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  Aspen’s efforts to improve its quality of life, Other community success stories and a Framework for community success

Michael KINSLEY - Rocky Mountain Institute, Aspen, Co, USA

 

 

Aspen’s Experience - An Outline

Ingredients of success

1. Winter sports - by private sector
2. Summer arts, letters and athletics - by local NGOs

Dance, music, theatre, conferences, sporting events, hiking, river sports

3. Growth-control linked to social programs - by public sector

• Growth control
  • Restrictive Zoning
  • Subdivision allotment
• Mass transit
  • Bus (poor Federal support for rail)
• Affordable housing
  • 2,000 units
• Open space purchase by government and private land-trusts

Successes

• Viable local economy - though vulnerable to security concerns, global-climate change, and the eccentricities of tourist choice
• High “quality of life” - Uncrowded, clean air and water, beautiful homes, quality arts, open space
• Wonderful place to visit

Failure *

30-year decline in “Community”

• 65% of working population migrated to areas 15 to 70 miles away or departed to be replaced by people similarly located
• Difficult recruitment and high turnover rates of quality employees (e.g. teachers)
• Decline in volunteerism
• Few artists and eccentric people remain
• Shops can be seen in any city
• Fewer businesses locally owned.Rocky Mountain Institute 2 December 2001

* The listed conditions constitute failure if one regards “community” as a web of mutually supportive relationships, based on connection to a place, with a diverse range of income levels and a predominance of locally owned business

Causes of Failure

1. Extremely high housing cost due to second homes
2. Extremely high business rent due to expensive national chains
3. Addition to Construction

Fundamental Question for resort communities (and the human species)

How to transform an economy from one based on ever-increasing throughput to one that is in dynamic equilibrium ?

Conventional Economic Policies are based on perpetually :

• Expanding physically
• Increasing throughput, eventually depleting resources & accumulating waste
• Increasing (labor) productivity, often reducing employment

  Consequences

  • Depletion of natural capital (natural resources and ecosystem services), which, unchecked, will exhaust the ecosystem’s capacity to deliver services essential to business (and life)
  • Depletion of human capital (poverty, homelessness, disease, frustration, anger, violence), resulting in a very insecure world

Throughput is the rate at which a local economy flows, including the sum of the materials that are harvested (or extracted), processed, used, and discarded as waste. It is often measured in terms of tax revenues, real-estate transfers, bushels, board feet, tourist days, GDP. Conventional wisdom holds that prosperity requires continually increasing throughput, regardless of costs. But throughput is an indication of gross flow of transactions while communities benefit only from net gain.

Economic Diversity : According to conventional economics, diversity requires adding different types of businesses. In contrast, in a sustainable economy, it requires optimizing the health of existing businesses and adding only those compatible with the place. Analogy: Nature demonstrates that adding any new species (businesses) can be dangerous. Invasive exotic species push out native species, destabilizing the ecosystem. Similarly, chain stores push out locally owned businesses, reducing the multiplier effect and wealth-creation per transaction.

Characteristics of A Sustainable Economy

• Material sufficiency
• Diversity - Viable and compatible array of business types
• Resilience - Less vulnerable to external forces
• Greater self-reliance
• Security
• A viable community that is attractive to visit

 

Building Sustainable Communities through Natural Capitalism

Every community has untapped potential that can create living-wage jobs, plus increased income, business, and saving. Listed below are dozens of ways communities are tapping this potential today through Natural Capitalism.

Many of these actions are well known, others innovative. They distribute benefits widely across the community and they’re compatible with the environment. Most require little or no community expansion. While not all apply to every community, the length of this list highlights the undeveloped wealth-generation power in virtually every community. (Note : Though most cited examples are American, all apply to virtually any industrialized nation.)

Often, community development decisions are made behind the scenes. In contrast, Natural Capitalism is most effective when people from all walks of life choose their community’s future collaboratively and base their choices on practicality and compatibility with the community and its environment. Invest in Resource Productivity by “plugging the leaks”

A local economy might be compared to a bucket that the community would like to keep full. Business recruitment and community expansion are attempts to pour more money into the bucket. While these strategies may have succeeded in the past, today they often fail or generate more costs than benefits to the community.

Focusing entirely on more ways to fill the bucket ignores vast opportunities for “plugging leaks.” Economic buckets invariably have holes through which pounds or dollars leak every time local resources are used inefficiently. Smart communities seek profitable ways to keep the bucket full by plugging unnecessary leaks through one of more of the techniques listed below. As a result their economies are more resilience and less vulnerable to the influences of the global economy.

This strategy is good news for communities that have little hope for expansion. It’s equally encouraging for those in which expansion is creating problems. Instead of relying on the hope of continuous expansion, that is also imposing large costs, rapidly expanding communities now have many alternatives.

(For more business examples, see Rocky Mountain Institute’s new book Natural Capitalism or its website www.naturalcapitalism.org.)

1. Energy efficiency programs create local jobs and save millions of dollars in any community. Sacramento California invested $59 million to save electricity.

This enabled utility customers to save nearly that same amount. The program created 880 direct jobs, and increased regional income by $124 million. Though energy is a small portion of total costs, saving energy will provide a significant contribution to profits and economic progress.

2. Local ownership increases the wealth-creating power of each local transaction.

Land trusts, co-ops, and employee stock ownership can ensure permanent local ownership of many businesses by buying local buildings and renting only to residents (at cost). Example : The Green Bay Packers football team is owned by a corporation whose majority stockholders are from Wisconsin, that Packers home state.

3. Import substitution replaces “imports” with local products and services. Simple example : Locally bottled water in Tropic, Utah, replaced imports and established a new business.

4. Local sourcing links local-business buyers with local suppliers. An early program in Eugene, Oregon created 100 jobs in its first year without any physical expansion of the city.

5. Water efficiency: The grassroots Mothers of East Los Angeles marketed a low-flush- toilet retrofit program that installed 270,000 toilets in three years, returned $4 million to the neighborhoods in jobs, water-bill savings, and community programs, and saves over 3.4 billion gallons of water every year.

6. Downtown revitalization reduces economic leakage, builds pride, encourages infill, preserves culture, celebrates history, reuses resources, and reduces traffic.

7. Entrepreneurial training: Since 1993, the Nebraska EDGE training courses have assisted more than 1,250 individuals, entrepreneurs, small business owners and their partners start and improve their businesses.

8. Community supported agriculture : CSAs are local farms that increase productivity, reduce costs, and sell specialty crops direct to consumers and restaurants.

9. Business mentoring: Veteran business people “adopt” start-up businesses - giving rookie proprietors someone to talk with when things go wrong, helping them understand and avoid pitfalls. Such programs significantly reduce the high failure rate of start-ups.

10. Community cash flow can be captured through such community enterprise as locally based credit cards, debit cards and phone service. South Orange, New Jersey’s municipal credit card funds downtown revitalization.

11. Local currency : Ithaca, New York’s currency is accepted by 1,200 business and can’t be spent out of town..Rocky Mountain Institute 4 December 2001

12. Microcredit : Many low-income or impoverished people have the skills, but lack the credit to start a business. Tailored to very small, often home-based, start-up businesses, micro-loans are too small for conventional banks. Usually offered by nonprofit organizations in conjunction with basic business training, microcredit often provides a way out of poverty and off of welfare.

13. Business "visitation" programs enlist local leaders to visit businesses to determine needs and concerns. Proprietors get the chance to offer suggestions to local governments and organizations regarding changes that could benefit local business.

 

Shift to Biologically Inspired Economic Models (Biomimicry)

In the economic climate of the 21st Century, competitiveness requires lean business practices that, like biological systems, reduce and eventually eliminate waste. To be competitive, communities must pursue development strategies that analyze local material, energy, and waste streams ; identify business opportunities ; and match those opportunities with local businesses.

Multiple benefits include more businesses and jobs, reduced resource inputs (and, therefore, lower costs), prolonged life of the local landfill, and reduced pollution. The transition to bio-entrepreneurship has begun :

14. Waste matching is one way of developing industrial ecology at the regional level.

Computer networks can make virtual industrial ecosystems by matching waste with potential buyers; examples under development include numerous state programs such as New Hampshire and Michigan. ReMaDe in Essex, England is a five-year project to create new markets and secondary uses for recycled materials.

15. Building salvage - Rather than demolish a building, dismantle and reuse its components. Southern California Gas (utility) saved $3.2 million or 30% of construction costs on an office and education building by partly dismantling and reusing an existing building. The finished building was 80% made of recycled materials, keeping 350 tons of material out of the landfill.

16. Remanufacturing creates businesses and jobs and reduces resource inputs. This new “industry” is now larger than the steel industry. In Telford, England, old Ricoh photocopiers are reconditioned instead of being dumped in landfill sites. 90% of parts are reused.

17. Advanced business retention and expansion programs mimic biological systems by enhancing adaptation, competition, inter-relationships, and information flow. Littleton, Colorado’s program created jobs at six times the rate of its earlier recruitment efforts by offering such services as problem research, competitor analysis, industry trend monitoring, video conferencing, training, and market mapping. Such local policies enhance quality of life and intellectual infrastructure.

18. Flexible business networks : Several small businesses partner bid on contracts too big for any one of them, not unlike coyotes who usually hunt on their own, but run in packs when seeking larger game.

19. Storm-water capture saves money, recharges groundwater, and reduces pollution by helping rain soak in the ground where it falls rather than collecting it into expensive centralized systems, which, in some areas, overwhelms sanitary sewage systems resulting in significant pollution. (Example : Permeable parking lot material.)

 

Join the Solutions Economy

According to the Wall St. Journal, creative manufacturers are shifting from product sales to service leasing. Communities must not mistake this for what has been called the service economy with such low-wage jobs as burger flipping and room cleaning. In sharp contrast, companies who are part of the solutions economy provide what customers truly want : quality, utility, and continuous performance instead of just more goods. For example, most offices buy copying services, not copiers. Instead of selling elevators, Schindler leases vertical transportation services.

This fundamental change in the relationship between producer and consumer boosts competitiveness by more directly addressing customer needs. It also reduces materials input and pollution output, enables the provider to make more money, and the customer to save money. Waste is reduced, and fewer raw resources are required.

20. Leasing light: Burlington, Vermont’s Electric Utility has leased 50,000 energy efficient light bulbs to its customers, saving them $72,000 annually. Though the solutions economy is well underway, vast markets remain unexplored. Exciting opportunities remain available to smart communities that understand this new economy and assist appropriate local businesses in shifting from product sales to service leasing. These communities will offer incentives and research support and they’ll identify and overcome public and private sector barriers that keep local businesses from making the shift to selling solutions instead of products.

 

Reinvest in Natural Capital

Everyone knows that living systems provide us with products - such essential natural resources as oil, water, trees, fish, soil, and air.

Less obvious is that living systems also provide us with equally essential services. These ecosystem services include :

• Cooling (shade trees)
• Flood control (root systems)
• Purification of water and air (wetlands)
• Storage and recycling of nutrients (roots)
• Sequestration and detoxification of human and industrial waste (wetlands and ground filtration)
• Pest and disease control (by insects, birds, bats, and other organisms)
• Production of grasslands, fertilizers, and food
• Storage and cycling of fresh water
• Formation of topsoil and maintenance of soil fertility

These services are essential to doing business (and maintaining human life).

Worldwide, however, these services are declining. Many of them have no known substitutes at any price. The future’s strongest competitors will be businesses and communities that recognize these facts and invest accordingly :

21. Restore natural ecosystems : In Port Angeles, Washington, an estuary restoration project is saving the local lumber mill $150,000 yearly through more efficient logistics. It created space for expanding the mill and improved the town’s tourism.

22. Create urban ecosystems: Supported by these systems, birds, bats, and frogs eat pesky insects. Also, property values increase, for example near San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, by $500 million to $1 billion, which generates an additional $5-$ 10 million in property taxes. In inner city South Central Los Angeles, a park restored from an old industrial site is “like a grain of sand in an oyster, creating an economic development pearl.”

23. Foster Eco-tourism to create local jobs while protecting important environmental values.

24. Maintain wetlands for waste treatment, storm-water retention, and wildlife habitat. Arcata California restored 154 acres of wetlands and used it to treat City wastewater. The resulting marsh is now a wildlife habitat in which salmon are reared. The cost was a fraction of the costs for a conventional energy-intensive wastewater treatment system.

One researcher estimated the economic benefits generated by single acre of wetland : at $150,000 to $200,000. Barns Elms reservoirs near London, England have been transformed from 43 hectares of concrete basins into diverse wetlands, which attract visitors.

25. Maintain watersheds for flood control and drinking water.

26. Protect and enhance vegetative cover.

27. Protect ground water from chemical contamination.

28. Restore aquatic habitat.

29. Reduce carbon dioxide emissions : Through energy and water efficiency in city operations, Regina, Saskatchewan reduced its CO2 emissions by 10% while saving $393,000.

Note : The list of ecosystem services on the previous page does not include such services as noise abatement and peaceful sanctuary because some may regard them as non-essential. Neither does it include such services as climate stabilization, protection against harmful cosmic radiation, distribution of fresh water, and regulation of the chemical composition of the atmosphere because some may argue that the depletion of these services is caused by factors too distant for community action. However, an increasing number of communities and businesses are implementing policies to make themselves “climate neutral” because doing so will save money and enhance shareholder value.

 

Framework for Community Sustainability

As part of an emerging and creative worldwide trend, decision-makers in a variety of communities are linking their local economy, their community, and the environment. Instead of deciding which will prevail - economy, community, or environment - they understand that each is a leg supporting the stool of community success. They’re seeking ways to strengthen all three. Sometimes these efforts toward sustainable communities start with elected leaders, sometimes with businesses, and sometimes with grassroots citizen advocacy. The strongest are built on support from all three sectors - public, private, and nonprofit.

A review of many of these efforts reveals ten ingredients of smart and sustainable governance, summarized below : Genuine collaboration among leaders of all community sectors and people from all walks of life ensures better solutions informed by more perspectives, plus broad support for results.

Proceeding through every stage of policy- and decision-making, collaboration is most effective when it evolves into a diverse coalition committed to the community’s vision and plan.

Develop and publicize a community goals or ision statement that sets forth economic, environmental, and community goals. This statement provides guidance to leaders who are often pulled in conflicting directions by a wide range of opinions on many local issues.

Eventually, businesses and nonprofit groups can mold their respective mission statements to make them compatible with the community’s vision and plan.

Develop and publish indicators of progress toward each of the goals in the vision statement.

Economic, environmental, and community indicators may include such wide-ranging issues as industry trends, water quality, newborn birth weight, and housing affordability. Indicators can become the method by which the community determines its progress toward sustainability. They can be the factual basis for important community decisions.

Develop and adopt decision-making tools and methods that ensure consideration of all elements of the vision statement, whether the decision is being made by public, private, of nonprofit sectors. These tools and methods benefit both decision-makers and the public. They make complex issues easier to understand and they disclose the basis upon which decisions are made. They include intensive workshops, matrices, criteria and indicators.

Take Action : In order to achieve the goals set forth in the vision statement, choose projects and programs that actively strengthen the local economy, nurture the community, and restore the environment. Collaboratively use the community’s decision-making tools to select the projects.

Foster community entrepreneurship : To implement many community projects, employ the business skills and tools of such organizations as co-operatives, community development corporations, land trusts, community stock corporations, development authorities, special purpose districts, and micro-credit lending institutions.

Organize a business network to share information, ideas, and techniques for more sustainable and successful business, to educate the public, and to influence local government to eliminate barriers to sustainable business practices.

Establish a community sustainability plan or better, integrate sustainability into your existing plans. A community, often supported by its local governments, can build on its vision by adopting specific objectives, action items, policies, guidelines, and regulations, all of which can take the form of a formal plan.

Employ continuous learning : Revisit major decisions and actions at predetermined dates following implementation. Central to the establishment of a learning community, this practice determines if actions achieve their intended objectives, and considers new actions based on this feedback. It minimizes unintended consequences. A community that has already identified indicators of sustainability has a sound basis for determining the effects of decisions, and for continuous internal feedback and improvement.

Foster leadership and civic capacity : Through training, events, and organizations, commit local resources to helping existing leaders understand new ideas and creative ways of making decisions. Also, nurture and train the next generation of leaders. And for creative advice and support, hire planners and managers who have experience with new ideas and rapid change.

Your community should not hesitate to take concrete action (#5) before all these pieces are in place. However, long-term success requires building community capacity. Therefore, develop the other listed ingredients in order to integrate sustainability into the fabric of community decision-making, and to achieve your community’s full potential.

 

Business Believes in Natural Capitalism

Don’t be surprised if Natural Capitalism sounds unfamiliar. Rocky Mountain Institute’s book, written also by Paul Hawken, describing it came out only recently. But already its ideas are being adopted by business.

Here’s what corporate leaders are saying : "Your book is hugely important and ought to be on the nightstand of every CEO."
Thomas Petzinger Jr, Millennium Edition
Editor the Wall Street Journal

"As the industrial arm of modern society's larger body struggles to come to terms with the mounting evidence of the damage it is inflicting on the body itself and the body's home, Earth, Natural Capitalism provides some crucially important guidance. Looking for available philosophical starting point ? Here it is. Looking for hard evidence to validate that philosophy ? Here it is. Looking for peace of mind ? Start here."
4. Ray C. Anderson, Chairman and CEO, Interface, Inc.

“Three of the world's best brains have… created a work that future historians may look back upon as a milestone on our way to a new, sustainable economy. In this book you will find a wealth of constructive, forward-looking ideas and suggestions, based on solid scientific research."
Tachi Kiuchi, Managing Director of Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, Chairman of the Future 500

"This book is a 'must read' for those leaders in government and business who do not believe that sustainability is necessary or practical. It shows both the need and the way to all those who are not yet ready to do what we must do to leave a livable world to our grandchildren."
5. Murray Duffin, Vice-president Total Quality and Environmental Management, STMicroelectronics

 

Rocky Mountain Institute

Rocky Mountain Institute is an entrepreneurial, nonprofit organization that fosters the efficient and restorative use of resources to create a more secure, prosperous, and life-sustaining world. Its staff shows corporations, communities, individuals, and governments how to create more wealth and employment, protect and enhance natural and human capital, increase profit and competitive advantage, and enjoy many other benefits—largely by doing what they do far more efficiently. Its work is independent, nonadversarial, and transideological, with a strong emphasis on market-based solutions.

RMI’s community team has developed publications, seminars, problem-solving workshops, lectures, and consulting that help communities strengthen themselves economically while preserving community and environmental values. Publications provide step-by-step instructions for assessing a town's unique conditions and developing practical projects for sustainable development. Seminars teach citizens and professionals how to conduct a community decision-making process that involves people from all walks of life in finding sustainable development solutions. Workshops team residents with outside experts to design creative, workable solutions to important local problems.

 

Published Resources :

Natural Capitalism, Creating the Next Industrial Revolution by Paul Hawken and Amory Lovins and Hunter Lovins.

The new book describes innovative principles and practices for increasing competitiveness in ways that reduce waste and increase productivity. A summary article that appeared in the June Harvard Business Review can be found at www.naturalcapitalism.org. 396 pages. $26.95 Order at www.rmi.org.

Green Development: Integrating Ecology and Real Estate by Wilson, Uncapher, McManigal, Lovins, Cureton, and Browning

Describes an exciting new field where environmental considerations are viewed as opportunities to create fundamentally better buildings and communities. 522 pages. $61.00. Order at www.rmi.org.

Economic Renewal Guide: A Collaborative Process for Sustainable Community Development. by Michael Kinsley

This field-tested manual describes how a few energetic people can help steer their community toward development that's sensitive to local values and the environment. 225 pages $17.95. Order at www.rmi.org.

Communities by Choice: An Introduction to Sustainable Community Development by Mountain Association for Community Economic Development, Berea KY, $1.00. Order at www.communities-by-choice.org

Going Local : Creating Self-Reliant Communities in a Global Age by Michael Shuman

Details how dozens of communities are gaining control over their economies by investing in locally, replacing imports, and by working to eliminate many subsidies and changing tax and trade laws that disempower communities. 270 pages. $25.00 Free Press

Real Towns : Making Your Neighborhood Work By Harrison Bright Rue and the Local Government Commission

Gives local leaders the tools needed to apply the “New Urbanist” principles of traditional neighborhood design to their communities..

 

Web Resources

American Planning Association (Association Américaine pour la Planification)
www.planning.org

Center for Excellence in Sustainable Development (Centre d'Excellence pour le Développement Durable)
www.sustainable.doe.gov

Center for Compatible Economic Dev elopment (Centre pour le Développement Économique Compatible)
www.cced.org

Center for Livable Communities (Centre pour les Communautés Vivables)
www.lgc.org/clc

Citizen Planner Institute (Institut de planification pour les citoyens)
www.citizenplanner.com

Communities by Choice (Des communautés par choix)
www.communities-by-choice.org

Programme EDGE, Université du Nebraska
www. nebraskaedge.unl.edu

Growth Management Institute (Institut de Gestion de la Croissance)
www.gmionline.org

Littleton, Colorado Business Retention Program ( Programme de Rétention Commerciale de Littleton, Colorado)
www.littleton.org/LCN/governme/CommSvcs/GOcomdev.htm

Natural step
www.naturalstep.org

Port Angeles, Washington
www.portofpa.com/citizenship

Remanufacturing Industries Council (Conseil de restructuration industrielle)
www.remanufacturing.org

Renew America
www.solstice.crest.org/environment/renew_america

Rocky Mountain Institute
www.rmi.org.

Sonoran Institute
www.sonoran.org

Sprawl Watch Clearinghouse (Centre d'échange d'informations Sprawl Watch)
www.sprawlwatch.org

Young Presidents Organization (Organisation de jeunes présidents)
http://ypo.org

Zero Emissions Research Initiative (Initiative pour la Recherche sur l'Émission zéro)
www.zeri.org

Contact :

Michael Kinsley, Responsable de l'équipe communautaire
kinsley@rmi.org
1739 Snowmass Creek Rd.
Snowmass CO 81654
(970) 927-3851 fax : 4510