August 2006 · Volume 88 · Number 7

Sustainability: The Issue of Our Age, and a Concern for Local Government

by Michael Willis

With each passing day, the issue of sustainability becomes more prominent in debates on the future of our planet. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the example of climate change. The wide and divisive debate of a few years ago is now rapidly narrowing, according to Dr. R.K. Pachuri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

At Pachuri's presentation, made in Montreal in December 2005 at the 11th conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, he showed how the earth's climate system has demonstrably changed on both global and regional scales since pre-industrial times. He noted that strong evidence exists that most of the warming observed over the past 50 years is attributable to human activities.

The past 20 years have seen record surface temperatures across the world. For people living in the Northern Hemisphere, 2005 was the hottest year on record since 1880.¹ A consensus is emerging that global warming is going to have a dramatic effect environmentally, economically, and socially on future generations and, in such cases as low-lying cities and islands, it will be doing this soon.

"Global warming" refers to increases in global temperatures resulting from an accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. These gases, including carbon dioxide, methane, and chlorofluorocarbons, trap the sun's heat as it is radiated from the earth and prevent it from going back into space.

Fifth Annual Swimming Pool Issue

The December 2006 issue of PM magazine will mark the fifth anniversary of the special section on swimming pools that are owned and operated by local governments.

If you serve in a community that provides a public pool for its citizens that has not already been featured in the magazine—or has been updated since it was featured—and if the pool is distinctive in style, structure, operation, location, cost, or other management aspect, share this information in PM.

Send a 250- to 500-word description telling why the pool is distinctive to PM Editor, ICMA, 777 N. Capitol Street, N.E., Suite 500, Washington, D.C. 2002-4201; e-mail is preferred, at bpayne@icma.org. Electronic photo files in high-resolution PDF format are welcome. The deadline for information is September 15, 2006.

You may be thinking, "What's all this have to do with local government management?" A simple answer is at hand. Many years ago, the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives famously declared: "All politics is local." Assume for the moment that he was right. This also suggests that the answers to the issues of our age do not come solely from the global political arena but also from the very things we do at the local level. For nowhere is change more achievable than at the individual and local levels. In so many ways, it's the things we do locally that really count.

No one would idly pretend that global warming will be solved by neighborhood environmental programs. But equally, social attitudes and values are often forged in the heat of the projects and ideals that neighborhoods passionately commit themselves to in their own communities. It doesn't require a large leap of faith to see that the greater the awareness of environmental issues on the local level, the greater the awareness and readiness for action on the national and international levels.

Think of the "broken windows" analogy. It's the little tasks we do at the "micro" level, like fixing a broken window, that influence how we value our neighborhoods.

So what are we, as local government managers and as a professional body, doing to address issues of environmental sustainability in our own communities? After all, we are very much in the legacy business, that is, the business of creating and nurturing things that can be used and enjoyed by generations to come.

Shouldn't sustainable communities be among these legacies? Are we doing enough to get sustainability onto our local agendas? This article explores some of these issues and briefly considers what local governments are doing to address sustainability.

The Meaning of Sustainability

One of the goals is to engage appointed and elected officials on the issue of sustainability. So, what do we mean by the term "sustainability"? I once heard it described as "a vortex for woolly thinking" (as someone originally hailing from a land renowned for its sheep, this author finds that this definition does have a certain appeal). Sustainability certainly is a term that is capable of widely disparate meanings, so it's worth taking space to describe it.

Sustainability is most often considered in the context of improving the health and welfare of the planet and its people into the future. There are numerous definitions, but the following notions capture the essence of the word:

• Meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
• Improving the quality of life while living within the carrying capacity of the supporting environment.

In local government terms, this concept has been described by one commentator as involving creating sustainable cities and counties, where we reduce the use of local natural resources and the production of waste while also improving human livability.² The idea of sustainability is generally viewed as having environmental, social, and economic components.

Current thinking on sustainability recognizes that human society is totally dependent on the natural environment. Thus, it follows that the integration of ecological thinking into all social and economic decision making is required.

"Think Globally, Act Locally"

The motto "Think globally, act locally" is well known and closely linked to the notion of sustainability. Its importance was highlighted at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, where 179 governments took stock of the state of the world and decided to adopt the global action plan for sustainable development that we now know as Agenda 21.

Agenda 21 called on local authorities in every country to undertake a consultative process with their populations to achieve consensus on action plans for their communities. It recognized the need to work out local agendas (and ways of doing things) to achieve sustainable living in the 21st century.

In many ways, local government can be viewed as the glue that sticks together the "Think globally" component with the "Act locally" element. The call to action made by Agenda 21 in 1992 is still relevant today because it is about meeting the three most pressing needs of our times:

• The need for environmental protection of the air, water, soil, and biodiversity upon which life depends.
• The need for economic development to overcome poverty.
• The need for social justice and cultural diversity to enable local communities to express their values in addressing issues.

There is, however, an inherent contradiction in addressing these needs, as there is in the term "sustainable development" itself. As author W. Rees, in his 1995 Journal of Planning Literature article "Achieving Sustainability: Reform or Transformation?" put it: "How can we produce the growth necessary to 'improve living standards for all' and provide a 'more prosperous future' while at the same time protecting the environment, particularly when historic patterns of economic and material growth appear responsible for much environmental degradation?"

How can we foster economic and social growth (a major driver in many, if not most, of our communities) while also protecting and enhancing the environment? How can we promote and achieve community expectations and at the same time protect individual property rights? Our profession is very much at the interface of these apparently divergent concerns.

You see, in all of these things, managers are called upon to manage apparent opposites. And managing opposites is about more than finding a balance between them. It's about being able to achieve both objectives.

What is it that we can do, as citizens and local leaders, to address the environmental challenges that clearly confront us? How can we help local people and communities exercise power over what they can control, in the face of so many forces that seem beyond both control and comprehension itself?

These are important questions because, as much as sustainability is about making things better environmentally, it's also about intensifying the process of civic engagement, which is surely at the heart of the local governing process and at the heart of our profession.

There are no easy answers to these questions; indeed, different answers will be required for different localities. The following section outlines briefly how some local governments have taken the initiative in responding to sustainability issues in their local areas.

Sustainability Initiatives

A growing number of local governments have decided to take a leadership role in addressing sustainability issues in their local areas. Some, including my own council in the city of Blue Mountains, New South Wales, Australia, have worked in partnership with the community and its citizens to develop long-term visions and action plans that will guide the achievement of more sustainable outcomes, not only in the future but also now.³

Such community-owned visions and plans can build frameworks for helping citizens and local leaders to understand these values, chart a way forward, and reconcile seemingly competing needs. In the case of Blue Mountains, having a sustainability vision and action plan has also given us a platform for launching a range of related initiatives in partnership with other stakeholders, as outlined below.

Blue Mountains City is enclosed within a World Heritage Park on the edge of the Sydney metropolitan area. Serving 75,000 residents, it has placed sustainability at the core of its planning and operational programs. We have undertaken a number of programs that we hope will bring this ideal to our local government doorstep. More information on these programs is available on the Web site at www.bmcc.nsw.gov.au.

• Catchment restoration. We have launched partnership programs among residents, agencies, community groups, and schools to carry out local works to restore catchment facilities (reservoirs, dams, stormwater channels, and so on) that have suffered degradation.
• Bushcare programs. A bushcare group will go out into its patch of bush each month and carry out bush regeneration, removing exotic weeds to allow native plants to germinate and flourish. Other activities include stormwater control and erosion control works in the patch, track maintenance and improvement, seed collection, plant propagation, public education, and other bushland management projects.
  There are more than 50 groups in action and more than 400 active volunteers. The council has four bushcare officers employed to supply, train, and coordinate the groups. For every hour that the council puts into this program, the community puts in more than three. Each year, 6,000+ volunteer hours have been worked on bushcare projects.
• Energy use reduction. Since 2004, the Blue Mountains Council has significantly reduced energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in its buildings by implementing an innovative energy performance contract. We have joined the Cities for Climate Protection(tm) program and completed an audit of our energy consumption. Currently, an action plan is being developed to reduce the city's energy consumption.
• Curbside chipping of garden waste. In 2001, the city began a curbside chipping service to process garden waste on-site at residents' homes. Each year, 22,000 services are provided that result in the chipping of 46,000 cubic meters of garden waste for reuse on residents' properties; otherwise, this material would be disposed into landfill. Significantly, as a result of this and other initiatives, since 2004 there has been a 20 percent reduction in the volume of waste being delivered to the council's two waste management facilities.
• Teaching our children. In partnership with local schools, the city has established a Blue Mountain School Environment Network, which supports teachers in their efforts to engage children and the community in learning about the environment and developing sustainable schools.
• Earthworks courses. The city is implementing earthworks courses to support residents in gaining such skills in sustainable living as composting, worm farming, "no-dig" gardening, and recycling. Through community workshops, more than 400 residents have enrolled in these courses.
• Sustainable tourism. The city has entered into partnerships with the state government to develop sustainable tourism destinations and other facilities.
• Business sustainability. The Blue Mountains Business Advantage Program offers local businesses the opportunity to become accredited in sustainable business practices through attendance at a training course at a local educational institution. More than 120 businesses have participated in the program.
• Sustainability research. In 2004, the Blue Mountains World Heritage Institute was founded with the support of the Blue Mountains City Council. The institute is a nonprofit organization promoting the conservation of the cultural and natural heritage of the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Park. It has attracted about $1 million in research funding for a range of such sustainable research projects as sustainable options for business and industry in a Blue Mountains town, Mapping Country (an indigenous cultural heritage project), and fire and climate change research.

Quite apart from the great good that such programs achieve for the environment, taken collectively they also arguably have a significant impact in shaping values and beliefs about environmental issues beyond the local level. They cannot help but make people think about sustainability issues on the national and international stage. Thus, not only are we doing good things for our local environment, but we are also giving expression to a set of values that will be played out as more people come to grips with such larger issues as climate change.

Obviously, what we do at the Blue Mountains City Council is by no means unique or unusual. Similar programs go on in many local governments around the world. In the area of climate change alone, substantial progress is being made at the local level, particularly through the Cities for Climate Protection (CCP) campaign, mentioned above under "Energy use reduction." This campaign enlists cities to adopt policies and measures that achieve quantifiable reductions in local greenhouse gas emissions, improve air quality, and enhance urban livability and sustainability.⁴

This campaign is run by the International Centre for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability) in Australia, Canada, Europe, Japan, Latin America, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the United States. More than 650 local governments currently participate in CCP, including 160 in the United States and more than 200 in Australia.

Action around environmental sustainability is clearly gaining national traction in the United States. For example, Portland, Oregon, continues to be a leader in a range of sustainability initiatives, as the first local government in the States to adopt a plan to address global warming.^{5, 6}

Last June in California, Governor Schwarzenegger declared the debate on climate change over and directed a "Climate Action Team," made up of representatives of various state agencies, to devise a plan to cut the state's greenhouse gas emissions. According to this plan, emissions need to be cut to 2000 levels by 2010, to 1990 levels by 2020, and to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. Also in June of last year, 166 U.S. mayors signed up to approve a U.S. Mayors' Climate Protection Agreement.

Kent Portney's 2005 Public Administration Review article "Civic Engagement and Sustainable Cities in the United States" shows that, over the past decade, at least 42 U.S. cities have elected to pursue sustainable-cities programs to improve their livability.

ICMA, as a local government organization, has also been active in supporting sustainability activities, although that term has not always been used. Such activities have comprised a focus on best-practice environmental management, planning, smart growth, and brownfields redevelopment. The ICMA University offered its first formal workshop with a focus on sustainability at ICMA's 2005 annual conference.

Conclusion

We hold positions of great importance and influence in community decision making. Is our profession to be leaders or followers in creating more sustainable cities and counties? Should we be working harder to adopt more sustainable practices in the way we manage, following the examples of those who are leading the way?

This article has referred earlier to the dilemma faced by communities in resolving apparent opposites: fostering economic and social growth at the local level while at the same time protecting the environment. Local governance requires attention to such dilemmas. For, in truth, local governments are in the business of allocating community values in making decisions that directly affect the sustainability of our communities-socially, economically, and environmentally. There is no better place to start.

Surely, all administrators have an abiding and unswerving belief in the value and practice of local democracy. And local democracy does have a critical and pivotal role to play in addressing sustainability-the issue of our age. If we adhere to the adage that "all politics is local," then there can be no more powerful force than the democratic process, acting in concert with the community and the people within it, to produce sustainable outcomes.

In a sense, the future resides in the moment. For it is the things we do now that shape the future, for good or ill. If managers believe that we are in the legacy business, we need to think now about the things that must be done to develop more sustainable communities for those who will follow us. What greater calling can there be? PM

¹U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Global Temperature Trends: 2005 Summation (New York: NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies [GISS], 2005). Available on the Web site at http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2005/.

²P. Newman and J. Kenworthy, Sustainability and Cities: Overcoming Automobile Dependence (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1999). The full quotation is: "The goal of sustainability in a city is the reduction of the city's use of natural resources and production of wastes, while simultaneously improving its livability, so that it can better fit within the capacities of local, regional, and global ecosystems."

³See, for example, Towards a More Sustainable Blue Mountains: A Map for Action, 2000-2025, on the Blue Mountains City Council Web site at www.bmcc.nsw.gov.au. Follow the links to "Our Future Blue Mountains."

⁴See the Web site at www.iclei.org. The CCP campaign is based on an innovative performance framework structured around five "milestones" that local governments commit themselves to reaching. The milestones allow local governments to understand how their decisions affect energy use and how these decisions can mitigate global climate change while improving a community's quality of life. The CCP methodology is a simple, standardized way of acting to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and of monitoring, measuring, and reporting performance.

⁵City of Portland, A Progress Report on the City of Portland and Multnomah County Local Action Plan on Global Warming (Portland, Ore.: Author, 2005).

⁶Visit www.sustainableportland.com for the range of sustainability initiatives being implemented by Portland, Oregon.

Michael Willis, ICMA-CM, is general manager, Blue Mountains City Council, New South Wales, Australia (MWillis@bmcc.nsw.gov.au), and currently serves as president of ICMA. Rosemary Dillon, corporate planning manager, Blue Mountains City Council, helped prepare this article.

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