We at the Campus Sustainability Fund believe in a "sustainability" that empowers communities, charts a path that promotes collective well-being, and believes in the need to shift from extractive relationships to reciprocity (with ourselves, eachother, past and future generations, and Mother Earth).
Sustainability is a movement that holds space for everyone and must amplify the voices of those historically silenced within this movement and the climate crisis. We, as individuals that each exist in a community, have a role to play in collectively securing our sustainable future.
There is often a false narrative that individuals are the ones perpetuating our climate crisis and we bear the burden of not fixing it. Our climate crisis exists at a systems level and is made to thrive in our extractive economy. Our role at the CSF, as youth, as students is to shift the narrative away from shame/inaction and one to hope/change. Our communities hold the tools to create a sustainable future and the CSF empowers students at UW to model it during their time here and beyond. Read more about how in "our working process."
Image taken from Movement Generation’s Zine, accessed here: https://movementgeneration.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/JT_booklet_Eng_printspreads.pdf
The CSF’s work is informed by the Just Transition framework, a set of principles, processes, and practices that were first used during the labor movements of the 1970s. In response to the harmful consequences of extractive industries, workers from low-income communities of color organized. A Just Transition framework outlines a pathway from the current extractive economy to a regenerative economy by centering the building of social capital in historically marginalized communities. In this, people gain power and resources to influence the decisions that impact them.
Extractive Economy
An economy that is oriented around extracting resources from workers (labor) and Mother Earth (land, minerals, fossil fuels), creating omnipresent scarcity. The goal is to create wealth for society’s elite (Movement Generation, 2017).
Regenerative Economy
An economy that is oriented around taking resources as needed and replenishing those removed to generate abundance (Movement Generation, 2017).
False Solutions
Solutions that appear to solve the problem, but still exist within the extractive economy. For example, in the United States there is the problem of too many single-occupancy cars on the road that emit carbon into our atmosphere. Electric vehicles have been promoted as a green solution. However, this only focuses on one aspect of the problem (eliminating carbon emissions) and in the partial solution, simply switches extracting one non-renewable resource (gasoline) in favor of another non-renewable resource (e.g., cobalt and lithium). It is not sustainable and it is harmful to communities holding these resources. Learn more about the impacts of the "clean energy" movement on communities in Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo through CSF's Climate Justice Teach-In.
A solution that addresses both components of the problem would be increasing mass transit and electrifying those. This promotes community resources, reciprocal relationships, and shared goods, working towards a regenerative economy. It is important to learn how to identify false solutions so we can advocate for real solutions that are capable of creating a sustainable future. Learn more about applying a critical, justice-centered lens to climate solutions in the CSF hosted curriculum under "community learning."
Zines, pronounced “zeen”, (short for magazine) are self-published collections of work that have historically been created outside of mainstream publication. These zines serve as safe spaces of artistic expression, community building, and elevating voices.
The CSF released our first zine spring 2023 as a way to bridge art and sustainability -- we believe art is essential in facilitating the narrative shift required to promote a more sustainable future. We welcome student submissions on prompts that aim to further this conversation.
vol 1. centered "learning from those around us," inviting exploration of what an environmentalist looks like, connections to nature, and what sustainability means to you.
Thank you to all the individuals and groups who have shared pieces of them, their work and stories, with us. We hold these closely to us. As we continue to envision a just and sustainable future together, we hope to continue learning from those around us.
vol 2. will explore "ways of knowing," inviting reflection of worldviews, narratives, and knowledge systems (dominant and undercurrent).