History: How did Sustainability Week get started?

The Environmental Resource Center (ERC) has been putting on an awesome Earth Day celebration ever since the very first Earth Day in 1970, with events and activities related to environmental sustainability. In 2006, the S.M.A.R.T. Project (Sustainable Markets and Responsible Trade) with a week full of speakers, panels, and movies relating to social sustainability.

These two groups quickly realized the close relationship between the ideas they were calling attention to.  In 2007, the came together and created the first annual Sustainability Week, incorporating both social and environmental sustainability. We think it is important for people to realize because issues like hunger, global warming, water pollution, sweatshop labor, and food production are so interconnected, they cannot be considered seperately.