Well the thesis is officially sent and turned in! So much for updating everyone on the status of our US Thesis Tour over the last three weeks - turns out bouncing to a new city every two days is somewhat time-consuming, and my writing takes a backseat during such times.

After a long 16hr nap, I finally made it back to Sweden though where I have two weeks in Karlskrona before the European Summer Tour begins.

As the last few weeks have taken me from city to city, and I think about the many cities I'll be heading to over the next few months, I can't help but think about the people that define each one of those places. From the old friends that I was able to reconnect with to the new friends I've made over the last few months, this year has been one of true relationship-building.

Reflecting on this during my trip back to Sweden, I was wondering why sustainability for me has suddenly taken on a new level compared to years before. At Penn State, I was involved with many sustainability projects, and as exciting as they all were, they were still simply a series of global challenges that I had the privelege to tackle. Now don't get me wrong - I'm all for trying to solve massive problems like those - but it was the challenge and uniqueness of the problem that primarily motivated me.

This year, I've added a third motivator - community.

As my master's program in Sweden comes to an end and I begin to understand the true power and beauty I've experienced, I continually come back to the idea of community. Community, built of all sorts of relationships and bonds, is a force that I believe is only just beginning to be tapped by the sustainability movement.

Looking at the past few years, we can begin to see a shift in how sustainability challenges are tackled:
- We have begun to move away from boycotting (with the attempt to separate the good guys from the bad guys) to collaboration (like Walmart's attempt to work alongside all retailers and suppliers to address the sustainability supply chain problem).
- Communications have changed from pushing information to the public (which separates the knowledgeable from the unknowing) to campaigns designed to unite groups and various ways of communicating sustainability (like the efforts which took place with the 350 campaign).
- The way in which companies have marketed their products has followed a similar pattern where once greenwashing was extremely prevalent to now where transparency is beginning to be stressed through the use of social and networked media.

We are beginning to see how the power of community and relying on others is critical to adequately address the challenge and uniqueness of sustainability. But I believe there is much more to be learned.

Community has always been a critical element when I think on my personal and spiritual life, but I have only just begun to realize it's importance in the work that I do.

At Penn State, I was involved with a variety of things. There was my traditional mechanical engineering education. There was the Jamaica project which more closely fulfilled what I ultimately wanted to do in the future. And there were the faith-based groups I helped start that formed the core community which surrounded me. For the most part, those three areas stayed separate.

My master's program thought it would be a good idea to merge all of those together, which was a much bigger shock then I realized. But now, after understanding how those various areas of life fit together, I'm beginning to see why developing and fostering a strong sense of community is the glue that keeps the puzzle pieces together as one picture.

During my trip back to the US these last few weeks, I was able to reconnect with a bunch of friends from over the years, and it was amazing how many of the conversations ended back on building communities. As someone who deeply cares about the state of the world and problems we face as a society, I can't help but think occasionally about the urgency of the problem. My thesis was focused largely on the role of individual behavior change and how our personal decisions can lead to broader cultural change - but if we want to truly maximize the role of the individual, then we need to understand how to grow the communities to support those individuals.

One exciting organization working on similar ideas is Global Action Plan (GAP) who "focus on people and how they can take practical action in their everyday lives for a better world." (more here) One of their programs, EcoTeams, forms communities of individuals (neighbors, coworkers and friends) who work through practical environmental issues together to improve their way of life.

Personally, I believe the sustainability movement has a lot to learn from the church when it comes to community building. The church has historically been extremely powerful and successful at fostering communities to serve a larger purpose (although perhaps some of those purposes are not always for the best or what I believe Christ would instruct us to do). Many churches I have been a part of rely heavily on small groups, life groups or bible studies to work through personal questions of faith together.

While at Penn State, it was those communities that really helped me grow and work through who Christ was calling me to be. My time in Sweden has shown me that the same sense of community has helped me grow and wrestle with the difficult questions of sustainability.

Perhaps the way to face the urgency of sustainability challenges is to foster thriving communities, both in the work that we do and the personal relationships we develop each and every day.