As I hung up the phone with the Director of Sustainability of a small liberal arts university, I was struck by the number of times that I have heard the same challenge articulated. The challenge – we have no money to work with- is a common one since schools that are fiscally conservative often have a small to non-existent budget to put towards sustainability initiatives which leads their Directors to face what feels like a huge wall.

The seemingly insurmountable needs – resources, manpower, support – feel like they grow larger over time since the Director does what they can, in many cases continuing to identify more and more that needs to be done around the school.  Overwhelming for certain.

I am going to propose a solution, or even better, show you that there is no insurmountable wall in front of you, there is simply a challenge that you have yet to overcome.

In the next few sections we are going to troubleshoot some ways to help move beyond those challenges.

No money?

First figure out whose existing budget the changes you desire falls under.  While you will mainly spend your time researching and graphing out the options, this does not require you to have a budget, it works under an existing one…

No manpower?

Again, looking at existing structures will help with this.  Why do you need an army if one is already exists and is paid for?

No support?

Do you know the cost and benefits to what you are proposing?  I suggest that you merely need to understand the motivations and passions of your higher-ups in order to best present why the most sustainable option is the one to take.  I’m not talking about manipulation, I’m talking about understanding the needs of the person(s) holding the purse strings.

Doing anything alone is more difficult that doing it with others. In fact synergy shows us that when we work together that 1 + 1 can actually equal 3! Remember this and you are already in better shape than when you began your quest.

One of the rules to improvisational acting is to never say ‘no’ or ‘but.’  Why?  Well ‘no’ stops the flow of creativity.  It stops momentum.  The trick is to say ‘yes, and…’

Just like a good improv, brainstorming is facilitated by always saying yes.  Gathering all the nuggets of information and ideas before determining which is best or suits the situation the best. 

The minute you say no the improv ends.  The minute you say no in a brainstorming or other business meeting the energy leaves.

So think about this as you try to fuel creativity and innovation within you business or life.  Since, you are able to pull more and more potentially good information from people by encouraging them to continue, are you really doing that through your communication?

Are you saying ‘yes, and’ or ‘no, but’ in your life?

While in Haiti doing relief work in March of 2010 I ran into a frustration which I’d like to air. Namely, it was the United Nations (UN) that drove me crazy.I was asked/assigned to be the point person to communicate with the UN on a donation of water filters, desperately needed, for a number of camps.

What the issue comes down to is that the UN is a challenge to work with. I believe they want to do good. I believe that they want to help, but… Argh!

To some extent the challenges they face are due to their need to report back. But the challenges that I faced in getting this offered aid to the people who needed it the most was unacceptable, to me.  Taking time to fill out the appropriate paperwork, counting and then re-counting camp residents, making sure the photographers were available, et cetera; in all it took over two weeks after I began working on the task to get the water filters passed out that they actually made it into the hands of those who needed them.  I started working a month after the earthquake.  A month and a half to clean water?!

While I’m sure the requirements were put into place for good reason (I heard that people were selling tarps for $75 on the blackmarket) it is still frustrating when the need is visible, and immediate.

It seems like while cover their own needs for reporting, the UN is not always thinking or able to think in terms of systems.  Such as how to most efficiently get the job done.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday because:

- It is about being grateful.
- You spend the time with the people who are the most important to you whether they are family or friends.
- It is a celebration of the harvest, or the good things that have come to you in the previous year.
- I do love good food and wine!

Gratitude is something that I regularly practice.  I say practice because it isn’t always easy to be grateful for a lost job, ending relationship, death of a loved one, et cetera.  But with every situation in our lives no matter how challenging and difficult, there comes the opportunity for learning, success and growth.   This is not always obvious and so often you can feel knocked down and that is the best time to practice remembering that like other ‘bad’ times this too will give birth to something better.

We don’t always know why things happen, but I have had many times in my past that I have felt hurt or resentful because of a given situation (not getting in to Colby for college, the lost of a good friend without reason.)  Later in life I understood why those situations happened, some many times over, and was able to feel grateful for them because of what came next that would not have been possible otherwise.

Now in my life, I am grateful and open when something that seems challenging comes up.  I realize that it may be quiting my job that allows for the space for my dream job to come into my life.  I am more open to understanding that every situation has a silver lining or possibility attached to it.

This Blog Action Day on Climate Change and Global Warming I want to take a look at how the changing climate has affected my garden this year.

For anyone living in the north eastern Unites States, referring to the summer of 2009 is likely to elicit a sigh or perhaps a sarcastic laugh.  In my youth the seasonal description ‘April showers bring May flowers’ somehow became ‘April sunshine brings May, June, July and some August showers too!’  The temperatures were lower than usual and in combination with the excess of rain many of my plants had a less than ideal growing season.

You see, I have a plot at the Northampton Community Garden in which I grow fruit, vegetables, herbs, and some flowers.   While I like eating close to home for the lower environmental impact, I also think it is wonderful fun to watch things grow and to nurture them along the way.  But this summer as I was weeding, watering and planting another thing happened: my plants started to behave strangely in reaction to the seasonably strange weather that some referred to as ‘global cooling.’

First of all, my pepper plants never really grew.  When the plants finally got a little bigger, I was waiting and waiting for the peppers to come.  I’ve had peppers grow well in the past, but this year, nothing.  Research amongst my fellow gardeners and my ‘small-scale farming guru’ father taught me that peppers are of a tropical origin and grow best with heat, something which typically comes all of July and the first part of August, but only made a short appearance this year.

The other major challenge in the garden this year was my tomatoes.  The excess of water caused many fruits to split before they ripened and then the late blight, something that I have always know to signal the end of the season in late September, came early and wiped out a majority of the tomatoes.   Fortunately I had three varieties of the eight I planted which survived the blight.  The otherwise poor tomato growing conditions wiped out my hoped-for good season with this fruit.

I think it is important to notice that there are changes occurring and that we have some affect on those changes.  I don’t know if they are reversible, but I believe our daily wasteful habits contribute to continued environmental degradation.  Our environment supports life on this planet.  Shouldn’t we maybe pay a little more attention to this?