to find the waste replenished itself overnight. Not only was the plastic pollution unsightly, but it posed a severe threat to marine life, too. I worked at the Royal Thai Navy Third Fleet Sea Turtle Rehabilitation Center, where my team and I cared for injured green sea turtles. Before this internship, I had only seen images of sea turtles enduring injuries from plastic pollution, like plastic straws in their noses or plastic rings around their necks. In Thailand, I experienced it first-hand.

During this experience, it became strikingly clear to me that the plastic pollution crisis required an all-hands-on-deck approach. I also learned clean-up efforts were not enough; the plastic pollution crisis needed to be addressed from a preventative approach, and despite being a relatively responsible action to take, recycling alone would not cut it.

91% of all plastics worldwide are not recycled, including plastics that are sent to recycling facilities. By 2050, scientists estimate that plastics will weigh about eleven billion metric tons, nearly equivalent to the weight of 35,000 Empire State Buildings. (Parker, 2018) Overreliance and overproduction are two factors at fault for the mismanagement of this 91% of plastic waste and this plastic pollution crisis. (Daly, n.d.)

The phrase “reduce, reuse, recycle” is in that order for a reason. The most effective way to prevent waste from inundating our environment is not to create it in the first place. New materials not only require raw materials and energy for production and transportation, but once they exist in the world, they can never leave. These products can only fill landfills, the oceans, the atmosphere (if burned), or be refurbished into other products. However, since recycling plastic waste is only 9% efficient, the single best thing you can do to eliminate plastic waste is reduce your use. If you cannot reduce, you should reuse, and finally, with all other options exhausted, you should recycle.

I make conscious efforts to reduce plastic use in my daily life and encourage others to do the same. However, I often get questioned why I make an active effort to reduce my plastic use when I am only one person facing 7.7 billion others and entire societal systems that contribute to this plastic pollution crisis. I am indeed up against tough competition; nonetheless, any stride toward sustainability is of Earth’s benefit. “I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do.” – Edward Everett Hale. It is easy to detach yourself and feel that your contribution is minuscule as an individual, but there are 7.7 billion people in this world; if each individual takes ownership and takes charge, change is inevitable.

One month of recyclable waste produced by a family of four.

To put this in perspective, in the summer of 2019, I asked a non-recycling household if I could collect their recyclables to help increase recycling in my local community. In just one month, I collected and recycled hundreds of plastic bottles from this one family of four. If only one household produced enough plastic to spread across my backyard, imagine how much plastics hundreds of millions of homes in just the United States produce each month – now imagine if each individual in each household chooses to use a reusable bottle.

To Earth’s benefit, we have seen individual reduction efforts as simple as ditching plastic bottles lead to major legislative revisions across the globe. Public opinion is strident and personal action is acknowledged, igniting a movement of political activism and a transformation in legislation. Within these past few years, California has outlawed plastic straws in full-service restaurants, and Peru established a ban on single-use plastics in vulnerable areas (Howard et al., 2019). At the start of 2020, Thailand banned single-use plastic bags in all of its major stores. (Chankaew, 2020) An individual’s effort to reduce destruction is impactful, both directly and indirectly.

So, despite falling asleep in Thailand feeling disheartened because of the daily reminder of our plastic pollution crisis, I woke up each morning feeling eager to do what I could to protect the environment. Because of my individual efforts and those of millions of others, I knew that I might one day wake up in a world where environmental sustainability is not just exclusive to environmentalists but rather embedded in societal systems.

–Story by GSIP Intern Jenna Santacroce

References

Chankaew, P. (2020 January 1). Thailand kicks off 2020 with plastic bag ban. Reuters.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-thailand-environment-plastic/thailand-kicks-off-2020-with-plastic-bag-ban-idUSKBN1Z01TR

Daly, S. (n.d.) How Does Plastic End Up in the Ocean? World Wide Fund for Nature. https://www.wwf.org.uk/updates/how-does-plastic-end-ocean#:~:text=Rainwater%20and%20wind%20carries%20plastic,plastic%20surge%20in%20our%20seas

Howard, B. C., Gibbens, S., Zachos, E., & Parker, L. (2010 June 19). A running list of action on plastic pollution. National Geographic. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/ocean-plastic-pollution-solutions

Lebreton, L., Slat, B., Ferrari, F., Sainte-Rose, B., Aitken, J., Marthouse, R., Hajbane, S., Cunsolo, S., Schwarz, A., Levivier, A., Noble, K., Debeljak, P., Maral, H., Schoeneich-Argent, R., Brambini, R., & Reisser, J. (2018). Evidence that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is rapidly accumulating plastic. Scientific Reports, 1–15. https://doi-org.umiss.idm.oclc.org/10.1038/s41598-018-22939-w

Parker, L. (2018 December 20). Planet or Plastic? National Geographic Society. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2017/07/plastic-produced-recycling-waste-ocean-trash-debris-environment/#close

Ritchie, H. (2018). Plastic Pollution. Our World In Data.org. https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution#:~:text=China%20contributes%20the%20highest%20share,South%20Africa%20(2%20percent)

Why should you care about composting?

Composting is a key technique for fighting climate change and increasing ecological sustainability: it reduces methane and carbon dioxide emissions, decreases landfill usage, decreases water and air pollution, and creates a nutrient-rich soil additive!

When discarded food makes its way to the landfill and is buried under other trash, it will decompose anaerobically, meaning without environmental oxygen present. This kind of decomposition produces a significant amount of methane, which is a greenhouse gas that traps heat 84 times more than carbon dioxide does over a ten-year period. This sort of decomposition also takes a long time to complete, so food waste contributes greatly to landfill space usage. Increasing the time a substance is bioactive increases the opportunity for disease spread and pollution to occur. There are several ways in which we can reduce waste — shop thoughtfully, donate unused food, and cook appropriate portions of food. Composting is an excellent way to utilize food scraps that cannot be donated and would otherwise be thrown away. 

Composting utilizes ubiquitous microorganisms to decompose food waste aerobically, producing a lot of heat and a little carbon dioxide. This method of organic aerobic decomposition greatly reduces the environmental impact of our three square meals a day. A good method to measure your emissions reduction is this: a pound of composted food prevents about  3.8 pounds of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere! The byproduct of this process is a nutrient-rich soil called humus, which is most often used as a soil-additive or an eco-friendly fertilizer substitute. This is an  important aid to ecological sustainability, since adding compost to the soil adds nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and a host of other nutrients, all of which are vital for soil health and structure, and microbial activity. Rather than throwing food waste into the garbage, you can transform it into a material that will improve your local environment. Composting is also an excellent way to prevent overcrowding our landfills; proper addition of water, soil, and food waste can produce high-quality compost in less than two months! 

If you’re interested in learning more, or in starting your own composting, check out our Composting Handbook: 

Download (PDF, Unknown)

-Section By Compost Collective Intern Matt Knerr

Compost Collective

Collective Change in the Community

We all know the Three Rs–Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. However, what is common knowledge isn’t always common practice. While it is easy to feel overwhelmed by the many ways to get involved and practice sustainability locally; within the Lafayette, Oxford, and University (LOU) community; students, staff, and community members can find engagement in sustainability initiatives both easy and accessible. 

The UM Compost Program is one of the most recent sustainable developments for the LOU community. Since its launch in 2013, the compost program has diverted more than 130,000 lbs of food waste from landfills. This number continues to grow and is projected to grow even more with the development and launch of the UM Compost Collective. 

The UM Compost Collective, which utilizes previously implemented elements of the UM Compost program, is a group initiative on the part of the UM Office of Sustainability, on-campus dining facilities, and community partners towards the reduction and repurposing of pre-consumer wastes.

UM Compost Collective

The UM Compost Collective promotes community-oriented action towards waste reduction. A large portion of incurred food waste comes from pre-consumer foods. With a student body of roughly 22,000, it is no surprise that the University of Mississippi constitutes a substantial portion of total food waste. However, food waste is not a localized issue and one that extends into our community–particularly for restaurants and local food providers. Having the availability of a compost collective allows for the increased diversion of food waste and greenhouse gas emissions as well as the increase of healthy, rich soil that can be repurposed for gardening. Composting is a cycle, so it only makes sense to develop a program that is equally systemic; meaning, community food waste is repurposed within the same local food system for the promotion of sustainable food production and overall soil quality.

WHAT IS PRE-CONSUMER WASTE?

Pre-consumer food refers to food scraps that are generated before they reach the consumer. Fruit and vegetable peels, coffee grounds, eggshells, and pasta are among the many food waste options that allow for pre-consumer composting. While it is possible to compost both pre and post-consumer foods, pre-consumer foods work to limit potential contaminants and vermin as well as help to reduce decomposition time. Foods to avoid in compost are those heavy in oils and fat, including meat, bones, and dairy. 

HOW CAN I GET INVOLVED?

The UM Compost Collective is not open to individual contributions, but you can feel good knowing that your on-campus pre-consumer food waste is being diverted and repurposed through the compost program. Luckily, contributions to food waste reduction do not end there. Starting your own compost pile is a great way to practice sustainability at home. Similarly, shopping at Farmers’ Markets and shopping locally is another great way to contribute to local food systems. Volunteering with local groups such as Oxford Community Market, Flower of Life Food Rescue, and Hill Country Roots also plays an important and active role in sustainability. No matter how small a sustainable contribution may seem, the collective effort of our individual actions helps to mitigate larger environmental issues.

-Section By Compost Collective Intern Allegra Latimer