Petaluma group spreads the word about sustainability

In Sonoma County and beyond, the movement toward sustainability is gaining steam, and words like “pasture raised,” “organic” and “farm-to-table” are worked into conversations, splashed on grocery store packaging or boldly displayed at farmers markets.

But for many consumers, the principals behind those descriptors may be mysterious, and choosing between a “cage free” or “pasture raised” carton of eggs or digesting the difference between “heirloom” or “heritage” looms as a daunting task.

Recognizing the need to demystify the realm of sustainability, filmmaker, photographer and information architect, Douglas Gayeton and his wife, Laura Howard-Gayeton, a producer, farmer and entrepreneur, embarked on a mission to unspool the often complicated terminology, breaking down the concepts by melding words and pictures to illustrate ideas from those at the forefront of the conversation.

The couple founded the Lexicon of Sustainability in 2009, and they’ve spent the past seven years growing the reach of the organization from their home base on their Petaluma goat farm that houses Rumplefarm, the company that produces the Lexicon.

“There is definitely a thirst in the general public to understand,” said Gayeton, who’s the author of video productions “Slow: Life in a Tuscan Town” and the book “Local: The New Face of Food & Farming in America” and has worked on other award-winning film projects. “The reality is that people know there’s something wrong with our food system.”

The couple has traveled around the country to interview hundreds of experts and practitioners about food and farming, using their information art to showcase definitions that come straight from the source, tapping experts ranging from a Petaluma farmer who explained the meaning of the term “grass fed” to a soil biology researcher who dissected the “soil food web,” highlighting solutions in the sustainability equation.

“We made the decision … that from the beginning, our project was only going to be positive and only focused on solutions,” Gayeton, 55, said. “Inside of every solution is the problem, and you can explain the problem by explaining the solution.”

The couple and their team has also branched out to make a “Know Your Food” video series for PBS, a Lexicon of Food web portal, and is expanding its artwork into the world of water and energy. They offer graphics from the vast collection for use in pop-up art shows around the county, with teachers, farmers, students and community leaders curating more than 1,000 public shows across the U.S., he said.

The organization also works with schools, including Petaluma’s Spring Hill Academy, to implement “Project Localize,” an educational component that allows students to document and participate in their local food shed.

Project Localize was pioneered in an 11th grade classroom in Iowa, and the first group of students were ultimately invited to meet with members of the House and Senate, and during their trip, they also networked with advocacy groups, and the Council on Environmental Quality for the White House.

The curriculum is now being used in hundreds of classrooms across the county, and Spring Hill Academy was the first to bring the project to an elementary school audience, according to teacher Nicole Novac.

In the first year at the school, 16 students worked with Green String Farm, Tolay Regional Park and local dairy farms to create information artworks defining terms including “vermiculture,” “food web,” “carbon cycle,” and more, with the finalized products displayed at Copperfield’s Books and at the graduation ceremony, Novach said.

“As we are growing children to become impacting members of society and the community, they really need to have something to latch on to that gets them excited about our planet and the communities we’re living in, and what better way to do that than by looking at that through a lens of food and farming,” she said. “Especially in a community like Petaluma that has such a rich heritage of food and farming, it’s a nice way to connect them to where they live.”

Petaluman Rocky Rohwedder, professor emeritus of environmental studies and planning at Sonoma State University, serves as an adviser to the Lexicon. The scientist and researcher spent more than three decades as an educator, and works to help guide the growing Project Localize, which is expanding to schools in Mexico.

He praised the approach that utilizes the “smart tools of today’s population,” to shape the conversation through an engaging narrative.

“They’re very savvy about storytelling, which is an important art as well,” he said. “You can help accelerate the conversation about sustainability, which is something that desperately needs to happen, and it can’t be from UN reports or monolithic professorial textbooks … it has to be engaging and fun and hip and happening and relevant, scientifically accurate, well-researched and authentic.”

Gayeton said the end goal of the project is to shed a light on the drivers of climate change by illuminating the factors that have a major impact, like farming, water use and energy. Gayeton is currently working on a project with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help inform consumers about organics, and the team plans to continue to build a comprehensive toolbox of solutions and ideas that can make a difference across the world.

“What’s interesting about this project is that it’s not really a political movement,” Gayeton said. “I also think it’s a project that doesn’t really have any enemies.”

(Contact Hannah Beausang at hannah.beausang@arguscourier.com. On Twitter @hannahbeausang.)