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1st Workshop Synopsis

Sustainable Community Indicators

February 23, 2006

   The goal of the workshop is to increase participant's understanding of sustainability issues and the tools used for sustainable community indicators projects. These tools include how to develop and evaluate sustainability indicators and how to work effectively with groups developing indicators. The vast majority of this workshop is drawn from the work of Maureen Hart, of Sustainable Measures. For more complete and in depth information on sustainability and indicators, plus an excellent link resource, please visit her site.

   The workshop started with an introductory exercise to list the types of organizations represented, which included developers, healers, planners, neighborhood associations, homeless, farmers, farm workers, religious, food bank, business, professors, the city of Lake Forest Park, and individual citizens... about 55 people in all. As well as stating their professional and community associations, the exercise had each participant list what they considered to be a key component in quality of life. This could be a 2-7 word phrase of the individual's vision of a good community, or an issue they were trying to improve.

   The issues ran the gamut of economic, environmental, health, education, governance, resource use, and transportation. Some of the specifics were local jobs, less consumption, clean air and water, community self-reliance in food and renewable energy, more community support and networks, shelter, compassion, less crime, cooperation, communication, preserving cultural heritage and diversity, human scale development, poverty, religious tolerance, species preservation, valuing all people, more bike paths, native plants, and a place where all life thrives and every voice counts. The point of this exercise was to focus on the goal, not necessarily how to get to the goal.

   I think it's important to point out that not a single person mentioned having more stuff or a bigger house as being an aspect of quality of life.

   The presentation itself started with a quick recap of Peak Oil and global warming, two of the global drivers of the need to change our cultural direction as quickly as we can and start creating community support networks to put an alternative infrastructure in place--relocalization. The first step in relocalization is an asset inventory, and the first step in the inventory is community awareness of sustainability, ways to measure and support it, and discovering the commonalities in what the community wants. This awareness includes there being an alternative to the business as usual approach of special interests.

   Next was laying the foundation for sustainability and related concepts starting with the following list.

1. Sustainability is not really an "environmental" movement, it is a community movement. It is the concept that humans are a part of the ecosystem, and we need to learn to integrate our economic and social lives into the environment in ways that maintain and enhance the environment rather than degrade or destroy it.
2. Sustainable development is not sustained growth.
3. Living within the carrying capacity of the earth is a basic component of sustainability.
4. A sustainable community seeks to maintain and enhance all three types of community capital: natural, social, and financial/built.
5. In the context of the sustainable community movement, a community is a geographic area that is defined by the members of the community. It may be a small rural town, an urban area, or a larger region or country.
6. Traditional indicators tend to focus on a single aspect of a community and frequently measure the number of dollars involved with an activity. Some examples of these individual aspects of a community are culture, economy, education, environment, government, health, housing, population, public safety, quality of life, social, resource use, recreation, transportation.
7. Sustainable community indicators show the links among different aspects of a community and measure results, not input.
8. Sustainability is a long range--25-50 years minimum--view of a community that allows all members to participate, acknowledges the links between the economic, environmental and social aspects of a community, considers carrying capacity, and is measurable.

   The most commonly used definition of sustainability was developed in 1983 by a commission chartered by the UN Secretary-General called the World Commission on the Environment and Development. This commission is frequently referred to as the Brundtland Commission after the head of the commission, Gro Harlem Brundtland, former Prime Minister of Norway. Her group, after talking with people from all walks of life all over the globe, came up with the following: Sustainable development is "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." They realized that all problems are intertwined, and there's no clear demarcation between environmental, social, and economic issues.

   The working definitions of sustainability that different communities and organizations use have a few other commonalties as well as the above list. These can be briefly summarized as equity, trusting relationships, cooperation for the common good, and a commitment to place.

   Other highlights of the presentation were the following:

   Sustainability is a new way of looking at the world, and new ways of thinking can start to change our behaviors.

   To sustain means to nourish and provide sustenance, and not diminish desirable qualities. A sustainable community can continue indefinitely but it does not mean "no change" or "status quo."

   Development is not growth, but a means to improve; make better; to bring to a more advanced or effective state.

   Carrying capacity is the population that can be supported indefinitely by the ecological and social infrastructure without destroying that infrastructure. It depends on available resources and per capita consumption. Sustainability is thus about finding the balance point among population, consumption, and waste assimilation.

   Community capital consists of natural, human/social, and financial/built capital. We need to live off the interest of our community capital, not use up the principle.

   An indicator is a way to measure progress, show direction, or visually ascertain the condition of a system. Indicators are ways of saying how much, how many, to what extent, or what size. We all set goals and use indicators to measure our progress toward these goals. But, we need to make sure we don't just focus on the measurement and forget about the goal. An example is a student who focuses on the grade earned, and not the material learned.

   Traditional measures see the environment, economy, and society as disconnected boxes, and these measure often then work at cross purposes. Sustainability indicators see the community as a complex web of interconnections where changes in one area affects the others.

   Sustainable community indicators show the relationships between: what you need and how much you have to work for it; locally produced food, transportation fuel, and pesticide use; fuel and vehicle use, air pollution, and global warming.

   Sustainability is a vision of the future that is of, by, and for the community. Everyone participates and considers the seventh generation. It acknowledges the relationships among environment, society, and economy, and that if you don't measure it, you won't get there.

   Sustainable community indicators:

1. Sustainable community indicators are useful for: monitoring progress; understanding sustainability; educating community members on the issues; describing linkages; motivating and focusing action.
2. A good indicator of sustainability: addresses carrying capacity; is relevant, understandable, and useable by the community; takes a long term view (25-50 years); shows linkages; and is not at the expense of another community.
3. The GNP and GDP are measures of the flow of money, not measures of economic welfare. They include a number of factors that actually decrease human and environmental welfare. Most monetary measures are not good measures of community sustainability.
4. New national measures of economic welfare, like the Genuine Progress Indicator, have been proposed, but none are universally accepted yet.
5. Ecological footprints are an estimate of the amount of resources that an individual consumes. Lifestyle choices affect the actual size of a person's ecological footprint.
6. Indicators for a sustainable community need to speak to the people whose behavior is affecting the sustainability of the community.
7. Indicators should address causes as well as effects. Don't just measure a "state" that needs to be changed or the "response" that is meant to change the state, measure the "pressures" that are causing the "state."

   Traditional indicators look at specific problems and tend to have a narrow focus. They are necessary but not sufficient. Sustainability indicators show the relationships between ecology, economy, and equity (the three "E"s).

   Making a better indicator measures what you want to be, speaks to and is understood by the people who need to use them, and measure causes, not just effects. A measure that focuses on the goal, and shows people what they can do, is one that will get used.

   Sustainability indicators measure cause and effect. One framework for evaluating indicators is pressure-state-response. State is the condition that exists. Response is what is being done to try to fix the state. Pressure is the most important, but is frequently neglected or ignored when developing or evaluating indicators.

   For example, if the issue is crime, as defined by "the number of robberies," then the context is "safety." The number of crimes is the "state." A response might be to hire more police officers. The number of police officers is a measure of the "response." There are a number of "pressures" that may be causing the "state" to exist, including drug use and poverty. The amount of drug use or the lack of jobs are measures of the "pressures." These pressures and responses define the boundary of the issue.

   However, it is possible to see the lack of jobs as a "state" if the context is "economic well-being." In this case, welfare and job training are both "responses" to the state; as a society, two responses that we have to the lack of jobs are: giving people money (welfare) and helping people develop skills (job training).

   Both of these responses need to be measured, but there should also be a measure of the pressures causing the lack of jobs. Examples of pressures causing lack of jobs include increased mechanization and the shifting of jobs to places with lower wage rates. In a sense, the shifting of jobs to places with lower wage rates can be seen as a pressure causing crime (a state) and job training (a response to crime), but they are both outside the boundary of the original context of "safety." Setting the boundary of the context helps to keep indicator development or evaluation focused.

   A good sustainability indicator will thus be relevant to the community, take a long-term view, link the three main aspects of community (the three "E"s) and address their respective carrying capacity, the type of capital under consideration, and consider the pressure-state-response framework.

   From the issues that were listed at the beginning of the workshop, the participants then spent a couple of hours developing and evaluating indicators they chose for that issue in groups of 4-6. The format for this exercise was: Define the desired goal; identify the linkages, including key links; identify the pressures that are causing the state and the type(s) of capital; brainstorm indicators; evaluate indicators; identify possible data sources; discuss ways to incorporate indicators into daily work or activities; and prepare to report back to larger group.

   The indicators were evaluated using the following checklist:

   The last one is considered a show stopper, which is why it has no points assigned. It is not acceptable for a community to succeed at the expense of another community.

   Here is a sample final Indicator Report:

   The day finished up by examining the common "three-legged stool" model of community. The analogy is that the seat of a community is held up by the three legs of environment, economy, and society. On a graph, these three circles usually have a small section of overlap. Traditional indicators ignore the overlap, sustainable indicators measure the overlap. The type of indicator framework that works well with this view is theme-based, although an issue-based framework is more likely to measure the interconnections.

   A better view of community is to see these three circles as concentric rings nested within each other. The economy is part of society, which in turn exists within the environment. This helps point out the fact that the environment can exist without humans, but humans can't exist without the environment. A goal-based indicator framework tends to reflect this interdependent view of community.

   These additional indicator frameworks are different ways to organize sets of indicators. They each have advantages and disadvantages, and most communities use a combination of these frameworks, depending on context.

   An indicator theme framework looks at the basic areas of a community, for example: Economy, Population, Education, Public Safety, Environment, Social/Cultural, Health . Resource Use, Food, Energy, Housing, Recreation, Politics/Government, Transportation. The main thing to remember is the need to maintain a balanced mix amongst these themes.

   An indicator issues framework is similar to themes, but focuses on problems, such as: Poverty, Jobs, or Pollution. These require the same attention to balance as a theme-based framework.

   The goal-based framework uses a matrix approach that visually displays the linkages.

   There are also other formal methods for evaluating sustainability indicators, such as the Bellagio Principles (developed by an international group of measurement practitioners and researchers) and the Hamilton-Wentworth Indicator Grades.

   In order to truly measure a sustainable community, we need to have a number of indicators. As Hazel Henderson points out, "Trying to run a complex society on a single indicator like the Gross National Product is literally like trying to fly a 747 with only one gauge on the instrument panel." Complex systems require complex measures. Composite indicators don't provide the necessary detail to make decisions.

   There are a number of sources to obtain data for indicators, from the local/regional to national/international. The local data may be harder to get, but the national data may not be as relevant at the local level. There are also quite a number of organizations and communities working on sustainability issues, from the religious to the secular, business to non-profit, civic and government agencies, from Florida to Washington. And, they are working on these issues in a number of different ways, from visioning and forums, to resource mapping and community currencies.

   The reason such a diverse number of organizations over such a wide range of locales are working on creating a sustainable future is because it is becoming more and more apparent that change is necessary. We're running out of resources and degrading what is left. Social equity and providing right livelihood is becoming a fading dream. We must turn this around.

   A leading businessmen in a small resort town in New Hampshire gave this reason for working on sustainability. He was concerned about his livelihood and keeping his business going, but he also felt there could be creative new ways to solve the problems that keep us within the carrying capacity of the world. This is the type of statement one might expect from a environmentalist, but this man would not define himself as an environmentalist. He is a business person who cares about his community, the economy, the people, and the natural place of which the economy and people are an important part.

   If you talk to people about their concerns, you will find that most people have similar issues. Many of those people are concerned about issues of sustainability, although they probably do not use the word "sustainability" to describe their concerns.

   We need to educate people about these issues, because it takes political will to develop indicators that may show that current systems do not work as well as we have been lead to believe.

   To wrap up, we are what we measure, so let's measure what we want to be. What gets measured is what gets fixed. And, to paraphrase the Cheshire Cat, if we don't know where we're going, we're going to end up somewhere else.

   If you would like us to present this workshop or the Community Sustainability Assessment to your group or organization, please contact nature@attractionretreat.org or give Dave or Allison, co-founders of Attraction Retreat, a call at (360) 756-7998.