Vision

The Salt Lake Sustainability Salon believes a sustainable human presence on Earth is possible. We define sustainability as a living system of mutually enhancing relationships between humans and their home, Earth —- relationships in which resources are not used faster than they can regenerate and waste is not created that cannot be reused or assimilated^*. In addition, we recognize the human species has already created an ecological imbalance on the planet that will require pro-active remediation on our part to restore equilibrium.

The Salt Lake Sustainability Salon has formed to help move our local community towards sustainability in Salt Lake City through inspiration, information and authentic connection.

Mission

The Salt Lake Sustainability Salon is a learning community of volunteers who are committed to combining their efforts and expertise to support human behaviors that can lead to a sustainable future. The Sustainability Salon has agreed to work toward the following objectives:

• Engage in monthly salon-format discussions that inspire, connect, and catalyze movement toward sustainability.
• Model movement toward sustainability by the ways in which we operate as an organization and the way we live our own lives.
• Educate the interested public by sponsoring events and initiating projects that provide access to expertise and new models of human presence and modes of operating and living that exemplify our vision.
• Connect with other like-minded community groups to create a living web of resources and support as we discover and create solutions together.

Values

The Sustainability Salon accepts as our charge the shared responsibility for the well being of the living world. The scope and focus of the Sustainability Salon are aligned with the principles of respect and care for the community of life expressed in the Earth Charter.

The work of the Sustainability Salon is guided by our values:

• Respect for Earth and life in all of its diversity
• Ethical responsibility to promote the common good
• Promotion of social justice by supporting structures that are participatory, sustainable and peaceful.
• Protection and support of the integrity of Earth's ecological systems.
• Reclaiming the Commons —- the vast pool of resources that are collectively owned and continue to be privatized.
• Promotion of the Precautionary Principle: if an action or policy might cause harm to the public, in the absence of scientific consensus that harm would not result, then that action or policy should not be pursued.
• Elimination of waste -— promotion of closed-loop waste cycles on all levels.
• Challenge of the status quo by modeling new behaviors and speaking up.

^* For a comprehensive summary of Sustainability, refer to the United Nations article “The Meaning of Sustainability: Biogeophysical Aspects” found at http://dieoff.org/page113.htm.