By Katie Koenig
Introducing Lauren Sadowski
Lauren Sadowski is an affiliated faculty member at Emerson in the Marlboro Institute for Liberal Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies. Her classes focus on ecology and conservation from an interdisciplinary perspective. She works to engage her students in her classroom, both indoors and outdoors. She herself is a social scientist, conservationist, and ecologist.
Work with Emerson
In her classes, Lauren tries to emphasize to her students that they have authority over their own lives and the influence they have over their environments, whether green spaces, communities, or political surroundings. She explained to me that her students often come to her feeling like their choices have already been made by others, and are often overwhelmed with the idea of having to make so many changes to their lives to live sustainably. This can come with the guilt of not doing enough, or the idea that adopting many such habits won’t actually help.
Still, she works to reassure them they still have agency. They often can vote, if not in political spaces than with their time, money, and habits. Where they spend their time and money is a form of voting. Even just choosing what to eat in the DH has an impact. Spending a few days going meat free may seem like a small decision, but it helps form a mentality of consideration for the impact our daily choices have on the world.
Personal Strategies
Lauren explained that it’s most important to lower our expectations sometimes—we won’t change the world in a single day, but over time our choices and actions will have an impact. She also said that it makes it less overwhelming to align our actions with things that will help us in our own lives.
An example she gave was that most of us probably won’t care about the endangered saltmarsh sparrow when ordering an Uber. To her, it’s important to “market it to yourself,” essentially making sustainable living convenient and beneficial beyond just helping the environment. One such thing is trying a meat free diet during the week. It doesn’t have to be a constant, but just avoiding meat most of the time saves money, since meat is rather expensive, and also saves meal prep time, when cooking at home. Plus, there are health benefits on a personal level from reducing the amount of red meat in a diet.
Even if some of these personal changes don’t have a huge impact, it still helps to build motivation and a sense of accomplishment, which is vital to keep up our determination and commitment to sustainable living.
When it comes to purchases, Lauren said that we should “do it with intentionality.” She said to ask if the item is really necessary, or if it will last a long time. Although it’s hard with fashion, especially in the fast fashion industry, she recommends buying more long lasting clothes. We can save money from buying fewer items in the first place and having to replace what we have less often.
Lauren herself sold her car last year and decided not to buy a new one. She lives close to the city, and so doesn’t need a car where she can rely on public transit instead. She also doesn’t Uber a lot, which saves her money and time since she doesn’t have to constantly face Boston traffic. She only Ubers when necessary, like when it’s late at night or her destination is far away.
Toiletries are another purchase where individuals can make an impact by reducing their use of plastic packaging. If you’re into skincare, you might try more environmentally sustainable products, like soap bars instead of plastic tubes of cleansers or makeup eraser cloths instead of single-use wipes.
Overall, we often purchase a lot of items that we don’t necessarily need. We also don’t need to replace our items as frequently as we do if we focus on longer-lasting and reusable items. At Emerson, tons of items are donated or left behind at the end of the academic year. Having less stuff to keep track of is a nice way to keep your life simpler!
Suggestions for Students
To put it explicitly, Lauren holds the policy of worker smarter, not harder. It’s not selfish to hop on a bandwagon for a sustainability topic or habit. The most important thing is to become and stay motivated to involve sustainability into our lives. Plus, there’s no need to start from scratch when often you can piggyback onto pre-existing strategies, networks, events, and organizations—especially when they directly benefit you, too. It can really be as simple as buying from local farmers markets, which are nearby in Boston, are healthy for you, and already exist without you having to go to twenty places to build healthy living into your lifestyle.
Lauren is also a huge advocate of getting ourselves and our friends into outdoor spaces. Boston’s last surviving salt marsh is on the Blue Line. There’s the Esplanade less than a twenty minute walk away, and the Common right outdoors.
She finds it most helpful to focus on things that interest us, since it prevents us from burnout and fatigue, and actually makes it fun to engage with sustainability. Particularly nowadays, in a time where we can all get really strung out, especially as students, we have to put ourselves first. It may seem counterintuitive, but it’s entirely possible to do it in a healthy, green way. Rather than seeing sustainability as a chore, it’s a way to save time and money while having fun with friends, while keeping yourself healthy and happy.