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Mission

Care for the environment, economy and social justice converge in sustainability, an international and interdisciplinary ideal that shapes a range of ethics, practices and systems. Through studying, hearing, amplifying and creating stories in ways that are attuned to power, culture and ecology, the Sustainability And Storytelling Lab aspires to hold unsustainable acts accountable and to make sustainable futures possible.

A note on our nickname: In North American cultures, 鈥渟ass鈥 can imply disrespect by the status quo, but the root of the word also signifies garden vegetables grown for food, as well as audacious and bold speech or behavior. Affectionately called the SAS (pronounced 鈥渟ass鈥) Lab, one might say the 鈥渟ass鈥 lab encourages nourishing attitudes, as well as challenging the status quo through smart, lively and courageous acts in the face of complex and often stressful challenges. When carelessness abounds, sass offers an expression of playful care鈥攆or ourselves, others and the planet.

Objectives

The Sustainability And Storytelling Lab (or 鈥淪AS鈥 Lab) strives to:

  • Advocate for sustainability and storytelling opportunities as vital to environmental, economic and social justice, as a matter of procedure, distribution, care and repair.
  • Increase sustainability knowledge and cultural imaginaries, including impacts of climate disasters, toxic pollution, public health vulnerabilities and just transitions.
  • Create, collect, assess, chronicle and publicize sustainable and unsustainable stories.
  • Mitigate communication鈥檚 capacity for harm by encouraging ethical relations.
  • Develop praxis (theory/practice) about storytelling as constitutive of cultural, ecological and power relations.
  • Demonstrate critical thinking and analytical skills to interpret meaning through researching, editing, publishing, teaching, learning, collaborating and creating stories.
  • Foster capacity building and joy for all involved in or with the lab, such as improved written and oral communication performance, digital media development, problem solving, and laughter.
  • Grow and support trusted networks among people dedicated to sustainable storytelling, including faculty, staff, students and off-campus partners.
  • Contribute to the public good, on campus, in the state, nationally and internationally.
  • Communicate care for ourselves, others and the world.

The Sustainability And Storytelling Lab (SAS Lab) draws on interdisciplinary expertise in rhetoric and culture (including narrative theory), ethnic studies (engaging rich cross-cultural traditions of weaving stories), environmental studies (drawing inspiration from nonhuman life and systems thinking) and media studies (analyzing not just the production of texts, but how they circulate). We also partner with storytelling experts and initiatives within the College of Communication, Media, Design and Information, including documentary filmmakers and journalists, as well as exceptional creative climate storytelling scholars across campus. Since its founding in fall 2024, the SAS Lab has supported鈥攁nd learned from鈥攕tudents across campus and our off-campus partners, who provide us with opportunities to have more meaningful impacts.

What We Do

The SAS Lab documents, creates, researches, advises on and shares stories that matter to sustainability. We enact our mission through collaborations across campus, as well as with communities and institutions. We co-create storytelling across media, including a podcast, ArcGIS StoryMaps and face-to-face community engagement, as well as archival research and text analysis. Reflecting our interdisciplinary expertise, our work involves a range of research approaches and practices to communicate sustainability, including:

  • Documenting tours of waste/wasted infrastructure hosted by workers and communities mapping their expertise about everyday life.
  • Listening to, and amplifying, the voices of communities most impacted by unsustainability, as well as advocacy, governance and operations experts who have led change efforts.
  • Co-creating storytelling opportunities across digital media platforms, social networks and academic research publishing venues to foster our collective capacity to imagine and enact just transitions.
  • Advising and building the capacity of governments, NGOs, and media and legal institutions to assess cultural politics and achieve sustainability goals.
  • Interrupting unsustainability鈥攑articularly environmental and climate injustices鈥攁nd speaking up for more sustainable principles and actions.
  • Networking across faculty, students, staff and administration at CU Boulder and globally to catalyze sustainable education, research and public engagement.

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Among the SAS Lab鈥檚 main projects:

  • Communicating Care podcast.
  • Colorado Environmental Justice Digital Storytelling Project.
  • Imagining just transitions.
  • Preventing plastic pollution.
  • Sustainable future teaching and publishing.
  • Creative climate communication consulting and capacity building.

Related projects, which may become lab projects, include chronicling environmental and climate justice movements, toxic tours and disaster media and restorative justice practices of environmental organizations (including apologies and repair work).