A variety of factors including societal shifts, a growing chorus of people calling for change, and an increasingly compelling business case in its favor, has moved sustainability from the fringe to the forefront. It has become a major topic of conversation in boardrooms and executive suites in organizations of every shape and size. In every corner of the globe, leaders seem to be wrestling with what sustainability means to their organization, its viability and how to effectively engage people in “walking the talk.”

A comment from an executive in a recent conversation we had about sustainability offers a snap shot of the current situation,“ if you and I had talked about this subject a couple of years ago, I would have politely listened, but really would not have thought much about the conversation after you walked out the door. Today, I am still not sure exactly what sustainability means to our organization, but I know I need to fi nd out.” This short segment of conversation is symbolic of the increasing interest in sustainability, but also reflects the need for guidance about how to create meaning and how to bring these values into
institutional cultures.

Institutions of higher education have a unique opportunity to fill this need through research and infl uence and perhaps, most importantly, by becoming living laboratories that can help us learn how to develop sustainability-focused cultures. The University of Southern Mississippi is one of the more than 645 higher education institutions that have embraced this challenge through their commitment to the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC).

The Southern Miss. Story

In March 2007, Martha Dunagin Saunders became the ninth president of the University of Southern Mississippi. When she took the reins, she had a lot of ideas, but unlike many leaders, she decided to listen before she spoke. Between September and December 2007, Saunders engaged our team of consultants to help her understand the strengths, hopes, and dreams of her campus community. The “core dialogue design” engaged a cross-section of stakeholders, including students, faculty, staff, leadership, alumni, business people, and community members. The data gathered from these sessions produced five areas of strategic focus. The areas were then used by President Saunders to frame the development of the Southern Miss. Strategic Plan. The focus on creating a culture of healthy minds and bodies emerged from the process. A sub-theme of this area was a desire for the campus to “go green.”

Leadership Commitment

In April 2008, President Saunders took the first steps to lead her campus toward fulfilling the strategic goal of “going green.” She signed the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment publicly proclaiming the University’s goal to become climate neutral. This was not the first time she had signed on to Commitment. As Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin Whitewater, she had been a charter signatory.

Reaching beyond simply going green, in July 2008, she created and funded the Office of Sustainability and named Larry Lee as the full-time sustainability officer. The office and initiative budgets were funded by the projected savings from energy and recycling programs, which Lee proposed as the first initiatives. Saunders reinforced her level of commitment to this sustainability initiative during her presidential inaugural speech in May 2008, and again in the 2008 Fall Convocation. On both occasions, her message spoke to the true potential of sustainability by communicating that this was not just the right thing to do, but also the smart thing to do from an economic perspective. By the summer of 2008, the goal of becoming a sustainable university community had been communicated.

What that really meant and how to achieve this vision had not. Find a Few Friends. Light a Few Fires. With the direction set and her commitment clear, Saunders gave authority to people on the ground to make it happen. In Lee, Saunders found a man on a mission—to help her ensure the campus would be viable forty years from now. “It is sometimes a bit of a challenge to be a tree hugger in a red state,” he smiles, clearly understanding and embracing the challenge. “There are a lot of people who don’t completely understand what we are saying when we talk about sustainability, but we have a strong base of students and faculty who have joined the cause,” says Lee. “Fertile soil to plant the seeds of change.” Lee, together with his small mission-driven team welcome the challenge, choosing to meet the community where they are by speaking language people understand and providing many opportunities for people to get involved.

In addition to Lee, The Office of Sustainability is staffed by Haley McMinn, a full-time graduate assistant working on her Ph.D. in Higher Education Administration at Southern Miss.; and Shawn Litton, the Recycling Program manager. This core team depends upon student, staff, and faculty volunteers to provide the necessary manpower and advocacy for the programs.

Create a Plan and Execute

Southern Miss. head football coach Larry Fedora uses the mantra Attack! Attack! Attack! to fi re up his players. This same call to action is how the sustainability team got off the ground. Before the Office of Sustainability even had a sign on its door, Lee and McMinn sat in a room together and quickly filled the whiteboard in front of them with all they wanted to accomplish. From that session, the vision and mission of the Office of Sustainability was born, and what would become known as the Southern Miss. Green Initiative and the EcoEagle Sustainability program took shape.

Heeding advice from sustainability experts and the best of what the team gleaned from their research, an action plan was put in place and implemented by the beginning of the 2008–09 academic year, just two months after the Office of Sustainability officially opened. Two principles guide the Southern Miss. Green Initiative: KISS (keep it simple, stupid) and GBOSH (Go big or stay home). GBOSH defines the aggressive, “can do” attitude and entrepreneurial personality of this initiative. The Vision Statement: The University of Southern Mississippi will strive to become a model of sustainable thought and practice within our state and region. Through development of ideas and programs, we will encourage healthy dialogue, forward thinking, and behaviors that instill a collective awareness and concern of how our impact affects future generations. The Mission Statement: Our operations will function at all times in mindful accordance with the tenets of sustainability, and we will leverage our strength as a research institution to encourage thought leadership, knowledge communities, and innovation within the realm of sustainability. University Climate Commitment Council: The University Climate Commitment Council (UC3) is a 17-member group comprised of faculty, staff, and students on the University of Southern Mississippi campus. The mission of this council is to oversee all campus efforts regarding sustainability and to ensure that the university is consistently in compliance with the ACUPCC.

Connecting Branding, Identity

Dynamics, and Culture Change One of the fi rst steps in engaging the campus was to name and visually brand the initiative. The Southern Miss. Green Initiative became the official name, while EcoEagle was adopted as the programming and educational portion of the initiative. Working with the university’s Office of Communications, the team did a good job leveraging the connections to Southern Miss. (the golden eagle is the school mascot) while creating a strong and recognizable visual brand for the office and its programs. Beyond the visual brand, the initiative employed messaging that built on emotion and logic to begin to tell the team’s story.

Sustainability-focused: Messages communicated through a well-designed strategic branding program will tap into the natural connections between identity (who I am), image (what others say about me), and behavior (what I do) facilitate the success of sustainability initiatives and support the ultimate goal of culture change. By culture change, I mean changing the beliefs, attitudes, and values to the point that sustainable behavior becomes second nature.

Connecting the Dots: Branding programs create
perceptions designed to create identifi cation and connection. The ultimate goal of all branding is to influence behavior, and behavior is directly tied to values, which in turn is connected to identity. For example, Volvo=safety (the perception). My family’s safety is important to me (values), therefore I drive a Volvo (behavior). This behavior is a refl ection of who I am and what I believe (my identity). This identity is reinforced when other people refer to me as a “good parent” because I am concerned about the safety of my family (image).
This reinforcing loop strengthens my commitment to Volvo to the point that Volvo is me and I am Volvo. This same cycle can be leveraged to create connection to sustainability. Over time, a tipping point is reached as more and more people “get it.” The values of sustainability and associated behaviors become a part of the cultural core of the organization.

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