by Jen Power

Created on: August 29, 2008

Sustainability has become the catchphrase of anyone who wants to profit from the cultural cachet of the environmental movement. Throw sustainable on the front of any phrase and you get a free greenwash. Even though the term is easy to exploit, there is a lot of honest-to-goodness sustainability work going on out there. It continues on in almost every field as it has for years. I hope that soon we'll be able to figure out how to be sustainable in every aspect of our lives.

One of the beacons of hope is the Solar Living Institute in Hopland, CA. I recently got to visit the center for the first time when I attended this year's SolFest. SolFest is the Solar Living Institute's yearly celebration of sustainability. It includes a plethora of workshops and keynotes speakers, music and entertainment on several stages, and a smattering of vendors. For me, SolFest was a way to experience a sustainable community for a short time and learn a little about what the Solar Living Institute had to offer. SLI is open and runs workshops year round, but with travel being so expensive, SolFest was likely to be my only chance to sample them.

Braving the two day drive to Hopland and the triple digit heat was worth it SolFest and the Solar Living Institute was all it promised to be. One of the first signs I was greeted with as I drove through their front gate was one proclaiming that SLI was going to work to make SolFest as close to zero-waste as possible. I soon saw the prominently placed and well-posted composting and recycling cans, with smaller trash cans alongside. I also had the privilege of camping out near one of the compost piles!

Camping out and volunteering turned out to be the best way to experience the sustainable foundations of the Solar Living Institute. I bathed in outdoor solar showers, walked through permacultured landscapes, and helped cook meals in a kitchen that was constructed out of cob. Even the Info Booth was made out of strawbales and plaster!

During my volunteer shifts, I got a chance to talk to some of the SLI interns. They were some of the happiest long-term volunteers I had ever seen! It was great to hear about all the work that the Institute was doing from an insider's perspective. It was also wonderful to see that the Solar Living Institute is sustainable with its staff, too far too many well-meaning organizations ignore their mission when it comes to their own people.

Since I did go for the workshops, I should talk about them, too. I got to participate in creating a play structure made of bamboo (one of the hot materials in the green building industry right now), learned how to find my niche in the new green job market, heard about permaculture and its uses in the urban landscape, and I even found out how to cook organic on the cheap. This was only a fraction of what was offered, and by itself it illustrates how many ways we can organize our communities in far more sustainable patterns.

The permaculture workshop hit especially close to home. Right now I'm working as part of a community group to raise money for a park-to-be in the neighborhood. We as a community had already brought up a lot of great ideas pitching in on the project was one of them. But the permaculture workshop reminded me that there are a whole lot of aspects to a project like this that can be made more sustainable, like using bioswales at the bottom of slopes to catch and purify runoff.

I drove down to Hopland seeking new knowledge, and I was not disappointed. I hope my eco-pilgrimage will bear even more sustainable fruit for my community over the next few months.

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