When asked his number one tip for sustainable living, Sustainability Program Manager for Winston-Salem, Wendell Hardin replied, “Start small” – advice he has followed with great success. Just a few years ago, Hardin was serving as the Community Planner for the City of Prescott, Arizona, a job that required his active involvement in water preservation measures in the arid western climate. As he delved deeper into water conservation, colleagues began to associate him with this “thing going on around the country called sustainability.”

Extensive study of resource conservation across the country led Hardin to become a co-founder of the first U.S. Green Building Council chapter in Prescott where he was voted by his green building peers to represent the State of Arizona on the USGBC West Regional Council. At a conference in Phoenix attended in this capacity, be became aware of the open position in Winston-Salem. Not long after, he made the journey back to the American South, where his family lived originally.

Since arriving in the city this spring, Hardin has been hard at work building credibility as the city’s first-ever Sustainability Program Manager. At the top of his agenda are greenhouse gas reductions within the city-owned and managed infrastructure as well as public education on the importance of sustainability efforts to the city of Winston-Salem. Key to achieving these goals are plans for urban forests in many of the city’s vacant lots in order to capture large amounts of harmful CO2 emissions as well as the first-ever Go Expo, an exposition aimed at promoting sustainability education to professionals and to a wider, more casual  audience of community members.

Like many in his field, Hardin’s dedication to living more sustainably doesn’t stop at 5 p.m. His entire orientation to Winston-Salem is based on his dedication to making as little negative impact on the city as possible. “I want to live in this city and get around in this city based on what it has to offer me,” he said, noting that he chose his home based on its proximity to work and other necessities. “I walk or bike to work most days,” he said (when he’s not taking advantage of the city’s bus routes). “And if it rains, I get wet, and if it snows, I’ll be cold, but that’s the way it is.”

Hardin encourages a similar mindset for every citizen of Winston-Salem. “You don’t just wake up one morning and decide to live completely sustainably. Don’t let your enthusiasm take you down a road that you cannot maintain. If you start small, your actions become a pattern and a way of life and pretty soon, you just do it (live sustainably) every day,” he said.

Caitlin Brooks, Outreach and Communications Intern

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