The 23 households I met with over the course of the spring in 2017 were more different from each other than I initially expected. I had assumed that sustainability in Portland, Oregon, would be a largely liberal White upper-middle-class phenomenon, and that the practices would primarily serve as conspicuous forms of class distinction and display. However, the informants and households I spoke with represented more diversity than I anticipated—in personal backgrounds, household configurations, socioeconomic status, political leanings, education, race and ethnicity, and the gender of the householders.

Despite these differences, the adults in these households share a common, sincerely held desire to do the right thing for their children, households, communities, and planet. My informants try to make decisions for their households and balance their sustainability priorities with constrained resources, which often involves fairly major interventions into conventional ways of getting things done in order to bring their everyday practices into alignment with their values. I learned that there is not a single “sustainability,” with households engaging in sustainability practices to varying degrees of intensity along a green spectrum. Rather, sustainability represents a broad set of values and beliefs for these Portland households, with sustainability practices influenced by the unique combinations of priorities, resources, and constraints in each household.

Mike and Mina have two large cars that they use for long daily drives from their suburban home to their various obligations. For Mina, whose Middle Eastern extended family lives nearby, the primary focus in the sustainability realm is the health of herself and her family members. For this reason, she makes her own natural deodorant, gives her children alternative remedies like elderberry syrup, and prepares elaborate home-cooked vegetarian meals with organic ingredients she buys during her frequent trips to far-flung grocery stores. As a stay-at-home mother, she sees her unpaid time as her major contribution to the household. David and Dayna, on the other hand, are both White professionals who work in downtown Portland. They own only one car and commute to their daily obligations almost exclusively by bicycle, including dropping their infant child off at daycare. They have governmentsubsidized solar panels and energy-efficiency devices in their home, but they eat a lot of frozen convenience foods and takeout meals since becoming parents.