Taking Action for Sustainability: The EarthCAT Guide to Community Development by Gwendolyn Hallsmith, Christian Layke and Melissa Everett (2005)

“All too often, we discover that yesterday’s band-aid solutions have become today’s problems.”

“Sustainable community development is the process of working to meet and achieve balance between our economic, social, governance, and environmental needs, and a balance between the needs of current the generation and those of the future.”

Preface

Over the wide sweep of history, human existence has been marked by relatively few cultural shifts significant enough to be experienced on a global scale. Whether it was Galileo and his clearer vision of the cosmos, Jesus and his message of inclusive divine love, or Nelson Mandela’s triumph over ancient racism and hatred, there is no question that real planetary change is as difficult as it is rare . . . particularly for the people on whom it falls to introduce these innovations to others.

As you read this, we are on the verge of a similar cultural shift — the moment when human culture grows out of a prolonged adolescence and recognizes our place in the global ecosystem and our responsibility for all other life on Earth. The people on the front lines of this transition are people working at the local level to improve the quality of life. Communities everywhere are increasingly aware of the connections between their local well-being and the global state of the economy, the social fabric, governance, and the environment. The wake-up call may take the form of an employer’s move offshore, a water crisis, immigration issues, or the closing of a landfill. Towns may fight over water rights, or law enforcement agencies struggle to coordinate their search for a missing person.

As we begin to recognize the interconnectedness of our homes, neighborhoods, towns and cities with their broader surroundings, we may be daunted by all the ways that natural, economic and social systems defy political boundaries. But this complexity and interdependence is as real as it is inescapable. Taken together, the interwoven local crises our communities are facing add up to a global challenge that demands response.

Recognizing this, people around the world have come together from different cultures, religions, and continents to participate in drafting the Earth Charter. This remarkable document communicates a fundamental unity of people from all walks of life, from every corner of the globe, on some of the most important issues facing our species. It holds up a set of shared ethics — 16 core principles — reflecting a vision for sustainable development rooted in “respect and care for the community of life.”

As a species, the ethical values we share shape our world — from the theories behind our legal system to the strategies we choose to achieve our goals. Because it is a truly global document — the first of its kind — the Earth Charter provides an ethical foundation that offers local communities everywhere a vision and a blueprint for change. Since it was launched in 2000, the Earth Charter has been embraced by thousands of municipalities around the world. From major cities like San Jose, Costa Rica and Toronto, Canada to rural communities in Vermont and Australia, they’ve used it in ways that fit their local political and cultural realities. They have endorsed the Charter, adopted it as part of their local regulations and plans, and integrated it into their educational programs. Endorsements have come from the U.S. Conference of Mayors, organizations like the Millennium NGO Forum and the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, and hundreds of individual cities and towns in places like Jordan, Spain, and Peru.

Out of this international enthusiasm for using the principles of the Earth Charter on the local level, EarthCAT was born. EarthCAT, the Earth Charter Community Action Tool, consists of the Guidebook you are now holding and the software on its companion website. These tools were created by a joint partnership of Global Community Initiatives (GCI) and the World Resources Institute (WRI), who also worked with Sustainable Hudson Valley and the communities in their region to develop and test the tools and techniques for this methodology. Their purpose is to provide communities everywhere with a step-by-step process for taking action locally, while using the principles of the Earth Charter in every facet of their work — from the planning process right through to the evaluation of project performance. Because communities can use the EarthCAT software online as they proceed through the steps involved in this planning method, it also becomes a growing repository of experience for the benefit of other localities around the world as they embark on their own planning for the future.

Communities don’t have to have formally endorsed or adopted the Earth Charter to benefit from the approach that EarthCAT provides. The values prescribed by the Charter are present at every stage of this process, and communities that pursue these steps diligently will not only be helping themselves, they will be making a contribution to the sustainability of the planet. And they need not worry that following this process will involve a loss of local control. To the contrary, the Earth Charter’s democratic approach embraces and reinforces the principle of subsidiarity — that decisions should be made closest to the level of impact. This makes it imperative for local and regional communities to take responsibility for the decisions that affect their future.

Sustainability and justice have an impact beyond the environmental and economic arena, and one of the most important ethics that the Earth Charter recognizes is the inextricable connection between all the individual issues communities face. We can’t achieve a healthy environment without also achieving social and economic justice. We can’t achieve peace without good governance. Steven Rockefeller, a member of the original Earth Charter Commission, puts it this way: “Good sustainable governance includes the rule of law, the provision of security, respect for human rights, access to justice, access to education, an ethic of respect and care for Earth’s ecological systems, and sustainable development planning. Fundamental to a sustainable social system are widely shared ethical values, including mutual respect and respect for human rights, trust, good everyday working relations, and an awareness that society is part of the greater community of life.”

We need to work on all of it to achieve any of it. This workbook will show you how to do that in a logical, principled, way.

EarthCAT - Earth Charter Community Action Tool

The EarthCAT approach — as outlined in this workbook and the companion EarthCAT software — is designed with two primary goals in mind. One is to help people like you develop strategies for sustainability, building on your community’s strengths to ensure that future generations have the capacity to live healthy, meaningful, and productive lives. The other is to reduce the uncertainty associated with getting your community involved in developing and adopting sustainable policies and programs.

Accordingly, the EarthCAT process will seek to ensure the success of our communities by maintaining a focus on each of the following “sustainability areas”:

1. Social Well-Being. This results from the community’s caring capacity — its ability to care for its members, form and pass on values, educate its youth, support creative endeavors, offer recreational opportunities, and provide safe and friendly neighborhoods.
2. Good Governance. This refers to more than just the workings of the local government. It encompasses a community’s capacity to exercise self-determination, resolve conflict, and ensure that everyone has an equitable voice in decision-making, resulting in equitable access to facilities, services and resources.
3. A Vibrant Local Economy. This relates directly to a fundamental capacity of the community — to create meaningful work and provide income for its members. The wealth of a community is dependent on this capacity, and many of our economic development efforts are designed to enhance it.
4. Efficient Services and Infrastructure. The physical and material needs we have are met directly through the community infrastructure we develop, and the products and services it can deliver — the housing construction, transportation networks, waste disposal facilities, energy generators, utilities, etc.
5. A Healthy Natural Environment. The natural environment is the fundamental basis of any community(s ability to exist. If a human community — with all of its aspirations, institutions, organizations, systems, and subsystems, no matter how complex — is to be sustainable, it must be able to maintain the health and integrity of the environment on which it depends. This basic fact is often overlooked (or, which is just as unfortunate, taken for granted) in community planning efforts. We won’t be making that mistake. As our aim here is to work toward a truly sustainable community, the needs of our environment will be taken into account at every stage of the process.

This workbook can help if any of these statements apply to your situation:

• You feel that most of the “solutions” being proposed are band-aids — they don’t address the roots of the problem, and sometimes make things worse.
• You know that your community should be doing something about global issues, but you don’t know where to begin.
• Several issues over the past few years have been divisive for your community, and you need a reliable way to bring people back to the table to discuss policies and programs in a pro-active way.
• You have some ideas for the betterment of your community, but don’t know how to make them a reality.
• A lot of people in your community are resistant to trying new things.
• Most of the efforts already underway seem fragmented; you’d like a sense that people had a comprehensive and long-term view of where the community is going.
• The community will never have the money to accomplish (fill in the blank).

Taking Action Step by Step

For clarity, we have broken EarthCAT into ten Units. The first is a preparatory step that describes the process needed to help people accept change and innovation more readily. Following are eight separate implementation steps, and a supplementary Unit describing the leadership skills and group process you will need to manage what is certainly going to be a lively and even contentious process. The leadership skills may be the most important part of all — their placement at the end, as Unit 10, does not mean that you should wait until the end to read them. That preparation is a prerequisite for this and other types of community work you might like to do.

Each step is important, and this workbook takes the time to give you an in-depth look at how to achieve results at every stage. Here is a diagram of EarthCAT’s approach and a brief description of the objectives of each Unit:

1. Laying the Foundation for Change — This chapter discusses the first steps to take to get the community change and innovation process off on the right foot. How to get people involved, what kind of structure is needed for decision-making, and conducting public information and outreach campaigns are all included here.
2. Building A Common Vision — To set a course for community change, it is very important to establish a shared vision for the future. Thinking in the long term is key; often small strategic differences evaporate when people work together to think about what they want twenty years from now. Another key is to focus on the strengths you have as a community — the assets you have that meet your needs. This gives people a positive place to start.
3. Establishing Goals — Once you have a sense of shared vision and common values, then it is possible to set performance goals for the programs and policies you need to achieve the vision. Selecting goals that can be met by capitalizing on your community?fs assets, with the whole community system in mind, is the positive, integrated way to approach the process of steering your community in a new direction.
4. Understanding Trends and Setting Targets — Within each goal are more specific targets — interim steps you can achieve that bring you closer to the goal. Before you establish specific targets, however, it helps to understand the trends behind the existing data. This enhances your ability to identify the key variables that will influence the way you develop your strategy.
5. Planning Strategies for Taking Action — To be effective, a strategy for action needs to take the whole community system into account. You will use the understanding you’ve developed of how your community works to design strategies that take advantage of the existing dynamics in the system.
6. Indicators of Community Performance — You have set targets to achieve your goals in realistic increments. Indicators are measurable data points that can be used to track the progress of your community action plan in reaching these targets. Identifying the right indicators for your purposes is an essential skill.
7. The Community Action Plan — When all the pieces are pulled together, you will have a plan that can serve to guide the other planning processes within your community. It will reflect some of the most important elements of the specific community plans — transportation, energy, housing, social services, education, etc. This Unit talks about how to create an action agenda.
8. Tracking and Reporting Progress — As you implement the provisions of your plan, it is vitally important to communicate the results to the public, to the stakeholders, and to anyone else who is involved in making it a success.
9. Revise, Refine, and Start Again — Planning for sustainable communities is not a linear process; every step of the way demands revisions, changes in direction, and new beginnings. Managing the iterative nature of any complex process is a challenge. This brief Unit gives some guidance for how to do that.
10. Leadership for Change and Innovation — The new paradigm of sustainability and peace demands a new type of leader, new approaches to partnership, and new skills for working with groups. This Unit, while it can’t substitute for face-to-face training, offers some suggestions for the types of training, and the orientation required, to succeed in your journey to a new world.

(Click here to go to EarthCAT’s website. Click here to go to the download page of this workbook)