The global awareness social media platform, Changents, “connects Agents of Change with a fan base of ‘Backers’ around the world, enabling them to create change together.” Uniting storytelling with social networking, Changents, partnered with Timberland and EarthKeepers, to promote these praiseworthy environmental ambassadors (and their adventures) in the hopes of gathering supporters from around the globe.
Earth Promise has been privileged to have interviewed some of Changents’ environmental Heroes: Christopher Swain and Andrea Bakacs . Now let me please introduce, Sami Nerenberg:
Sami Nerenberg (a.k.a. the “Impact Designers”) is creating break-through, environmentally friendly design solutions for impoverished and low-income communities. Sami, the youngest adjunct faculty at the Rhode Island School of Design, developed and taught the advanced studio, Design for Social Entrepreneurship (DeSE) to juniors and seniors. As an Earthkeeper Hero, she is designing high impact, green “makeovers” for environmentally challenged homes as part of a community project with inner city youth.
Sami grew up in San Francisco and was constantly reminded with every light switch, faucet, and toilet flush of our world’s limited resources. The comfortable neighborhood she grew up in was a block away from the Projects, which also reminded her everyday of our world’s social inequalities.
Earth Promise: What changes, or Earth Promises as we call them, have you made in your lifestyle to be greener? Changes in home, travel, work, and your community?
Sami Nerenberg: One very small thing I do is carry around a spork from Bamboo so I can avoid plastic utensils whenever possible.
EP: Were you “green” as a child?
SN: I suppose you could call it that. My mom and I used to compete around the house to see who could be more efficient. She once gleefully showed me how she dried her paper towel and then reused it. I followed suit and was always very resource conscious and pro-active in high school in getting friends to pick up after themselves and recycle.
EP: What was your first, “aha!” Green moment?
SN: There have been several aha moments throughout my life. There isn’t just one thing we can do to magically become sustainable. Everything is interconnected. I’m interested in how the environment affects people and the inequalities therein, because really- the Earth will be fine without us, it’s ourselves we’re trying to save. An aha moment was when I found the “Environmental Justice” movement which talks about the disproportionate distribution of environmental burdens on low-income often minority communities. Something I think the larger environmental movement is just starting to get comfortable talking about.
EP: Sometimes if a message is played over too much, consumers will tend to ignore it after a while or tune it out or turn against it. How can green Evangelists be more effective in making sure we are relevant but not overbearing? This includes sites like Earth Promise and others as well as people in media, music, advocacy, politics, education and more.
SN: Well, I think the first step is to not see it as evangelists. People can take it or leave it. There are scales to being green and you have to meet people where they are at. Recycling might be a huge step for one family, while others may have a living machine in their backyard. A message would be very different to those two families. The Environmental Movement also tends to use guilt to persuade people. I think we can come up with more effective means of communicating a message- making it fun, exciting and engaging.
EP: What are some of the things that anger you or drive you crazy that you see people do that hurt the environment?
SN: I try not to get angry anymore because that just leads me to judging people. I don’t want to judge people because I can no longer see them for who they are. My goal is to provide opportunities of engagement for those that are interested in learning more about social and environmental sustainability. All I can hope for is that people question their assumptions.
EP: Tell us about Grain Designs?
SN: Grain is a sustainable design collective started by me and fellow RISD alum. It’s an umbrella for all of our projects that are socially and environmentally driven. We do anything and everything from modular furniture, vinyl free shower curtains, to prefab housing and educational programs.
EP:We hear you made it to be a finalist in the reality show, Room by Room. Tell us about this exciting project.
SN: Room by Room is a pilot healthy home make-over show with inner city teens that I developed. This summer, 10 students went through 6 weeks of eco-design boot-camp to learn about environmental threats within the home such as lead, mold, pests and toxic cleaning products and then were trained on interior design and making principles to make-over their own rooms. The whole program was video recorded and we are currently working on editing the footage. We were a finalist on the ideablob competition in the spring. We didn’t win but luckily we ended up getting funding from the Recovery Package, Brown University, and in-kind services from the Rhode Island School of Design.
EP: I read that you are the youngest adjunct faculty at RISD, (Rhode Island School of Design). What do you teach? How has this impacted your drive the make your environmental green statements?
SN: I had the great opportunity to develop and teach “Design for Social Entrepreneurship” which aims to cultivate social entrepreneurial designers by investigating the power of products, systems and services to create positive social and environmental change both internationally and domestically. The studio was a great success. 1 in 4 of the students has continued with their projects and are currently working on developing them into businesses including my fellow Earth Keepers Hero Nate Bastien!
EP: How did you get involved in Timberlands Changents program?
SN: As I recall, Changents contacted RISD to get wind of any exciting change agents on campus. RISD’s media partners had seen my studio’s final critique so they recommended me among others. We had an over the phone interview and I sent Changents some more info about me along with a home made video. I guess they liked it and chose me as one of the Earth Keepers Heros!
EP: What message would you give others who want to spread their eco-ideas?
SN: It can be paralyzing and intimidating to think about all the problems in the world and all that is being done that may or may not work. All one can do is try and keep the momentum going in the positive direction. Otherwise we will collectively fall. Think about what you enjoy the most and what you are best at and there you will find your way of giving back to the community.
EP: When travelling and taking part in a myriad of lectures, have you taken any steps to green your travelling routine, including getting around, and equipment in general?
SN: Ya! Actually in fact, just recently, when offered a flight from DC to NYC for an upcoming conference, I instead requested a train. I love trains and this has a much smaller carbon footprint than flying.
EP: What is the one Earth Promise you are going to make in the future that you have not done yet?
SN: I’d like to start a company one day that employs designers to work on socially and environmentally sustainable projects to systemically problem solve some our country’s hairiest issues. Right now, most of the work being done is on a volunteer basis, but I believe we can use market forces for the greater good.
EP: I’m sure all of the projects you have accomplished have a special place in your heart, but was there one that was more personal?
SN: Well there were a couple of special moments this past year. One of them was while teaching at RISD when I had a student take the bus for the first time to reach her nonprofit partner. This for me was a great indicator of getting RISD students out of the RISD bubble. I also just loved having one:one time with my students. I remain friends with most of them today. The other was my summer program Room by Room. Working with the high school students was great and it was amazing to see some untapped creativity that the students didn’t even know they had come out!
EP: Where will the next designing social change project take you?
SN: Hopefully to grad school. I’m currently applying for MBA programs. I’ll also be co-teaching a “Design Futures” course in the Design Management program at Pratt this coming winter and then plan to travel in Asia come spring. I am currently scoping out interesting projects to work while abroad on and am always open to suggestions.
EP: Thanks so much for taking time to share with us!
