October Sustainability Month Celebration

The City of Kent is designating October as Sustainability Month and invites all residents, schools, businesses, and organizations to join this celebration by participating in activities throughout the entire month that promote sustainable practices.

Are you not sure what sustainable practices are or how you can participate?  The reality is that many times we are engaging in sustainable practices without realizing it.  With that in mind, the following sample list of questions is provided to help you brainstorm and identify what your practices are, so that you can then think creatively about how you’d like to showcase them during sustainability month.

• Do you use reusable containers or otherwise try to reduce single-use materials, or try to repair items before replacing them?
• Do you recycle and/or upcycle (creative reuse of waste or unwanted products into new materials)?
• Do you vote?
• Do you volunteer at a local service agency, or on a civic or community advisory board?
• Do you provide affordable housing, or otherwise assist with area social service needs?
• Do you use public transportation, bike, or walk to get to your destinations?
• Do you use an electric vehicle, carpool, and/or do you combine trips so that you’re reducing the amount you need to drive?
• Do you enjoy the Cuyahoga River, use the area trails and/or visit the City’s Parks?
• Do you garden, compost, produce and/or source local foods and goods?
• Do you turn out your lights when leaving a room, adjust the thermostat, or unplug your devices to reduce your energy use?
• Do you produce electricity with solar, wind, or water?
• Do you build or renovate with energy and water efficiency, or other sustainable design elements in mind?
• Do you enjoy shopping and dining in Kent’s local shops and restaurants?
• Do you create jobs, and/or offer livable wages or other flexible conditions of employment?
• Do you offer educational community events, or work to support these efforts?
• Do you organize local events that bring friends, neighbors, or the larger community together, or that help folks in need?

This list is not exhaustive, and there are so many ways to engage. However you practice sustainability, we invite you to showcase and celebrate in your own unique ways during the month of October!

Keep reading to learn more about planned activities and to learn more about aspects of Sustainability that might spark more ideas for you!

List of events:

The Mayor will be proclaiming October as Sustainability Month at the City Council Committee meeting on Wednesday, October 1st.

Stay tuned, as the City of Kent’s Sustainability Commission will be hosting a couple of events of its own to participate in this celebration! We’ll post more details here as they become available.

We want to hear from you! Feel free to email the City’s Sustainability Coordinator, Julie Morris (julie.morris@kentohio.gov) with a brief listing of your name, activity, and/or any applicable event details (if you celebrate with an event) and it will be posted here as received.

We also invite you to share in more detail about what and how you celebrated after October. Email your write-up along with pictures (if any) to the Sustainability Coordinator by November 14th and you’ll be included in a special edition of the Sustainable Kent e-Newsletter that will focus on October Sustainability Month!

What is Sustainability? 

Sustainability is a very broad term, but a well-recognized definition comes from an organization known as the Brundtland Commission who published a report in 1987 titled “Our Common Future” that defines sustainability as: “meet[ing] the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.

Meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs is no easy task. Accomplishing that goal requires thinking through complex problems that intersect across many systems of life on Earth and requires action at the individual, local, state, national, and international levels.

To help with this complexity, sustainability has three components, otherwise known as the Three Pillars.

• Economy – addresses relationships of business, politics, and policy
  
  
• Environment – refers to the relationships within human and non-human ecosystems
  
  
• Society – examines relationships of culture, power, and equity across sectors of society
  
  

Sustainability can function like a tool for individuals, businesses, organizations, industries and governments, using the Three Pillars as a framework to guide decision making and for action within and across the pillars.

Decisions and actions that are grounded in a sustainability framework can have impact from local to global scale helping all of us enjoy healthy and resilient communities for generations to come.

To learn more about the City’s sustainability work and its associated Climate Action Plan, be sure to browse its Sustainability Overview webpage at:  https://www.kentohio.gov/business-building-development/sustainability-overview/

To learn more about the City’s Sustainability Commission, visit: https://www.kentohio.gov/our-government/boards-and-commissions/sustainability-commission/