Why A Five Year Sustainability Plan?
How and why did we arrive at this point? In 2005, many of you participated in the City’s Master Plan Review. Participants in the master planning process issued a “clarion call”:
. . . for Portsmouth’s future development to be sustainable and balanced. Citizens made clear their preference for investing in long-term solutions that will provide sound stewardship of the community over short-term fixes and temporary remedies.
The following Venn diagram from the Master Plan visually captures what “sustainable and balanced” means:
Sustainability lies within the balance of three systems: economic vitality, ecologic integrity and social equity. As the Master Plan states:
All three systems–the economy, the natural environment, and society–must be carefully nurtured to achieve a healthy, just and efficient state.
The concept of sustainability is all-inclusive. It is not left versus right; liberal versus conservative; or tree hugger versus capitalist. It is about young and old and everyone in between; homeowners and business owners; landlords and tenants. It is not about socioeconomic differences; education or income level. It is about everyone, regardless of the label that we might attach. The process we are offering is about overcoming the labels that divide us so that we can work together to create a community that is truly “sustainable and balanced”.
Through the Master Plan review process, we learned that our city government was already committed to sustainable practices in providing city services, building and maintaining city buildings with LEED certification, and an ever-improving recycling program. As a result of the Master Plan, our municipal government charted an even more aggressive approach to sustainability. The City Council unanimously passed major policy initiatives, including the signing of the U. S. Conference of Mayor’s Climate Protection Agreement and joining the International Cities for Climate Protection Campaign. Portsmouth also became one of the first U. S. cities to adopt the Eco-municipality Designation Resolution. As many of you are aware, this includes the adoption of a systems approach to sustainability through The Natural Step framework. It represented a shift from individual and random acts to a systemic approach that embraces all aspects of municipal functions.
To further this approach, the City appointed a “Sustainability Coordinator” who meets regularly with all department heads to implement sustainable and systematic practices. As a result, municipal actions and policies become more sustainable each year.
The City Council also created a Mayor’s Blue Ribbon Committee on Sustainability to help lead the City towards increased sustainability.
In the community, there has also been substantial activity around sustainability. It is almost impossible to pick up a newspaper, listen to the radio, watch TV, blog or Twitter without hearing about something “green” or “sustainable”. In Portsmouth, the Piscataqua Sustainability Initiative, a grass roots organization, has trained over 200 people on The Natural Step framework through education study circles. There is a “Buy Local” movement; a Green Alliance; and many other “sustainable” organizations. For the past two years, PSI, Portsmouth Listens, the City and the School Department have partnered to create an annual Sustainability Fair, featuring sustainability vendors, practices, policies and programs. By the way, the Third Annual Sustainability Fair will take place in late April or early May, 2010. So, with all this activity, what else needs to be done?
This graph puts it all into perspective:
Municipal buildings and services account for only 2% of our carbon footprint. Despite the City’s best efforts and practices, Portsmouth will not become more sustainable unless we engage the other 98%–that is, you and me, in our homes, our businesses, and in our community. While there are lots of terrific things going on within the community, the “98%” are not going to become engaged through random acts and policy. Rather, it will require a concerted, systemic community effort to make Portsmouth more sustainable. It is time to transform individual and random acts into community synergy.
Recognizing this, the City Council, in 2008, asked the Mayor’s Committee on Sustainability to come up with a 5-Year Sustainability Plan for Portsmouth, the whole community, not just the municipality. For the last year, representatives from the Mayor’s Committee, Portsmouth Listens and PSI have been meeting to create a community conversation to determine: What actions can we take to make Portsmouth the most sustainable place to live and work in for everyone?
Based on Portsmouth’s experience with dialogues on critical issues over the past ten years, we concluded that it was necessary to engage the entire community in a process to come up with answers to that very question. We have learned that if we come together and work together to find answers and develop plans, then we have a much greater chance for successful plans and actions to follow. Sustainability is not just about what government can and will do; it is also about what we must do to make Portsmouth the most sustainable place to live and work in for everyone. That is why we are here.