Whether you're looking to simplify your life by living with less stuff, build a sustainable home, eat a sustainable diet or create with sustainable materials there's something for everyone on this list. Sustainability- the avoidance of the depletion of natural resources in order to maintain an ecological balance- can improve your life, while improving the lives of everyone by responsibly using the resources needed to live our lives. Pick an area of your life and get your green on!


Tao of Sustainability: Cultivate Yourself to Heal the Earth

Gregory Ripley
613.7148 Rip

At the crux of our current environmental crisis lies humanity's perceived separation from nature. We simply will not take care of the natural world if we do not believe we are an integral part of it. Ripley presents the traditional Taoist path of self-cultivation as a framework for bringing humans back into a sustainable relationship with the Earth, as well as exploring how our health, both mental and physical, is impacted by nature, drawing on research in the fields of Green Exercise, Nature and Forest Medicine, and Ecopsychology. Part philosophy, part meditation manual, part nature awareness guide, The Tao of Sustainability offers numerous pathways towards reconnecting with nature and the Tao through mind, body, and spirit. Drawing from a variety of disciplines and traditions, from Taoism to Stoicism to Buddhist mind training this book provides numerous ways to reconnect with the natural world.


DIY Sustainability
All You Need is Less: The Eco-friendly Guide to Guilt-free Green Living and Stress-free Simplicity

Madeleine Somerville
Adult Nonfiction – 640.286 Som

This do-it-yourself guide encourages novices to step toward a simpler lifestyle by reducing consumption, reusing, and making everyday items at home.


Better: the Everyday Art of Sustainable Living

Nicole Caldwell
640.286 Cal

Better explores the intersection of sustainability and art, showing how each of us can reinvent our lives as our greatest artistic achievement. Presented in the context of the unique story of Better Farm, a blueprint for environmentally conscious living originally established as an intentional community, this unusual guide blends theory with practical, hands-on, DIY ideas to incite your own creative adventures, including: upcycling trash into treasure, turning your fish tank into a garden, and making your yard or balcony a work of art. Packed with life lessons and tips for making any lifestyle more sustainable, while drawing on everyone's inherent creativity, this unique book provides the inspiration to live more simply, take more chances, and engage more with the natural world. A must-read for anyone who questions the purpose of the daily grind or grapples with the need for more meaning in his or her life.


Green Wizardry: Conservation, Solar Power, Organic Gardening, and Other Hands-on Skills from the Appropriate Tech Toolkit

John Michael Greer
Adult Nonfiction – 640.286 Gre

A must-read for anyone concerned about decreasing our dependence on an overloaded industrial system and, in a world of serious energy shortages and economic troubles, making life a great deal less traumatic and more livable.


Knit Green: 20 Projects and Ideas for Sustainability

Joanne Seiff
746.432 Sei

Knit Green offers tons of information and ideas on everything you need to be a more environmentally conscious knitter. From sourcing materials locally and using organic products, to supporting fair work and fair trade programs, Knit Green is a tremendous source of information to help you tailor your craft to your convictions. Fashion-forward knitting and easy-to-digest essays come together to help you ""green-up"" your hobby and easily implement suggestions and strategies for sustainability in the context of knitting. You'll get a full exploration of green avenues and product options, including organically -farmed fibers, non-animal yarns, alternative or recycled fibers and yarns, fair work and fair trade companies and programs, buying local, sustainable farming and energy in yarn production, and more. Plus, you'll find more than 20 fashionable patterns that don't sacrifice style for sustainability.


Make Garbage Great : The TerraCycle Family Guide to a Zero-Waste Lifestyle

Tom Szaky
Adult Nonfiction – 628.445 Sza

Two ecological entrepreneurs examine the materials we use in our daily lives, show how they impact the environment, and provide project ideas—from recycling to upcycling and more—to lessen our impact and protect our world.


Permaculture for the Rest of Us : Abundant Living on Less than an Acre

Jenni Blackmore
Adult Nonfiction – 631.58 Bla

Ideal for urban dreamers, suburbanites and country-dwellers alike, this inspirational and instructional "encouragement manual" is packed with vibrant photographs documenting the author's journey from adversity to abundance.


Printmaking Revolution: New Advancements in Technology, Safety, and Sustainability

Dwight W. Pogue
760 Pog

Etching, lithography, and screenprinting shouldn’t be harmful to the artist or the planet. With cutting edge, never-before-published advances in printmaking media this title provides artists, students, and teachers alike with safer, environmentally friendly and non-carcinogenic methods for creating beautiful prints. Teacher and professional artist Dwight Pogue offers groundbreaking information on embracing green, petroleum-free, nontoxic materials that comply with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) requirements. With new alternatives for the modern era, and work by some of today’s most notable artists, including Janet Fish, James Rosenquist Walton Ford, and Louisa Chase, this book truly revolutionizes the techniques, materials, and processes of a time-honored medium.


Simple Matters: Living with Less and Ending up with More

Erin Boyle
648.5 Boy

For anyone looking to declutter, organize, and simplify, author Erin Boyle shares practical guidance and personal insights on small-space living and conscious consumption. At once pragmatic and philosophical, Simple Matters is a nod to the growing consensus that living simply and purposefully is more sustainable not only for the environment, but for our own happiness and well-being, too. Boyle embraces the notion that "living small" is beneficial and accessible to us all - whether we're renting a tiny apartment or purchasing a three-story house. Filled with personal essays, projects, and helpful advice on how to be inventive and resourceful in a tight space, Simple Matters shows that living simply is about making do with less and ending up with more: more free time, more time with loved ones, more savings, and more things of beauty.


Green Communities
The Art of Leading Collectively: Co-Creating a Sustainable, Socially Just Future

Petra Kuenkel
658.4092 Kue

Our world is facing unsustainable global trends―from climate change and water scarcity to energy insecurity, unfair labor practices, and growing inequality. Tackling these crises effectively requires a new form of leadership―a collective one. But, in a world of many silos, how do we get people to work together toward a common goal? That is one of the most important questions facing sustainability and social-change professionals around the world, and it is a question that Kuenkel answers in this title. Readers learn how to tackle system change for sustainable development, reimagine leadership as a collaborative endeavor, retrain leaders to work collectively, and manage diverse groups through a change process that has sustainability as a guiding focus. The book offers many examples of collective leadership efforts involving corporate, public, and nonprofit sectors around the world. 


A Man Apart: Bill Coperthwaite's Radical Experiment in Living

Peter Forbes, Helen Whybrow
921 Coperthwaite For

A story of friendship, encouragement, and the quest to design a better world this title recounts Peter Forbes and Helen Whybrow's longtime friendship with Bill Coperthwaite, whose unusual life and fierce ideals helped them examine and understand their own. Coperthwaite inspired many by living close to nature and in opposition to contemporary society, and was often compared to Henry David Thoreau. Coperthwaite led a 55-year-long 'experiment in living' on a remote stretch of Maine coast. There he created a homestead of wooden, multistoried yurts, a form of architecture for which he was known around the world. Coperthwaite also embodied a philosophy that he called 'democratic living,' which was about empowering all people to have agency over their lives in order to create a better community. The central question of Coperthwaite's life was, 'How can I live according to what I believe?'


State of the World 2016: Can a City be Sustainable?

Gary Gardner
307.1216 Sta

Cities are the world's future. Today, more than half of the global population lives in urban areas, and that number is expected to double by 2050. There is no question that cities are growing; the only debate is over how they will grow. Will we invest in the physical and social infrastructure necessary for livable, equitable, and sustainable cities? In the latest edition of State of the World, the flagship publication of the Worldwatch Institute, experts from around the globe examine the core principles of sustainable urbanism and profile cities that are putting these principles into practice. From Portland, Oregon to Ahmedabad, India, local people are acting to improve their cities, even when national efforts are stalled. Issues examined range from the nitty-gritty of handling waste and developing public transportation to civic participation and navigating dysfunctional government. Throughout, readers discover the most pressing challenges facing communities and the most promising solutions currently being developed.


This Changes Everything

Avi Lewis, director
Adult DVDs – 363.73874 Thi

An epic attempt to re-imagine the vast challenge of climate change, this documentary film presents seven powerful portraits of communities on the front lines, from Montana's Powder River Basin to the Alberta Tar Sands, from the coast of South India to Beijing and beyond.


Two Percent Solutions for the Planet

Courtney White
Adult Nonfiction – 363.706 Whi

Profiles fifty innovative practices that soak up carbon dioxide in soils, reduce energy use, sustainably intensify food production, and increase water quality.


Green Eating
The Chickpea Revolution Cookbook: 85 Plant-based Recipes for a Healthier Planet and a Healthier You

Heather Lawless, Jen Mulqueen
Adult Nonfiction - 641.56365 Law

Worried about being held responsible for the destruction of the planet? What if you learned that one small thing--eating more plants and plant-based foods, including chickpeas--could help you save the world? That the easiest strategy to combat climate change is simply eating more legumes? The Chickpea Revolution Cookbook can help ease that burdensome guilt by arming you with more than 80 recipes that incorporate more plant-based and sustainable foods into your diet, including chickpeas. Studies continue to demonstrate that animal agriculture contributes more to climate change than the emissions from all forms of transportation combined! Chickpeas are poised to become the bean of the future due to their resilience to changing climate conditions, nutritional value, and incredible versatility. This book will score you a high-five from Mother Nature, will have you eating hearty, and nutritious meals, and will have your friends scrambling for a dinner invite. With this book, you have the opportunity to feel great, save money, and address the most pressing challenge humanity has ever faced. So, let's get cooking! Recipes include socca bread, chickpea polenta bites, kung pao chickpea, chickpea sweet potato sliders, aquafaba lemon meringue pie, chocolate chickpea brownies, and more!


Growing Tomorrow : a Farm-to-table Journey in Photos and Recipes. Behind the Scenes with 18 Extraordinary Sustainable Farmers Who Are Changing the Way We Eat

Forrest Pritchard
Adult Nonfiction – 338.1 Pri

With more than 100 engaging photos and 50 mouthwatering recipes, Growing Tomorrow is both a farm-inspired cookbook and an enlightening homage to the people who provide us with delicious, fresh food—and ensure that it will be there tomorrow, too.



Karney Hatch, director
Hoopla Digital

Explores the zeitgeist of urban farming around the world, from Havana, Cuba to communities of urban farmers in cities as diverse as Shanghai, Calcutta, Addis Ababa, London, and Lima.


Protest Kitchen: Fight Injustice, Save the Planet, and Fuel Your Resistance One Meal at a Time

Carol J. Adams, Virginia Messina
Adult Nonfiction - 641.56365 Ada

Protest Kitchen is an empowering guide to the food and lifestyle choices anyone can make for positive change in the face of the profound challenges of our time. Our food choices have much more of an impact than most people imagine. They not only affect our personal health and the environment, but are also tied to issues of justice, misogyny, national security, and human rights. Protest Kitchen is the first book to explore the ways in which a more plant-based diet challenges regressive politics and fuels the resistance. A provocative and practical resource for hope and healing, Protest Kitchen, features over 50 vegan recipes (with alternatives for "aspiring vegans") along with practical daily actions such as: Substitute cow's milk in your coffee and cereal for any of a variety of delicious non-dairy milks. This will help lower the release of methane gas that contributes to global warming Use a smartphone app when buying chocolate to avoid supporting African farmers who use child-labor, even child slavery, to supply cacao beans to the food industry Make your own cleaning supplies and wood polish; it's frugal and avoids reliance on products that may be tested on animals.


Sustainable Agriculture

Lisa Owings
Adult Nonfiction – 631.5 Owi

Presents a history of agriculture, discusses how industrial agriculture is harmful to the environment, and describes strides being made toward sustainability.


Saving Energy
The Renewable Energy Home Handbook

Lindsay Porter
Adult Nonfiction – 621.042 Por

Covers the installation of all leading types of alternative domestic energy sources—from ground- and air-source heat pumps, PV solar electricity generation and solar water heating, to bio-mass heating systems and wind turbines.


Stanley Home Energy Savings

David Toht
Adult Nonfiction – 696 Toh

A concise, highly visual ready reference to the most common energy-savings projects that homeowners can tackle themselves.


Sustainable Housing
Eco Living Japan: Sustainable Ideas for Living Green

Deanna MacDonald
Adult Nonfiction – 720.47 Mac
Green Home Building : Money-saving Strategies for an Affordable, Healthy, High-performance Home

Miki Cook
Indiana Digital Media (Overdrive)

Written for anyone who has ever been swayed by the argument that the price tag limits how green a home can be, Green Home Building is a must-read for builders, contractors, architects, designers, and homeowners.