Our KULEANA
There is an urgent need to reimagine what “success” looks and feels like if we want our children to inherit a liveable planet. Conscious Concepts is dedicated to manifesting new forms of expression and collaboration across and within the following fields:
aloha 'āina based community development
social & environmental justice initiatives
culture & the arts
regenerative travel
local culinary & food sovereignty movements
clean & equitable energy advancement
progressive models of education
holistic health
professional practitioners
indigenous enterprises
Our Offerings
Conscious Concepts provides consulting and project management for private, non-profit, philanthropic, and public sector organizations. We partner with movers and shakers seeking to disrupt systemic inequity, improve community well-being, and improve climate resiliency. Our offerings include:
Equity assessment & training
Public programming & facilitation
Community engagement & organizing
Regenerative travel programming
Place-based community development & strategic planning
Climate change, environmental justice & sustainability policy development
HERSTORY
Aloha mai! I’m Laurien Baird Hokuli'i Helfrich-Nuss aka "Lala Nuss" (she/her/wāhine).
Born, raised and educated on O‘ahu and Moku o Keawe, Hawai‘i. Rooted in Hawaiian world views and island life-ways as a Mother and Keiki O Ka ‘Āina.
An alum of UH Mānoa in behavioral science and an East West Center fellow in the Asia Pacific Leadership Program. Lived adventures range from growing up playing along the shores of the Ewa Plains and the rainforests of Hilo to traveling the globe as a Pan Am baby. As a young professional, shimming up the corporate ladder within the international travel industry by land, sea and sky, eventually returning home to rediscover self.
Transitioning from the big bad corporate world to the grassroots non-profit sector focused on food sovereignty and place-based community development after failed attempts to decolonize and decarbonize the tourism industrial complex of Waikiki. Worked for local government, at the nexus of climate change & environmental justice with the City & County of Honolulu Office of Climate Change, Sustainability and Resiliency as their first Equity Officer.
The past 12 years spent dedicated to re-cultivating root relationships to be of service to reshaping and redefining socio-ecological justice and healing from a place-based, culturally-centered perspective.
Raised by horses, have a deep love for movement and biomimicry. An amateur practitioner of permaculture and lua (Hawaiian martial arts) as well as a lifelong dancer. Heal the most when immersed in the salty and sweet flows of the waters that raised me, now with my son at my side…continually striving to be and raise a good ancestor.