Shane Stennes on Commitment, Connection, and the Future of Sustainability
By Roya Ojarood
The vision of a sustainable world isn’t a distant abstraction for Shane Stennes— it’s something to be carefully and collectively built across relationships, systems, and sustained action. As the Systemwide Chief Sustainability Officer for the University of Minnesota, Shane occupies a role that spans across five campuses and 87 counties. In my conversation with him, he described his position as one of orchestration rather than oversight: “My role is to lead our strategic sustainability initiative and provide that university-wide view,” he explained. While individual campuses have their own sustainability teams, Shane’s work helps connect them by advancing unified sustainability commitments across the entire university system.
It is this instinct that he has to connect across ideas, geography, and people that defines much of his approach to the work he does. Whether through the Big Ten and Friends network, or cross-campus planning initiatives, Shane has seen firsthand how shared goals can form a path to making stronger outcomes. When I asked him to tell me about moments of collaboration across campuses that led to something stronger than any one campus could have done alone, one example he shared had to do with the collaborative push for sustainability in sports. “We can point to each other and say, ‘Look at Ohio State— they’re doing a zero-waste program in their stadium. UMN, should we do that?’ That friendly competition becomes a catalyst,” he said. This spirit of collective momentum extends into one of the projects he’s most proud of: integrating climate action planning with long-term campus planning. Instead of treating climate as a separate conversation, the university’s recent plans holistically fuse environmental goals with the very infrastructure that makes up the institution. “We’re not moving from planning to implementation,” he told me, signaling the shared ownership and broader, collective understanding that emerged from uniting sustainability and planning staff with campus stakeholders.
This ability and responsibility to grasp the long view, by balancing the actions of today with tomorrow’s impacts, is part of what makes Shane’s presence so valued in the AASHE community, which he has been connected to for quite some time. When we talked about AASHE conferences, one of his earliest AASHE memories dates back to the conference in Pittsburgh, where a group dinner organized by AASHE ignited relationships that still endure. “Those were relationships that we built over food that have continued today,” he recalled. “There’s something sort of magical about breaking bread together… it humanizes us in different ways, breaks down barriers, and allows us to be more open and less formal. That’s a really wonderful thing that conferences and being in-person facilitate in such a different way that you can’t get through a Zoom or Microsoft Teams meeting.”
For Shane, the power of attending an AASHE conference doesn’t just exist within its programming, but in these very specific moments of connection that open the doors to collective action. “As a more seasoned professional, the opportunity to continue long-standing relationships with colleagues across the country, to commiserate, and to celebrate each other’s successes and joys in person… it’s such a rich opportunity.”
When I asked him what advice he would give to first-time attendees, Shane didn’t hesitate at all. Immediately, he said “Participate in all of it. Come early for workshops, go to networking sessions… even if you don’t think you’re part of that network yet, go do it… so much of our field and so much of our success as a collective is built on the relationships that we are able to foster.” He encourages attendees to visit the expo hall too, not just for what they may need today, but for what may come later. “Even if you think, ‘what am I going to use that particular vendor for,’ it is helpful to know who’s in the marketplace… You never know when it may become valuable to you.” Too, his excitement geared towards this year’s conference is unmistakable. With a smile, he told me that “Minnesota is one of the best-kept secrets in the world of sustainability.” From clean energy acceleration to tribal community collaboration, he is very proud to showcase what’s happening across the state. “There’s just a lot of wonderful things about Minnesota that I’m hopeful conference attendees [will] get to experience and that we get to show off.”
When I asked him what gives him hope in a field that can often feel overwhelming, Shane pointed to two things: The first is the work of his colleagues nationwide— stories of persistence and progress that come to the surface at conferences like AASHE’s. The second point is the determination he sees in young people. He recalled four high school students in Duluth who spent seven years advocating for solar panels at their school. “They finally got a ‘yes,’ [and]… they’re coming to the University of Minnesota Twin Cities this fall,” he shared. “That gives me hope. These things are starting to break through into spaces that previously were not into climate work or justice work.”
Finally, the question, for Shane, is always about how to pick up the pace: “How do we increase the speed and scale and make it faster?” he asked. The answer, for him, begins with reflection, relationships, sustained intention, and perhaps over a drink in Minneapolis this fall. “I would love to meet as many people as I can. Come find me at the conference. Let’s connect!”