Pando Populus produces hyper-local initiatives on environmental, social, and economic matters, strategically chosen to help fast-track a more resilient LA County. We bring some of the most unlikely partners together to make great things happen.

Every January, we gather creative and passionate change-makers from academic, government, art and design, faith (and no faith), business, and activist communities to assess eco and social justice challenges. Brainstorm ingenious solutions (we call it, “thinking wrong”). And develop action plans based on small, achievable bets that in aggregate might really add up to something.

Then we follow through on plans over the coming months in collaboration with an ever-enlarging circle of large and small organizations, adjusting to input as we go.

Our inaugural event in June of 2015 brought together 1,500 people from around the globe to rethink civilization in explicitly ecological terms. John B. Cobb, Jr., pioneer at the intersection of philosophical theology and the environment and Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, served as intellectual architect.

Read more about the Conference.

Since then, we’ve put shovels in the ground for an eco-homeless shelter. Developed community gardening and urban farming initiatives in the cities of Carson and Ontario. Helped launch a field-based education program related to the region’s great watersheds. Deepened interfaith collaboration for the Earth. And, with the Maryknoll Sisters in Monrovia, created a remedy for burnout among local social justice and environmental change-makers.

We’re now deepening our collaboration with Maryknoll Monrovia to experiment in creating what we call a “residential research park for integral ecology,” based on the vision of Pope Francis in his 2015 encyclical to the world, Laudato Si’.

In all these initiatives, we create capacity for our partners. And help them accomplish work together that is difficult to pull off alone. Think old-fashioned barn-raisings, with an urban and eco twist.

In 2017, we launched the CSO (Chief Sustainability Officer) Strategic Taskforce to focus on a countywide sustainability vision that’s larger than any siloed interest. Taskforce members come from the leading government, business, and academic institutions in the County.

Los Angeles City Councilmember Paul Koretz helped launch the initiative. Caltech CSO John Onderdonk serves as Taskforce chair.

We’re launching initiatives and events at sites across Los Angeles County (and sometimes, even beyond). Recent and upcoming projects include:

PANDOTOPIA BLITZ

Re-imagining communities of women religious at Maryknoll in Monrovia.

PILGRIMAGE TO PANDO

Contemplative journey to the home of the largest living organism on Earth.

CITY BLITZ

Peer facilitation for best practices, innovation and consultation in creating a sustainable city.

CAMPANDO MARYKNOLL

Where change-makers go to unplug and recharge.

DO YOU PANDO? We’re growing the rootball and hope to include you!

Network with communities of women religious creating Pandotopia.
Get involved with the Chief Sustainability Officer Strategic Taskforce for Los Angeles County.
Volunteer! Write us.

"Pando launched with the biggest of big ideas – to rethink civilization with the Earth in mind. We’re now bringing those ideas down to Earth in LA County.” — John Bielenberg

Latest Posts

A Unique Historical Opportunity

In this far-ranging and inspirational speech for a meeting of women religious in Monrovia, CA, John Cobb discusses major influences that have shaped our current situation and the alternative vision of Pope Francis in Laudato Si’. He concludes with ways that Pando at Maryknoll might incarnate integral ecology.

A Turning Point

In this biographical reflection John Cobb responds the following: “At what point in your life did you decide ‘enough is enough’ and put it all on the line? What was it that caused or inspired you to make the change? How did you respond?”

Finding Oneness Among the Ones

I had long known that the ideology of the individualistic separate self was a delusion and in fact societal suicide, but in Pando we have a living organism to show us our alternative to a separateness which is not sustainable.

Deposit Trash Here

What would happen if every design school brought JUNK BATTLE! to the classroom? Onto their campuses? Imagine students, primed for learning and eager to get their hands dirty, getting a first-hand look at their footprint on the world.