Rauschenberg’s largest dirt painting, Growing Painting (1953), survives only in a photograph taken by the artist when it was exhibited in the 3rd Annual Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture at the Stable Gallery, New York, in early 1954. What began as a dirt painting—earth contained within a vertical wooden box frame—evolved into a painting made of growing grass when birdseed accidently fell onto the painting’s surface. Rauschenberg regularly watered the painting throughout the three-week installation at the gallery, allowing Growing Painting to thrive for a time before perishing. Mary Lynn Kotz, the artist’s biographer, interpreted this act of nurturing his live painting as an early manifestation of Rauschenberg’s belief that each individual is responsible for life on earth. The artist described the painting as “about looking and caring. . . . Those pieces would literally die if you didn’t water them.”  (Rauschenberg: Art and Life, p. 176).

Lithopinion 26, the current affairs and graphic arts journal, dedicated its summer 1972 edition to the subject of “Our Transportation Mess.” Among the contributors were Theodore Kheel, who was a lawyer, leading labor mediator and arbitrator, as well as an environmentalist, and Senator Edward Kennedy. Kheel commissioned artists such as Romare Bearden, Christo, and Rauschenberg, his friend and client, to address the transportation system in the United States.

Rauschenberg’s contribution was inspired by a dream that William Burroughs, the Beat writer, had described to him, and which resulted in the lithograph Dream of William Burroughs (1972) published by Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.). Surrounded by images of various modes of transportation, the lithograph includes the words: “They did not fully understand the technique / in a very short time they nearly wrecked the planet.” As an E.A.T. board member, Kheel understood, like Rauschenberg, that environmentalism and technology were not conflicting views but symbiotic relationships. In Lithopinion 26, E.A.T. stated that it “supports technology when it tries to help people achieve their human potentiality [and] criticizes it when it doesn’t.”

Between 1986 and 1989 and again between 1991 to 1994, Rauschenberg combined scrap metal, such as gas station signs and deteriorated automotive and industrial parts, to create a series of wall reliefs and freestanding assemblages titled Gluts. When visiting Houston in his home state of Texas in 1985, Rauschenberg was struck by the ruined landscape, a result of the deterioration of the environment and an economy hit hard by the current oil crisis. Abandoned fuel stations, cars, and other machinery inspired him to begin this series.

In addition to representing a warning against economic greed, these works highlight the “throwaway culture” prevalent in a consumerist society defined by mass-production and over-consumption. Rauschenberg said, “It’s a time of glut. Greed is rampant. I’m just trying to expose it, trying to wake people up. . . I simply want to present people with their ruins.” This work, by recycling and repurposing industrial detritus, touches on environmental and ecological concerns that are increasingly prominent today.

Rauschenberg commemorated Earth Day on its twentieth anniversary, April 22, 1990, with a print produced in an edition of 75 by Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles. Observed by 200 million people around the globe, Earth Day 1990 definitively brought the environmental movement to international attention. 

On December 6, 1991, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) launched the Earth Pledge, described as “an urgent call to action to save Planet Earth.” To raise funds for and generate awareness of UNCED, the Earth Pledge, and the Earth Summit to be held in Rio de Janeiro the following June, Rauschenberg donated the lithograph Last Turn—Your Turn (1991), published as an edition of 200 by the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. Appearing above the images of an infant and the figure of Atlas supporting the weight of the world are the words from the Earth Pledge, inscribed in the artist’s handwriting: “I pledge to make the earth a secure and hospitable home for present and future generations.”

Last Turn—Your Turn was produced not only as a lithograph but also as an offset poster and a bus billboard. It is one of three lithographs that Rauschenberg designed in 1991. In collaboration with an outdoor advertising company, Transportation Displays Inc., the billboards, Last Turn—Your Turn, Ozone, and Pledge (all 1991) were displayed on buses in cities throughout the United States. As with the artist’s poster campaigns, the bus billboards brought environmental concerns to the attention of a national audience. 

At the encouragement of Theodore Kheel, who headed the Earth Summit Committee to Promote the Pledge, Rauschenberg attended the Rio de Janeiro summit from June 3 to June 12, 1992. Rauschenberg’s statement on the summit appeared next to a reproduction of his Last Turn—Your Turn in the brochure Visions of America, published on the occasion of the 1992 Democratic National Convention:

Upon returning from the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Rauschenberg continued to address environmental issues in his artwork in both subtle and overt ways. The Summit’s consideration of ecologically friendly technologies undoubtedly intrigued Rauschenberg, whose lifelong technophilia informed projects throughout his artistic practice. His Eco-Echo series (1992–93) perfectly encapsulates the intersection of this climate-consciousness and interest in technology. Working with his friend Donald Saff–founder of Saff Tech Arts and Artistic Director of the Rauschenberg Overseas Culture Interchange–Rauschenberg motorized windmill-like sculptures that embody the artist’s continued concern with sustainability. While the windmill structure was Saff’s idea, Rauschenberg required “that they only work [move] when people stand in front of them” to at once engage the viewer and avoid wasting energy. A sonar-activated motor turns the blades—which are composed of aluminum and Lexan and feature either silkscreened and hand-painted imagery—only when activated by the presence of nearby movement. In this way, the “Eco” friendly works respond to and “Echo” their surroundings. 

In 1992, Rauschenberg began his Waterworks series (1992–95) using a process he developed that combined the transfer technique and inkjet printing, a technology newly accessible on the commercial market due to the recent development of the high-resolution Iris inkjet printer. For these works Rauschenberg digitized his own 35mm color slide film and printed it on acetate, then transferred the images onto watercolor paper using water as a solvent and a lithography press. The artist’s intentional utilization of a non-toxic solvent and biodegradable inkjet dyes and pigments further align his practice with broader environmental concerns. In his lifetime, Rauschenberg referred to this process as “vegetable dye transfer” and went on to use it in more than ten subsequent artwork series. The original artwork used for the United Nations World Population Conference print and poster was from the Waterwork series and, as such, demonstrates his overlapping and interdisciplinary engagement with human rights and social and environmental activism.