c3sus/mission
c3sus' self-conception/Mission statement // Das Selbstverständnis von c3sus
c3sus is a CCC orga team helping with sustainability at C3 events. In the face of the climate crisis, we as inhabitants of the earth need to make an effort to reduce our impact on climate – especially if we want to uphold our slogan “all creatures welcome”. Attendees usually draw a lot of inspiration from C3 events, creating an utopia for a couple of days. Their nerd batteries become recharged until the next event. We think it would be great if these events were also inspiring in terms of sustainability; with a focus on but not limited to the climate facet of sustainability (other aspects of sustainability, justice and inclusivity already have great advocates with c3auti, c3awareness, c3blind, etc).
Reducing the climate impact of events like camp and congress is a complex task. It will take time, a lot of lessons learned, a lot of iterations tried. C3 events are organized by volunteers in numerous decentralized orga teams, that acquired specialized knowledge over time. They already take sustainability into account wherever possible with the available resources. Deciding if a (new) sustainability measure can be implemented requires knowledge and experience of the concerned team. The question needs to be asked how a new team like c3sus can be of use in such a decentralised organisation structure with specialized teams. Yet, the 12 months since the foundation of c3sus have shown: the term “sustainability” draws attention; people who have not yet been involved in organising C3 events or in volunteering become interested. We see this as a great opportunity to find more volunteers for C3 events. The best mode of operation for c3sus and its newly motivated volunteers is yet to be found. Ideally, c3sus' existence wouldn't be required. However, volunteers don't always have time to incorporate sustainability in their planning and work, and the systems in which we are embedded (states/markets/…) do not incentivize/support sustainability enough. That's why c3sus can help by motivating more volunteers to join, to join another orga team, learn how they work and help making some of their processes more sustainable by working with them. Maybe there are other options?
Another thing we want to be clear about: c3sus is not in a position to prohibit any said-to-be non-sustainable practice during C3 events. These events are about creating structures that enable people to live their creativity, to tinker around, to try out things. We don't have any veto right. We are happy to help if teams/entities/habitats reach out to us to ask how they could make a project more sustainable (like: how to build a heated pool during camp in a sustainable way? we won't tell them to stop building the pool but try to help building it in a sustainable way).
