I recently visited Westport, Connecticut, to deliver a talk hosted by Sustainable Westport, a nonprofit whose mission is to encourage and support “small changes and big commitments toward a healthier, more sustainable future.” Because their mission is so well aligned with the values I promote on “The joe gardener Show,” I asked Sustainable Westport Co-Directors Johanna Martel and Gately Ross to join me for a conversation to talk about the ripple effects of local action, how to foster change at the community level, and why your voice and your example matters more than ever.
Sustainable Westport reaches homeowners, businesses and government organizations in a New England town with a population of nearly 30,000 residents. Through public outreach and through their very approachable website, sustainablewestport.org, they present information on how to live more sustainably. They don’t make change feel challenging or overwhelming. They make it feel like, “I can do this!”
Gately Ross and Johanna Martell, the co-directors of Sustainable Westport, a sustainability nonprofit in Connecticut.
They invited me to the Westport Library to present “Ecological Gardening for Beauty and Biodiversity,” a talk I have brought to like-minded groups around the country. The lecture was the capstone to their latest program, “Your Yard, Our Climate,” which included 16 events over the course of three months designed to empower guests to feel like they can make a difference.
The more I learned as I prepared for this event, the more I thought this is a story that needs to be told far and wide. That idea of walking the talk and finding ways to motivate others to take their own steps forward is something I strongly believe in.
While we’re all doing our part in our own gardens or communities, there’s always more that we can do to inspire the people around us. My hope for this episode is that it will inspire you in some way, whether you’re just getting started yourself or you’re someone with more time and passion to put toward building a similar program in your own town. There’s a gold mine of ideas in this conversation that you’ll find both practical and motivating.
And thanks also to the amazing Gretchen Hoffman, another key contributor to the success of Sustainable Westport’s ongoing efforts, whom I had the chance to work with leading up to and during my time in Westport.
Meet the Co-Directors of Sustainable Westport
Johanna has lived in Westport for 12 years. She was a practicing attorney for 15 years mainly focused on commercial real estate. During COVID, she realized she was dissatisfied with the job. Where she was working, the work felt a little empty. Also during that time, she was approached by a friend about running Sustainable Westport, which had just spun out in 2020 from a town committee – a green task force founded back in 2006.
She had studied environmental law in law school and saw this as an opportunity to dig into more rewarding work.
Gately has lived in Westport for nearly 20 years and is a trained veterinarian. She worked in marine conservation on the West Coast before practicing emergency veterinary medicine in Connecticut. When her kids were younger, she took a couple of years off. She was champing at the bit to do something in the field of environmental conservation rather than medicine — when COVID hit. Then the opportunity to co-lead Sustainable Westport presented itself.
“It was a good fit for both Jo and myself,” Gately says. “I think by nature we’re both really curious. We’re comfortable being a little bit uncomfortable, which for us was a huge factor. We knew very little about a lot of what we had to learn, but we were excited.”
Gately wanted to do something that was purposeful and helpful and would model good behavior for her boys. “That for me was really motivating and powerful,” she says.
Sustainable Westport volunteers at a clean-up day.
Sustainable Westport’s Pillars
Sustainable Westport’s purpose comes down to education.
“We do that in a variety of ways, but I think that’s where we feel that we get the most return for our energy,” Johanna says.
“Sometimes it’s just about talking to people,” Gately says. “It’s about starting the conversation. Sometimes they already have some of that information, but if nobody’s talking about it, we overlook things. … The communication opens the doors for education, for engagement.”
“Sustainability is an overwhelmingly big topic, I think,” Johanna adds. “And part of what we do is try to break it down to make it a little more digestible, because it does mean a lot of things.”
Sustainable Westport has five Pillars of Progress:
- Develop an aware and engaged community by providing events, resources, and ongoing education.
- Support the development of efficient, comfortable, well-run buildings and physical infrastructure.
- Encourage the transition to reliable, resilient, renewable energy.
- Promote clean and convenient choices for transportation.
- Educate and encourage residents to become responsible stewards of natural resources and waste management.
Johanna says community engagement is the biggest pillar because almost everything Sustainable Westport does is community engagement.
“In the almost four years now that we’ve been doing this, our focus, our motivation, our vision, our mission have changed and evolved as we have or have not made progress,” Gately says. “… Initially, we came in hot. We were so excited, and we really felt like this is a slam dunk and we’re going to effect change out of the gate.”
But what they have since learned is that what they thought were three-month plans, six-month plans, one-year plans or five-year plans would actually need a much longer timetable.
“We weren’t even close,” Gately admits. “We were so off.”
But she says that’s just part of the process. “We’ve been humbled, and we continue to learn, but we’ve also started to really identify and pivot toward what rewards us and where we see our best ROI in terms of time, money, energy.”
Sustainable Westport events and appearances.
The Zero Food Waste Challenge
The Zero Food Waste Challenge is a program that encourages residents to start recycling their food waste.
“It’s really not for everyone, although it should be,” Johanna says. “Full disclosure, I think it’s incredibly easy, and this town offers a lot of different ways to do it.”
She says you don’t need to be a gardener who is composting in your backyard. The municipal waste transfer stations in Westport offer food scraps recycling for free. There are also private companies that will come to homes to pick up food waste.
“It was one of those programs that I think there was participation quickly, but it’s stagnated in terms of participation, because I think we’ve gotten all the people that think they want to try it,” Johanna says.
Now they are at the point where they need to reach beyond the low-hanging fruit.
“It is one of those things, I think once you start doing it, you’re like, ‘Oh, it’s no big deal,’” Johanna says. “It really isn’t. It’s easy.”
Gately says when they work to identify programs to take on, they look for successful programs that other organizations have put on. “We do not need to reinvent the wheel here,” she says. “Sharing best practices goes a long way. Sharing ideas goes a long way.”
So if they can’t spark an interest in a resident to start diverting food waste, they could still have success in educating that resident about the benefits of buying an electric car or undertaking energy efficiency upgrades.
Lead with Health
Sustainable Westport advocated for sustainability to be put at the top of the goals for a new school building. Johanna says they shared their knowledge of what other net zero schools being built in the state had accomplished.
“We led with, ‘This is a healthier school for our kids, for our teachers, for our staff,’” she says.
Better energy efficiency and savings in the long run are two sales points for a net-zero school, but to get people on board, they led with the health benefits of a sustainable school.
“You can’t just lead with ‘It’s good for the environment,’” Johanna says. “It’s not a winning message, unfortunately. It’s a great byproduct of whatever is happening. But I think leading with it can be really, really hard.”
This is particularly a challenge when money is at stake, Gately adds. “A lot of the things that we advocate for may be more expensive upfront. And so regardless of what the return is on the backside, you have to offer some other reason that it’s a value.”
Sustainable Westport team members.
Promoting Biodiversity
In my experience speaking around the country, gardening to promote and preserve biodiversity is not readily embraced by many. It requires effort and change — and change is hard.
“We’re not telling them to make their yards look ugly in some way,” Johanna says. “… Your yard can be beautiful — beautiful in a different way than maybe you traditionally might think about it.”
Gately points out that in communities like Westport — a suburb outside of Manhattan — there’s an awful lot of lawn.
“Americans have a love affair with lawn,” she says. “… It’s pervasive here.”
Sustainable Westport promotes rewilding, or giving back some lawn to nature by replacing turf with native plants.
“A little bit of meadow goes a long way,” Gately says. “A part of our property is native meadow, and I took my boys out two nights ago and we sat on our back porch and watched the fireflies. And it was magical.”
Gately Ross and Johanna Martell on stage at the Westport Library.
SustainableWestport.org and Social Media
SustainableWestport.org is open to Westporters and anyone else, and the organization also has an active social media presence.
“We have a pretty goofy presence on Instagram,” Gately says.
Gately and Johanna make “Trash Talk Thursdays” videos weekly, in which they share small tips on how to divert waste away from landfills and how to recycle more effectively. It can be as easy as screwing the cap back on a bottle before recycling it.
“We’re trying to reach everyone,” Johanna says. “… I think it’s important not to make anyone feel ashamed that they don’t know something or that they can’t be included in this movement that we’re, I think, trying to create. Again, it’s for everyone. There’s something for everyone. And so those Trash Talk Thursdays, while goofy and silly, they really do resonate with people.”
Gately says they strive to make recycling approachable.
Recycling can be frustrating and feel overwhelming.
“And what do you do when you’re overwhelmed? You shut down,” Gately says. “So I am quick to say, I have made a million mistakes. I’m still learning. All of this has been a process. And that’s OK because I’m trying to do better. I’m doing a good job, and I can still do better.”
Gardening, likewise, can feel overwhelming. As a gardener who’s been doing this most of my life, I tend to overdo it all the time, and I too get overwhelmed. My advice for new gardeners is to start slow. Don’t overdo it. I don’t want you to be overwhelmed in the first season, because you’ll never come back.
Sustainable Westport excels at making a sustainable lifestyle approachable.
“We are all very busy, and yet we must prioritize this because this is our future,” Gately says. “This is our family’s future. This is the natural world’s future. It is. It’s not a joke anymore. You know, I am a little intolerant of the ‘busy’ narrative. Jo and I have three kids each … and I do this on a volunteer basis. We live very busy lives. We’ve both had successful careers. We know what busy is. It doesn’t take a lot of time.”
Johanna and Gately in a Trash Talk Thursday social media video.
Make a Promise
Last summer, Sustainable Westport was approached by a filmmaker who ultimately filmed three informational videos with snippets of Westport, featuring local residents of all ages. One campaign had the theme “Make a Promise.”
“It could be a big promise,” Johanna says. “It could be a real small promise. I think one of them was to bring their reusable shopping bag every time they went shopping. They were supposed to run the gamut of the sort of things that you could do that were meant to inspire people to make a change.”
The video came out in January, around the time people make their New Year’s resolutions.
“It was really interesting to have all of these different people come up with different ideas, soup to nuts,” Gately says. “… There was a comment about more meadows, less bags, biking. There was quite a bit about more biking. It’s really exciting to hear what people want to do and can do. And then you have it on video so you can hold them to it.”
“We live on this earth together every day,” Gately adds. “We are doing things that are probably not good for the earth. Are we doing things to offset that? How can we change our behaviors? And honestly, how can we leave this place as good as we came to it? Or I mean, ideally, maybe a little bit better.”
Bonus
Heads up: I added an outtake to the very end of this episode — after the closing music. So listen all the way through to catch it.
A visit to Prospect Gardens in Westport with Greens Farms Garden Club
I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Johanna Martel and Gately Ross of Sustainable Westport. If you haven’t listened yet, you can do so now by scrolling to the top of the page and clicking the Play icon in the green bar under the page title.
Who promotes sustainability in your town or city? Let us know in the comments below.
Links & Resources
Some product links in this guide are affiliate links. See full disclosure below.
Episode 103: How to Create a Backyard Meadow: Simple Steps for Success No Matter the Space
Episode 303: We Are the ARK: Acts of Restorative Kindness, with Mary Reynolds
joegardener Online Gardening Academy™: Popular courses on gardening fundamentals; managing pests, diseases & weeds; seed starting and more.
joegardener Online Gardening Academy Organic Vegetable Gardening: My new premium online course. The course is designed to be a comprehensive guide to starting, growing, nurturing and harvesting your favorite vegetables, no matter what you love to eat, no matter where you live, no matter your level of gardening experience.
joegardener Online Gardening Academy Master Seed Starting: Everything you need to know to start your own plants from seed — indoors and out.
joegardener Online Gardening Academy Beginning Gardener Fundamentals: Essential principles to know to create a thriving garden.
joegardener Online Gardening Academy Growing Epic Tomatoes: Learn how to grow epic tomatoes with Joe Lamp’l and Craig LeHoullier.
joegardener Online Gardening Academy Master Pests, Diseases & Weeds: Learn the proactive steps to take to manage pests, diseases and weeds for a more successful garden with a lot less frustration. Just $47 for lifetime access!
joegardener Online Gardening Academy Perfect Soil Recipe Master Class: Learn how to create the perfect soil environment for thriving plants.
Sustainable Westport on Instagram | @sustainablewestport
Sustainable Westport on Facebook
Milorganite® – Our podcast episode sponsor and Brand Partner of joegardener.com
Soil3 – Our podcast episode sponsor and Brand Partner of joegardener.com
Disclosure: Some product links in this guide are affiliate links, which means we get a commission if you make a purchase. However, none of the prices of these resources have been increased to compensate us, and compensation is not an influencing factor on their inclusion here. The selection of all items featured in this post and podcast was based solely on merit and in no way influenced by any affiliate or financial incentive, or contractual relationship. At the time of this writing, Joe Lamp’l has professional relationships with the following companies who may have products included in this post and podcast: Milorganite, Soil3, Territorial Seed Company, Proven Winners ColorChoice, and Dramm. These companies are either Brand Partners of joegardener.com and/or advertise on our website. However, we receive no additional compensation from the sales or promotion of their product through this guide. The inclusion of any products mentioned within this post is entirely independent and exclusive of any relationship.
