My name is Chad Langston. I have spent much of my life thinking about sustainability. I will never forget growing up and asking my dad, if I want to live on a farm, how many trees do I need to plant each year in order to meet all of my energy needs indefinitely. I don’t remember his answer, but my desire to understand sustainability only grew stronger. Throughout high school and college I was deeply interested in issues such as global warming and ecology. Shortly after graduating from college I went on an eco-tour of the United States in search of a self sufficient sustainable community. My search brought me all the way to Punta Banco, the southern most tip of Costa Rica, where I lived on a fruit farm practicing permaculture (The Tiskita Foundation does excellent work in the Punta Banco region). People often ask me what is the most important thing that I learned on my journey. Without question the single most important thing that I learned is that everything in the world is connected and interdependent. Even the Guaymí, the most self sufficient people in Costa Rica, are reliant on rubber boots, stainless steel machetes, and hand-me-down clothes.
At first I wasn’t sure what to do with this knowledge other than appreciate the luxury of living a modest life in America. Then it dawned on me. In order to understand how to make the world a more sustainable place, I needed to understand business. So, I went to work for a mortgage company and two years later started my own business. As an IT consultant I spent the last five years observing the inner workings of many small businesses. While I wish I could say my clients do everything in their power to buy more eco-friendly products, unfortunately they do not. Nearly every business I have worked with makes their buying decisions based on perceived value. That being said, if they are choosing between two products that they perceive to have the same value at a similar price, they always choose the one that is more eco-friendly.
Which brings me to this website. I believe very deeply that in the long run people always choose quality over quantity. Take Whole Foods as an example. In just 30 years, Whole Foods has become the largest natural and organic foods supermarket chain in the world with a market cap. of 10 billion dollars. 10 billion dollars. Fifteen years ago my mom would tell me Whole Foods was just for rich people. We used to go to a grocery store that felt like a psych ward, with cold fluorescent lights above isle after isle of steel racks and a white linoleum tiled floor. All the grocery stores were like this. These days most of the grocery stores feel like Whole Foods and most of them have numerous organic food choices. This is a perfect example of people choosing quality over quantity. As the world progresses and technology improves people continue to make healthier choices. For me this is the most exciting trend of my lifetime, because it makes a huge statement. People want to live in a clean sustainable world.
When I think back over the last 30 years I am encouraged by the next 30 years. The world has improved so much in such a little amount of time. I am encouraged by the fact that human ingenuity is making clean renewable energy more and more affordable every day and 30 years from now buildings with integrated solar energy systems will be as common as Whole Foods. I want to help make sustainability a reality. So, I am diving headfirst into the world of renewable energy. I will spend the next 30 years of my life participating in this transformation, working to understand where we are today and where we are going, as well as what are the major hurdles and what do we need to do to overcome them. I am dedicating this website to that purpose. In it I will vow to stay out of the highly politicized debate of right and wrong. Instead, I will use this site to aggregate information and links to people and organizations that are on the leading edge of the change we are all ready and willing to welcome into our lives.
Very Respectfully,
Chad Langston
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