Science & Outdoors
“Building Communities” webinar stresses sustainability
Science & Outdoors Reporter
The first session of the “Building Communities” webinar series, “Setting the Stage: Sustainability and Sustainable Community Development,” took place on Oct. 21, 2008.
Greg Wise, the director of the Center for Community and Economic Development, served as the moderator for the session, relaying questions and comments from the audience to the presenter, Kelly Hawke Baxter.
Baxter began her presentation with a description of the Natural Step Framework, which is a plan that helps members join together and organize a plan to make their community more sustainable.
Baxter is currently the executive director of the Natural Step Canada, a non-profit organization that helps individuals, businesses and communities prioritize their environmental decision making.
“We address the root causes of our unsustainability,” Baxter said. “Having a plan allows communities to reflect on their unique situations and discover innovative solutions.”
Baxter also outlined the process of creating a successful community plan. The five phase process included structuring, creating a shared understanding, analyzing strategy areas, action planning and ongoing monitoring/implementation.
Sustainable community planning should be a democratic process in which a “wide spectrum of community participants are involved in shaping the program,” Baxter said.
Another main point Baxter stressed was backcasting, or “beginning with the end in mind.” Communities should have a vision of what they want to achieve, then relate that back to where they are in achieving that goal.
“Identify the gap between where we are today and future success,” Baxter said.
Baxter cited Whistler, British Columbia, as an example of a community with a successful sustainability plan. According to Baxter, Whistler citizens hope to be fully sustainable by the year 2020.
Dr. Anna Haines, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, said that Baxter’s presentation covered some of the same concepts that she teaches in her natural resources and land use planning classes.
Joe Kottwitz, a student of Haines’ who was also in attendance, said many of the topics he heard about in Baxter’s presentation were familiar to him. The Whistler example was news to Kottwitz, who said he had not heard about the town’s plan before and thought the concept was interesting.
“I like to learn from case studies, things that have been done before,” Kottwitz said.
The next session of the “Building Communities” ebinar on energy efficiency will be held Nov. 18. The presentation will be shown at 11:30 a.m. in room 104 in the College of Professional Studies. For more information contact Anna Haines at ahaines@uwsp.edu.
