Well, after almost 10 weeks of Sustainability and Community Relations I see it fit to recount what I've learned and apply it to my experience in the working world. As a local government employee for 3 years I see so many downfalls to the approach we take to sustainability and waste management.
Working in the solid waste and environmental realm, I tried endlessly to punch out educational brochures and fancy web pages to entice the public to reduce waste and learn what can/cannot go in curbside recycling bins. I had a read though "Fostering Sustainability", which I've already referenced and realized that brochures are useless. The local government needs to take more proactive approach to education. If I could do it again, I'd love to initiate discussion panels, open houses, and learn from the people that I am trying to teach before I try to teach them. Consultation with the people you are trying to reach is key to ensuring understanding of differing values.
In the region where I worked there was a diverse mix of people from First Nations, loggers, low-income families, pulp mill workers, and activists. An educational campaign tailored to each party may have been more successful than the blanket approach we took.
Also, in having stepped back from my role, I see the lack of trust the public had in the local government. Success in future public participation may be increased if this issue is tackled. Unfortunately, I have no solution for how to do such a thing. Perhaps a slow and deliberate actions that involved the empowerment of the community, which thus far has not really be done.
In 10 weeks I feel more prepared and informed on how to achieve the tasks I was set to do in 3 years of my job.
On an aside: My lovely neighbour, who I previously blogged about has been in the hospital for 2 weeks. Similar to the decrease in social capital that you get when consistently driving to work, I feel my decrease in social capital in her absence.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Paradise off the Grid?
I came across this article this morning while searching for blogpost inspiration. On the border of Nicaragua and Costa Rica, a community is being built thanks to the help of American surfer Donn Wilson. He is building a community called Las Fincas de Escamequita that is completely off the grid. It relies on solar power, reuse of grey water and sewage. It borders a 300 hectare portion of wildlife reserve and is a stones throw away from the ocean. It is not a highly advertised development in hopes of only attracting those that "belong there". Restrictions are put in place for building footprint, height and use of land.
Wilson hopes to have a common area where people can get together, do yoga, have coffee and generally hang out. It appears that mostly North Americans are flooding to this development in hopes of increasing their 'spirituality' and general 'wellness'. One home owner in Las Fincas said, "... if you look on the beach, it’s all Nicaraguan families. What Donn is doing is admirable, and it’s such a commitment for him.”
I agree with what the development is doing to limit its environmental footprint and enjoy 'living off the land'. I think it's great that they are so committed to living a minimalist lifestyle, however, I feel a small disappointment for the local Nicaraguans who simply don't have the money to afford living in this development. In such a poor country, this development must seem like the "Emily Carr Drive" or "Oak Bay" of the area. It is restrictive for the locals, though they may live close by. I just don't foresee a lot of mingling between the two groups. To me, this simply goes against the true definition of community.
What about affordable housing for the locals, what about rebates, or support for the locals to move into this area? How could Wilson create a more multi-cultural development? After all diversity has such a positive impact on social capital. Why not integrate and benefit from each others knowledge? Most importantly, give the locals a meaningful say in how this development is planned out.
A portion of the sales proceeds goes to helping the neighbouring local community rebuild infrastructure, but again, the communities are kept separate. I'd love to see this community flourish with integration, consultation and contribution from all parties.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
More Sewage Talk
Before I delve into today's topic I'll just address my last post. It was quite fortuitous in regard to my mention of Judy Brownoff. I complained about the lack of community engagement on the topic of sewage treatment, and lo and behold Councilor Judy Brownoff comes to our classroom asking for input on ways to get the community involved on that very issue. My wish came true! It seems that Councilor Brownoff, the chair of the Sewage Committee is keen to get as many members of the public involved as necessary. That's brings me to my topic for the day.
In passing, Judy Brownoff mentioned that the Town of Colwood is potentially looking at leaving the group of core municipalities to address the issues of sewage treatment independently. I looked into this and found an article with statements from the Colwood Mayor Dave Saunders and CRD CAO, Kelly Daniels. It appears that Saunders is keen on opting out of the multi-billion dollar project in hopes that he can find something cheaper for his taxpayers. While fundamentally I agree with the idea of reducing costs to tax-payers, there are other issues that need to be looked at before decisions like this should be made.
While Saunders was explicit about his intent for private sewage treatment separate from the CRD he failed to mention the details of the opt out process. Daniels at the CRD states that "it's extremely rare for a municipality to opt out of a regional service, and it typically results in a long and expensive review and arbitration process". He goes further to say that though separation is possibility they may still be held responsible for costs of the CRD sewage treatment project.
This is a great example of the need for education and public involvement in these processes. The Mayor of Colwood received votes on his platform for private sewage treatment by appealing to the residents pocket book. This is the simplest method of acheiveing support while avoiding public education on the issue (McKenize-Mohr, 1999).
I think that if Judy Brownoff's education campaign and public committees could take flight before this issues comes to a head, the residents of Colwood may realize the detriment of a decision like this. Not only would it cost time and money in arbitration, but the outcome of avoiding costs is not definite.
My two cents on the issue is that as a larger community (all core municipalities), we can come to a conclusion that will benefit all parties through education, research and collaboration.
Works Cited
McKenzie- Mohr, D. (1999). Fostering Sustainable Behaviour. New Society Publishing. Gabriola Island, BC.
In passing, Judy Brownoff mentioned that the Town of Colwood is potentially looking at leaving the group of core municipalities to address the issues of sewage treatment independently. I looked into this and found an article with statements from the Colwood Mayor Dave Saunders and CRD CAO, Kelly Daniels. It appears that Saunders is keen on opting out of the multi-billion dollar project in hopes that he can find something cheaper for his taxpayers. While fundamentally I agree with the idea of reducing costs to tax-payers, there are other issues that need to be looked at before decisions like this should be made.
While Saunders was explicit about his intent for private sewage treatment separate from the CRD he failed to mention the details of the opt out process. Daniels at the CRD states that "it's extremely rare for a municipality to opt out of a regional service, and it typically results in a long and expensive review and arbitration process". He goes further to say that though separation is possibility they may still be held responsible for costs of the CRD sewage treatment project.
This is a great example of the need for education and public involvement in these processes. The Mayor of Colwood received votes on his platform for private sewage treatment by appealing to the residents pocket book. This is the simplest method of acheiveing support while avoiding public education on the issue (McKenize-Mohr, 1999).
I think that if Judy Brownoff's education campaign and public committees could take flight before this issues comes to a head, the residents of Colwood may realize the detriment of a decision like this. Not only would it cost time and money in arbitration, but the outcome of avoiding costs is not definite.
My two cents on the issue is that as a larger community (all core municipalities), we can come to a conclusion that will benefit all parties through education, research and collaboration.
Works Cited
McKenzie- Mohr, D. (1999). Fostering Sustainable Behaviour. New Society Publishing. Gabriola Island, BC.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
A perfect Example of Lack of Community Engagement
Last quarter my group and I chose to do a project on the pros and cons of implementing sewage treatment in Victoria. Our research led us to realize that there just isn't a lot of information out there. The CRD has a dedicated site fo this topic and when you go to "Educational Materials" there aren't any! It tells me how I can reduce/improve my own waste water discharge, but that's about it.
It's been such a touch and go topic; it's been in the news, then it disappears; people are on side with the plans and people aren't. But where do we get this information to make these choices? Dig deep on the CRD website and you might find a copy of the report by the Society and Environmental Toxicology and Chemisty (here's the link).
After digging up whatever information we could about the project I feel I am informed enough to make my own decisions as to how this 'situation' should be dealt with. I won't express my opinion on that, but I will express my opinion on how this whole process has been carried out.
Today in the Times Colonist the sewage treatment issue resurfaced because the CRD has purchased a $6.5 million peice of land near UVic to house a future wastewater treatment plant. As an informed citizen I would like to have the right to be intricately involved in this process. I feel that it may be in the best interest of the CRD to try a very community involved approach they will be fighting NIMBY'ers all the way through. I am thinking back to my community involvement essay and how so little of the typical community engagment techiques have been utilized. The biggest flaw is that there has been little or no education to an extent where people can make informed choices. I know there is a committee for this process made up of various politicians whom I had a part in electing, but what about the rest of the community? Well thankfully, Judy Brownoff has suggested a community advisory group. I think this is a great step to getting the community informed and involved; here's hoping it comesto fruition.
Though the decision for whether or not we need sewage treatment has been made, the decision for how/where it is implemented, what we should be doing with biosolids and whether there is potential for energy production should be something that they entire community of the CRD helps to decide.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Measures of Happiness?
This week we talked about the Happy Planet Index (which makes me want to drink juice) and how it is calculated. It’s one of those measures that provide a number output that indicates how happy a country or community is. It looks like this:
HPI = General Satisfaction X Life expectancy
Ecological Footprint
From a sustainability and community relations point of view, this is an interesting measure. The intent of it is to rate a country based of the three factors and provide a number that can be compared to other countries. However, it’s possible for countries to achieve comparable scores for totally different reasons. For instance, a country with a high life expectancy, and high ecological footprint (e.g. Canada/USA) can have the same score as a country with a lower life expectancy, and a very low ecological footprint (Countries of Africa). This to me is a pretty significant flaw in the calculation. As a result, I decided to see what other happiness indexes I could find. There’s the GINI index (Ling, 2009), and Gross National Happiness (GNH) as outlined by the Centre for Bhutan Studies (Centre of Bhutan Studies, 2008).
The GINI index is based on the distribution of wealth across a country. On a scale of 1, the lower the score the better the distribution of income among the population - if it’s 1 then one person has all the wealth (Ling, 2009). From an economics point of view, the happiness of a community or an individual is a measure of how you compared to others (Krusekopf, 2009). As such, the GINI index seems like it would be a pretty accurate measure of how happy the community may be. The flaw is that is doesn’t take into account any environment al factors. Of course, to an extent, environmental degradation, etc. may not matter to a community (to a point).
GNH is a VERY thorough calculation of happiness. It has 11 different indicators that all contribute to a score of 1. Here are a few of the indicators: Time use, community vitality, cutlure, health, education, environmental diversity, living standard, governance, phychological well-being (Centre fo Bhutan Studies, 2008).
I can’t even begin to go into how it’s calculated, but again, it has the same flaws as the HPI. If it has high scores in certain areas, it may offset low scores elsewhere (Centre fo Bhutan Studies, 2008).
I suppose there are intrinsic difficulties in trying to quantitatively measure something so intangible. Perhaps measures like this should be kept separate and analysed that way. Regardless of the flaws, however, setting goals to achieve high or good ratings in any of these models could go a long way to building a happy community. After all, isn't that what people all over the world have in common?
Works Cited:
Centre for Bhutan Studies. (2008). GHN Methodology. Retreived February 8t, 2009 from http://www.grossnationalhappiness.com/gnhIndex/intruductionGNH.aspx
Krusekopf, C. (2009). Environmental Economics. Lecture proceedings from Royal Roads University, Victoria, BC.
Ling, C. (2009). Social Capital in America. Lecture proceedings from Royal Roads University, Victoria, BC.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Industrial Ecology
Industrial Ecology is a form economic capital. It can contribute to a sustainable community by creating cooperation between industries through waste reduction or reuse (Ling, 2009). Interaction between industries this way can promote positive large scale change not only for the corporations themselves, but for the community. I came across an interesting case study tonight in Kalundborg, Denmark.
Apparently, in 1972 the city relied on a single power station for all power needs. As of 1994 it has evolved into a cluster of power companies all interdependent on each other for material inputs. Apparently the energy savings of operating as a decentralized set of companies has totalled an estimated $10 million per year. How does it all work? It involves 5 different partners all with different business objectives. The partners are
• A coal fired power plant
• And oil refinery
• A pharmaceutical plant
• A manufacturer of gyproc
• The municipality of Kalundborg, which distributes water and electricity to the towns 20,000 people
The treated wastewater from the refinery is used as cooling water for the power station, while the oil refinery and pharmaceuticals company purchase waste steam for use in their processes. Excess heat from the power plant is also used to power the adjacent fish farm. Interestingly, the gyproc company purchases the fly-ash, in the order of 80,000 tonnes per year, from the power plant to use in the manufacturing of their product. I could go on regarding the numerous avenues in which waste products are traded between these industries, but I’ll leave it at those examples.
The benefit of these partnerships, or technological clusters (Ling, 2009) has benefitted the community immensely. The companies have reduced emissions, met or exceed their sustainability goals and provided a cost saving to the community, either through their product or through a cleaner environment (International Institute for Sustainable Development, 2007).
This example makes these interactions seem easy and, although they don’t always work in this ideal manner, it seems beneficial to me for companies to be seeking the use of economic capital in this way.
Works Cited
International Institue for Sustainable Development. (2007). Kalundborg. Retrieved January 29, 2009, from Business and Sustainable Development: http://www.bsdglobal.com/viewcasestudy.asp?id=77
Ling, C. (2009). Types of Social Capital. Victoria: Royal Roads University.
Apparently, in 1972 the city relied on a single power station for all power needs. As of 1994 it has evolved into a cluster of power companies all interdependent on each other for material inputs. Apparently the energy savings of operating as a decentralized set of companies has totalled an estimated $10 million per year. How does it all work? It involves 5 different partners all with different business objectives. The partners are
• A coal fired power plant
• And oil refinery
• A pharmaceutical plant
• A manufacturer of gyproc
• The municipality of Kalundborg, which distributes water and electricity to the towns 20,000 people
The treated wastewater from the refinery is used as cooling water for the power station, while the oil refinery and pharmaceuticals company purchase waste steam for use in their processes. Excess heat from the power plant is also used to power the adjacent fish farm. Interestingly, the gyproc company purchases the fly-ash, in the order of 80,000 tonnes per year, from the power plant to use in the manufacturing of their product. I could go on regarding the numerous avenues in which waste products are traded between these industries, but I’ll leave it at those examples.
The benefit of these partnerships, or technological clusters (Ling, 2009) has benefitted the community immensely. The companies have reduced emissions, met or exceed their sustainability goals and provided a cost saving to the community, either through their product or through a cleaner environment (International Institute for Sustainable Development, 2007).
This example makes these interactions seem easy and, although they don’t always work in this ideal manner, it seems beneficial to me for companies to be seeking the use of economic capital in this way.
Works Cited
International Institue for Sustainable Development. (2007). Kalundborg. Retrieved January 29, 2009, from Business and Sustainable Development: http://www.bsdglobal.com/viewcasestudy.asp?id=77
Ling, C. (2009). Types of Social Capital. Victoria: Royal Roads University.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Where the Hell is Matt?
I might be slow in picking up on the latest youtube videos, so I apologize if this is old news for some. Tonight my husband showed my this video in response to hearing me talk about my sustainability class on Thursday.
Similar to our talk on engaging communities, and breaking down barriers/borders (in the case of the first nations band that Judy provided as an example) I can see no better example than this video. Apparently it all started out as a blog for Matt. Whenever he was expecting to be in a city, he posted what time and where he would be. At each location he would dance. You can see the progression of him dancing by himself, but as more and more people became aware, they joined in.
He ended up doing the same dance in 42 different countries with thousands of people eventually dancing alongside him. What a sense of community and openness a clever activity like this has to those involved. It breaks down all language barriers, and engages and motivates people to join in.
The success of his blog and multi-country dancing can likely be attributed to consistency, open invitation, and fun. He kept posting on his blog, he followed through with his posts and made each episode fun (who can't have fun while randomly bursting into dance?!). In researching for the 409 paper I am finding that these three are key to successful communitty engagement. Whether he knows it or not, he's done quite a job at mustering a wide range of involvement.
Though his dancing, in the end was sponsored by a private company it just goes to show how creative methods like this can be so successful in getting people together.
His blog for more information: www.wherethehellismatt.com
Similar to our talk on engaging communities, and breaking down barriers/borders (in the case of the first nations band that Judy provided as an example) I can see no better example than this video. Apparently it all started out as a blog for Matt. Whenever he was expecting to be in a city, he posted what time and where he would be. At each location he would dance. You can see the progression of him dancing by himself, but as more and more people became aware, they joined in.
He ended up doing the same dance in 42 different countries with thousands of people eventually dancing alongside him. What a sense of community and openness a clever activity like this has to those involved. It breaks down all language barriers, and engages and motivates people to join in.
The success of his blog and multi-country dancing can likely be attributed to consistency, open invitation, and fun. He kept posting on his blog, he followed through with his posts and made each episode fun (who can't have fun while randomly bursting into dance?!). In researching for the 409 paper I am finding that these three are key to successful communitty engagement. Whether he knows it or not, he's done quite a job at mustering a wide range of involvement.
Though his dancing, in the end was sponsored by a private company it just goes to show how creative methods like this can be so successful in getting people together.
His blog for more information: www.wherethehellismatt.com
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