Economic Strength & Regional Sustainability
A clear vision creates a powerful image for the future. It is the ultimate goal. At a municipal and regional level, a clear vision can entice businesses to work hand in hand in with government, strenghthening their community. The lack of a clear vision, on the other hand, can create a sense of separateness. Models that connect our businesses, education, and government systems only superficially will not allow us to become sustainability players that develop emerging sustainability markets and technologies, and will not give us the knowledge or tools to become influencers in our businesses and our communities.
Reality is that there can be no more important goal for local and regional governments than to make sustainability their overarching mission. Our economy must be inextricably linked with our environment, our social values, and our governance models. If our vision is not to become the most sustainable in everything we do, we will continue down a funnel with fewer and fewer options for the future. Our financial risks will increase as our options diminish. It makes good business sense to leap ahead now by including a sustainability framework in our strategic longterm plans. A sustainability framework allows us to make small, gradual investments towards sustainability when and how we think best, rather than having the cards dealt for us later. It's simple, pay less now or pay more later.
What is sustainability?
“Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."
Brundtland Report, Our Common Future, 1987 World Commission on Environment and Development
Sustainability was an irrelevant term until we began making our world and our communities unsustainable. Many people believe that sustainability is about the “impacts” our social, environmental, or economic systems are producing. Those are only “impacts” and not the fundamental problem. We have lost forests and biodiversity in Halton. This is not a sustainability problem; it is an environmental problem. As a municipality and region, allowing this environmental degradation to continue (due to the way we are organized and our priorities), this-- is the sustainability problem. We are losing more and more topsoil layers, nutrients, biodiversity and cropland and when we do so, we detach more land from our forests and erode the system physically. We systematically allow pollutants to increase.
Changing our mindset
The longterm sustainability dilemma is a challenge within ourselves and in the way we are currently structured. Making sustainability a mission in our organizations allows us to re-organize, integrate sustainability principles in our decision making, and focus our resources in ways that allow us to get to the causes of un-sustainable practices, rather than initiating short-term fixes. Moving toward sustainability is about changing our mindsets. Specifically, it is about developing a list of programs and policies that are unsustainable and substituting them over time with options that are inherently sustainable. Instead of asking ourselves how dangerous CO2 is for climate change, we should be asking, "what would a new, inherently sustainable energy system look like? What are the options and how could we launch early, smart moves to arrive at our vision of sustainability?" Social sustainability is another important goal to be integrated into any sustainability plan. It allows us take small steps to decrease the void between wealthy and poor living within miles of each other. We know this inherently but generally don’t know how to achieve the solutions.
Commitment to scientific integrity
No solution will survive unless it is soundly rooted in the best methodologies, principles, facts, and research. Scientific integrity is paramount to a successful sustainability framework. As many of you know, I have been a longtime supporter of The Natural Step Organization, developed by Dr. Karl-Henrick Robert in the early 1980's. Dr. Robert managed to achieve complete scientific consensus in Sweden on four scientific principles underlying the causes of the problems that he observed and that became the basis for The Natural Step Organization.
Sharing a common framework and language comprised of easily understood, scientifically-based principles are crucial first steps in helping us guide our businesses, regions and municipalities toward a just and sustainable future. Moving toward sustainability as the ultimate vision allows us to be economically strong, socially responsible, and environmentally sound. It allows us to lead our companies forward and it ensures a new kind of technological innovation.
Backcasting VS Forecasting in Sustainability
In my product engineering and management experience, forecasting has been a commonly used methodology for planning. It has been used in many industries and within governments to predict future outcomes. We would never dream of using forecasting in our personal lives, however, as it would mean that we were looking in the rear view mirror, watching trends, and then projecting those trends into the future.
All but a few visionary companies and governments (IKEA, Home Depot, Electrolux, Nike, Volvo, etc.) still employ "forecasting" techniques to achieve future goals. When we use forecasting as a technique, we try to reduce the impacts that our technologies and systems are making on our communities. Then we “fix” the problems instead of solving them. A perfect example of this locally is our acceptance of a provincial initiative to build an incinerator in the region of Halton. On the surface, it appears to "fix" our garbage issues; in the longterm, however, it is not a sustainable solution as it does not attack the root cause of the problem. Waste reduction and bold investments in high tech recycling facilities will begin to move us toward regional sustainability and open up new worlds of opportunity, both economically and environmentally. They also will help create new governance models for our region. Reality is that in our personal lives we use another principle called “backcasting” to achieve our goals. We foresee the successful future we want to achieve and work backwards to make it happen. It is a powerful technique that drives us personally and that we must begin to employ in any sustainability discussion in the future.
Maintaining Capital
The real question is how to move toward sustainability in the smartest possible way while taking care of our economy (financial capital) and balancing our social and political capital. We cannot be re-elected if we launch brilliant moves that no one understands, nor can we run a business if we cannot capitalize on our investments. So we must maintain capital as we move forward.
There are now numerous businesses, organizations, municipalities and regions in Canada and around the world that are using a scientific framework in their planning and maintaining capital as they move forward. The key to success is in initiating early small sustainable investments, rather than waiting for much larger investments later. By taking smaller steps now, we will make fewer mistakes in the future. The cities of Halifax, Canmore, and Whistler B.C. as well as businesses such as The Co-operators are just a few excellent examples of organizations that are taking steps now toward a sustainable future. It is wonderful to see engineers, top managers, and executives discover options that are inherently sustainable. The key is a scientifically driven framework.
Next Steps
1. Use a scientific framework to develop a common understanding and language around sustainability.
2. Use system conditions as a benchmark to determine your organization's current sustainability level.
3. Brainstorm a list of
compelling initiatives (big and small) to eliminate contributions to
system condition violations
that exist in
your local government, business or
organization.
4. Prioritize initiatives based on sustainability, flexibility and return on investment.
