CULTURE & SUSTAINABILITY 
What does culture have to do with sustainability? Everything.
When any one of us is asked about our office and what we do, we get nodding heads and smiles of agreement when we explain that three of our initiatives focus on biodiversity, climate, and food. But when we mention the fourth initiative – culture – we often are greeted with looks of puzzlement instead.
“Culture?,” we are asked. “What does culture have to do with sustainability?”
“Everything,” we answer.
Sustainability certainly includes the air we breathe, the water we drink, the land on which we live, the food we eat, and all the connections between them that enable us to survive. But is that all you really want to do – just survive? Is that all you really want for your children and their children?
Consider the word itself – sustainability – and ask yourself what sustains you. What makes life worth living? What gives meaning and purpose and value to who you are and what you do?
What do you need to not only survive but to thrive?
When you start to think about sustainability in this way, you start adding things to your list beyond just clean air and water. You start adding family, community, and democracy. You start including diversity, equity, and social justice. You list jobs and healthcare and education. And you even wax poetic and include love, beauty, art and music, history, heritage, and, yes, even poetry itself.
At its core, sustainability is about us—humans that interact with and influence our broader environments. So when people ask us, “What’s culture got to do with sustainability?” we answer, “How can culture be separated from sustainability?” Don’t we need to consider how we make decisions about our collective futures, and the ethical and moral implications of those decisions? How we express our humanity and inspire one another? The ways in which we nurture our sense of place?
Let’s let UNH’s own Chief Sustainability Officer, Tom Kelly, himself a former scholar of musical composition and conducting, explain:
"Sustainability is not about business as usual; it should not be confused with incremental technical approaches to managing the status quo more efficiently nor with the “greening” of consumerism. It is a question of culture: of our sense of meaning and purpose as Americans and as human beings. As citizens of the Earth system and citizens of the world, we have inherited a culture that is ours to interpret and bequeath to future generations. Sustainability requires us to critically examine our cultural choices in light of the myriad interactions of art, science, politics and economics, not simply to study them in isolation."
This is why UNH's Culture and Society Initiative (CAS) has helped to develop campus public art guidelines, commission and install the Wildcat sculpture near the Whittemore Center, and sponsored provocative lectures, films, and cultural excursions to museums and the performing arts.
This is why the principles of CAS include increasing community participation in and exposure to the fine and performing arts; increasing civic discourse among students, faculty, staff, and the local community on issues related to sustainability, cultural and natural heritage, public arts, justice, and sense of place; increasing common experiences that express a sense of place at UNH that can be shared by the entire community; and nurturing an historical consciousness through celebration of local and regional history.
We think these considerations are vital to sustaining ourselves and this is why, unlike most campus sustainability efforts, UNH considers culture as fundamental to sustainability as clean air and water.
