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 We as consumers hold a lot of power in determining how products are produced, and in turn how our environment and health fare. We can work to bring about an economic system that strives for the sustainability of our environment and our communities.
Do you have in mind a process or product that needs to be fixed? If so, join with other activists in your local Sierra Club group to bring about change. Otherwise, if you're excited to make a difference, but don't know where to begin, we've compiled a list of activities that may be just the thing to get started in your hometown. Whatever it is you decide to do, have fun!
Write an Article or Opinion Piece
Getting the word out about how personal consumption choices relate to the environment can open people's eyes to problems and solutions. Look over these articles for ideas you can use to write a letter to the editor of your local paper or an article for
your own group's newsletter.
 Read all articles.
How to write a letter to the editor
How to write a letter to the editor (2)
How to find contact information for the editor of
your local and national newspapers
Organize a Sustainable Tuesday* Outing
(*or whatever day of the week works best for you)
The idea is to bring people together with environmental sustainability as the instigator.
These are generally centered on eating a plant based, organic, locally grown dinner. They can be potlucks or restaurant outings. Our video can be shown, a speaker can be provided, or it can be entirely social.
Some Sustainable Tuesday events can be centered on families and children, others around singles, still others around conservation campaigns or fund raisers.
How to Set Up a Sierra Club True Cost of Food Restaurant Outing
Slideshow: Virginia Chapter Mt. Vernon Group and Great Falls Group members and guests visit an organic farm
Sustainable Cooking Classes
Sierra Club leaders/members sharing recipes can be a fun way to encourage people away from fast foods and into sustainable eating. Are you a good cook and willing to teach others? If not, do you have an adventuresome spirit and a good sense of fun? There's nothing better to build community than hosting a cooking demo or potluck where participants can share their recipes and their experience in shopping for locally grown and organic products.
A Sustainable Consumption Study Circle or Book Club
Get a few friends together to discuss a book or start a simplicity group. A small group that meets regularly to discuss an issue around sustainability issues can be a useful way to involve new activists.
Get some ideas:
Northwest Earth Institute's Choices for Sustainable Living book discussion
Simple Living Network's Study Group Guide
Start a Sustainable Consumption Committee
Get a new issue committee going within your Sierra Club Group or Chapter. You may want to start out with a book circle to get people thinking about the issue or consumption. "Sustainable Tuesday" outings are also a great way to get people coming together - folks can share stores about things they're doing to live in harmony with the environment. Once you get people coming together you can start talking about issues you'd like to tackle collectively as a committee. You can show our video and lead a discussion with our guide.
Contact our Activist Coordinator for help in setting up a committee within the Sierra Club structure. Gordon LaBedz: GLaBedzMD@aol.com
Sierra Club Tabling
Tabling is an excellent opportunity for you to get the word out to your community. When you read about a local fair, festival, or event, call the organizer and ask if you can share a table to distribute True Costs of Food and other Sustainability literature. Tabling at your local farmers' markets and organic food stores is a "win-win" opportunity. Often schools, businesses, and clubs hold health awareness days; contact them about showing the True Cost of Food video and having information available.
Tabling materials to print:
The True Cost of Food (pdf file)
True Cost of Food Brochure (pdf file)
Angeles Chapter True Cost of Food Handout (pdf file)
Diet for A New America Statistics (pdf file)
Choosing for Nature, Three Times a Day (pdf file)
Local School Outreach
Healthy school lunch advocacy projects have been successful all over the country. Sierra Club activists can approach the superintendent, principal, or teachers of their local elementary, middle, and high schools with Sustainability and True Cost of Food lesson plans. Educators are often happy to receive good ideas and materials for use in the classroom.
Work with your local school[s] to start a farm to school program to support local farms and improve the quality of food in our schools.
Teachers are always looking for ideas and this True
Cost of Food Lesson Plan and introductory materials
will be welcome by teachers and students alike.
Materials were prepared by Lynn Cimino-Hurt,
Conservation Chair of the Virginia Chapter Great Falls
Group with permission to reprint and distribute. Lynn
welcomes your comments and the sharing of your own
educator resources at: lciminohurt@gmail.com
What is the Students Designing Sustainability
Curriculum Project?
Overview of the Students Designing Sustainability
Curriculum
Lesson Plan One
The ABC's of Capitalism: Natural, Social/Human and
Built
Course Outline
Educating our youth about food and nutrition has become especially important given the rate of obesity and diabetes among young people. Our True Cost of Food video and discussion guide is an engaging way to communicate the issues to children as well as adults. Ask the administrator of your local community college and hospital about their nutrition education program; they might be excited to include the video and materials in their curricula.
Find out more:
Rethinking the School Lunch Program
Do you have a lesson plan you would like to share with others? Please email it, with permission for public use, to jwilley79@yahoo.com
Grow Your Own
Try gardening in your own backyard for healthy, fresh, and tasty food. Consult your Ag. Extension Agent, Master Gardener team, or nursery to learn what fruits, vegetables or herbs are best suited for your soil, sun exposure, and growing season. Watching seeds grow and getting your hands in soil can be great therapy!
Retail Store Outreach Campaigns
This is a direct lobbying campaign designed at stores that don't carry locally grown or organic foods. It can involve talking to the store manager, leafleting, or other means of public education.
Dear Grocery Store Manager
Buy Local Campaign
Sierra Club tours of local businesses and farms can be fun and educational outings. Meeting with small local businesses puts a face to the product and allows folks to ask questions about sourcing, production, and the environmental impacts of the business.
You can build a marketing campaign around buying local and supporting sustainable economic diversity.
Support or Start a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Project
A CSA is a local farm operation where you pay up front to receive a portion of the farm's produce. Members can volunteer to work at the farm, or may be inactive and still a share in the bounty. You get a variety of foods while supporting local farms.
If there's no CSA near you, consider starting one. Many CSAs are run by a "core group" of volunteers who take care of recruiting members, collecting money, providing recipe sheets, and organizing distribution. If you and a few of your neighbors are interested enough to form a core group, the next step is finding a farmer. Talk to local farmers (ask your local agricultural extension service to suggest some that might be interested) and discuss their growing practices. Even if the farm is not certified organic, you might find that the farmer adheres to organic standards.
Find out more:
How to Start a CSA
Local Harvest
Sustainable Table
Fundraisers for Your Sierra Club Group or Chapter
Many Sierra Club groups have had successful fundraising dinners and banquets that are plant-based, organic, and locally grown. A brief mention during the program of the importance to the environment or a showing of the video can add special significance to the menu.
Work with a local, organic farmer to sell their seasonal product as a fundraiser for your group. A Colorado Group earned $1,500 from the margin on selling boxes of Colorado, organic peaches.
California Groups have been successful raising thousands of dollars on sustainable wine-tastings and tours of local organic farms.
Your committee may also come up with another idea that promotes sustainable living in your community. There may be grants and other support for this activity. One source is Patagonia and their Grass Roots Environmental Grants.
Calculate your Personal Ecological Footprint
If you put your energy into protecting the environment, one of the best places to start is by understanding how your own personal consumption habits stack-up in terms of environmental degradation. The Global Footprint Network has developed a short questionnaire that will calculate your environmental impact based on some core personal consumption choices.
suggestion:
At your next Sustainable Consumption meeting have committee members discuss their consumption patterns. How does the group's footprint compare to the U.S. average? Challenge yourselves to reduce your impact by each member committing to an action that will reduce your ecological footprint.
Audit Your Sierra Club Entity
Look out how your Chapter or Group activities measure-up against your environmental values. We've constructed an audit, but feel free to add different measures that fit with your entity's activities. Your Sustainable Consumption Committee can help your Sierra Club walk the talk! Perform the audit. Report back to your Executive Committee, and get them to take a pledge!
Survey of Club Practices
Sustainability Pledge
Perform an Institutional Audit
Want to make your workplace, school or place of worship more sustainable? Perform an audit. Think about the resources used (computers, lights, paper, supplies), the activities that occur, and their environmental impact. Then, look at the options available for sourcing, reducing, reusing and recycling in your community. These may help:
Institutional Audit form (PDF)
How to plan a sustainable event (PDF)
Your Sustainable Consumption Committee can help organizations save money and reduce their environmental impact. Start by helping one organization; keep tabs on the changes your implement, what these changes cost up front, and then calculate the cost savings over the next month. You can publicize your activity in your local newspaper, and then start helping more organizations until you've transformed your community into a model of sustainability!
Photo courtesy USDA.
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