Sustainability Challenge: Month by Month

Presented by Addie Smock & Brian James, The Kingston Library

Wednesday, December 6, 2023 
1:00 pm via Zoom

An integrated approach to creating a year-long sustainability effort to bring awareness and change within a community. In the face of the mounting environmental crisis, the Kingston Library asked patrons to rise to the challenge and participate in monthly themes designed to transform overwhelming information bite-size, achievable activities. 

They've identified twelve segments of sustainable living that individuals could easily participate in by making simple changes and assigned each of these challenges to a month. When it was possible to link the challenge to a month where other events were occurring, they did so (ie Conserving water challenge in March to correspond with World Water Day). Once the challenges were finalized, they created designated pages on our website detailing areas the challenge was addressing, why the challenge was necessary from sustainability point of view, and how patrons could meet the challenge with specific recommendations. The information addressing each area was researched, shared, and cited on the webpages. Where appropriate, resource lists of library materials were created and published under each challenge, providing patrons with direct access to more information. To bring further visibility to the Sustainability Challenge, the library worked with local agencies and partner organizations to develop programming that aligned directly to the month’s challenge.