Welcome, Bienvenidos, Aho!

Responsive Sustainability is a woman-owned and collaboratively focused endeavor that seeks long-term change through values-based sustainability and community engagement initiatives.  My overarching goal is to help people become more socially and environmentally aware so that we can work together to create a better world. The idea is that sustainability should be accessible and practical to everyone. To get there we need a way to reimagine and facilitate relationships so that we tap into everyones' individual strengths and gifts. 

I am driven by my values of creating community; caring for our human and non-human relatives;  and playing an active role in the stewardship of our planet.  My professional and personal pursuits have revolved around these goal and are demonstrated in facilitating community-based projects.  Highlights include:

- working alongside community leaders in the post-Katrina Lower 9th Ward, New Orleans to envision ways to reconnect with and care for the local wetlands

-providing reusable menstruation hygiene kids and women's health education to women partners in Alto Cayma Peru

-working in Madison with the Indigenous community to create programming that better highlights and stewards our local sacred sites. 

My favorite type of work is multi-party collaborative projects where diverse parties must work together to develop new and innovative solutions for their particular issue.  I love to see the sharing of ideas and synergy that arises from these partnerships and for individuals to hone and develop new skills and for the community to collectively realize its strength.  

Seeing the world through the eyes of young people has brought me a new level of joy and understanding.  My life-partner, Adam, and I have two young kids and we try to incorporate sustainability into our home life. We have an active front yard garden which provides bounty for neighborhood squirrels and rabbits and we try to make our .13 acres as sustainable and art-filled as possible. I work to turn everyday into a new adventure so my kids can look at the outside world and the sky with joy, wonder and excitement (and I've had my fair share of spectacular fails). I'm looking to the young people today to collaboratively take the lead on figuring out the solutions that will help keep our planet habitable into the long-term future.  I'm excited to learn from their innovation and daring. 

I have a PhD in Environment and Resources from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and my research focus was on the rebuilding of New Orleans.  After going down as a volunteer in the fall of 2005, my research culminated in an evaluation of the community-based learning initiatives.  I learned that to properly partner with communities we must look at them as whole people and complete ecosystems.  I then spent four years as an instructor in the Social Innovation and Sustainability Graduate program supporting diverse and impactful student-led sustainability initiatives.  I began to be more involved in the Indigenous history in the Madison area and have since gotten involved in the protection of Indigenous sacred sites.  All of these experiences provided immense meaning and purpose in my life and have made me realize that my calling is to help connect people with their values, goals and skills so they can live more in harmony with our earth and its natural limits. 

I honestly don’t know where I would be if I didn’t have the power and community of collaborative, sustainable work to give me hope for the future.  I feel a deep sense of gratitude for these experiences and would like to offer the insight and knowledge I have gained to assist in your projects.  I’m also looking forward to learning from you and other clients through Responsive Sustainability so that I can continue to reflect and improve my practices.  I created Responsive Sustainability as a vehicle to support creative, innovative and sustainable projects that I believe can change the world. 

My mantras is "Active Hope, Joyous Living". In these uncertain and unprecedented times I sometimes find myself overcome with despair and hopelessness.  But, then I remember that  I get to decide if I am living a hopeful, joyous existence while also doing my small part to living within the Earth's limits.   Making that decision seems like one of the most powerful things we can do. We create the world we want by making that choice together, everyday.

Let's work together and combine our skills, insights, connections and ideas so that you can focus on creating a joyous, adventurous and sustainable world! 

For more information on my background visit my LinkedIn profile.

Land Recognition Statement

I  recognize, honor and am grateful the Ho-Chunk people, the ancestral stewards and Indigenous inhabitants of this sacred area they call Teejop. I strive to be a kind and thoughtful guest and to show respect toward all who live here. 

We have a great opportunity right now to recognize, validate and reflect on and then learn from historical injustices. I am guided by principles of social and environmental justice and I am honestly relieved that we are talking so bluntly about racial justice issues today.  These issues have often been hidden behind secrecy and taboo and it is up to all of us to expose these historic injustices to the light of day.    Raising and healing issues around race and equality are deeply painful and uncomfortable to all of us in different ways, but necessary.  I strive to understand the history and be accountable for my own privileges, prejudices and actions.  

I've had the honor of volunteering on the Navajo Reservation and participating in the rebuilding of New Orleans after Katrina.  Both of these experiences have been profoundly influential for me because they laid bare the inequities that are built into the American way of life.  As a white woman of mainly British descent, I had been taught that a stunted and sanitized version of American history even while I actively benefit from its post-colonial arrangement. 

These experiences and others have provided me with a moral compass to try to find a kind, wise and just way forward.  I do not always get this right.  Racial reparations, attempting to address and remedy long and traumatic experiences and relationships is fraught with missteps and opportunities to offend.  I have offended and hurt people in my journey and for that I am sorry and I hope I have learned. My hope is that in the long run my impact will bend towards positive. I have tried to become an educated and active advocate for social justice by taking courses, trainings and engaging in personal reflections. 

I find great hope and purpose in Robin Wall KImmerer's story about the Time of the Seventh Fire.  She shares a prophecy about a time when humanity will come to a fork in the road.  One path turns toward environmental destruction and is a scorched and inhabitable place.  The other path turns towards a grassy and alive world.  With people from all over the earth, from all backgrounds, walking together.  I love the image of this grassy path.  It gets me through difficult days.  The prophecy ends there.  With humanity at a decision point.

I am encouraged by the discussions today that are framing Black Lives Matter, Indigenous genocide other social justice issues within the multi-year history of the US because it shows a willingness to come to terms with the true origins of the United States.  And from there we can begin to manifest the full potential of this country and its people.