The Natural Step, Sustainability in Madison, and Nonprofit Organizations
The speakers in the fourth lecture demonstrated how the raw concepts we have been learning about in previous classes get applied, with a focus on the city level. First, Lisa gave a talk explaining the Natural Step framework. I had already read the Natural Step paper on the course page, and I knew about the four system conditions (nature is not subject to systematically increasing…), so when I saw the title of her talk, I was wary that I would not get much out of it.
However, the opposite proved true. It is fascinating when you start to think beyond the theory and the framework, and actually visualize and decide how to implement sustainable policies. Lisa focused on creating a shared language that everyone can understand to accelerate our ability to work in a common direction. From an engineers’ perspective, I think we understand technical concepts, and we get excited about calculations, data, analysis of models, and so forth. In fact a lot of the time we are so full of ideas that we neglect to consider the actions necessary to successfully implement them. At times, we struggle to explain ideas in a way other people can understand. And as a result, the ideas of engineers suffer because they don’t get the feedback from a wide variety of people that can be so valuable. If only engineers made decisions, we would all probably be overwhelmed by technology and end up sacrificing personal freedoms. For example, I am a proponent of developing offshore wind in the United States, but if we put wind turbines all across the ocean, what would the coastline look like? Would it be worth it to alter the view of the sun setting over the ocean? Would the turbines affect migratory patterns of whales? Would it be too expensive? These are all questions that need input from a wide variety of people. And that is the main point I took away from Lisa’s talk: to stay flexible within the framework, and to incorporate a variety of people into the discussion who can understand each other through a shared language to make changes happen quickly. I particularly enjoyed her discussion relating the experience of Sera Architecture at the end of class, outlining how they made changes literally overnight to remove individual trash cans from the office, recycle notebooks, use different utensils, etc. This was a perfect example of how the framework of the Natural Step was implemented successfully.
As a long time resident of Madison, I took an interest in Jeanne’s talk about the Madison Sustainability Plan. At first, the plan seemed vague to me, and I grew skeptical that the new Office of Sustainability in the City of Madison was just another example of the bureaucracy in action. I have phrases in my notes like ‘fostering environmental, economic, and social resilience’ and ‘building a green capital city’ which don’t mean much to me on their own. But in the short time she had, Jeanne cited a few concrete examples and emphasized similar ideas to those Lisa had discussed. It was great to hear the city was saving paper by setting the printers to default print two-sided pages. As someone who has seen outrageous paper sprawl in the offices of the Wisconsin DOT, this idea makes a lot of sense to me. I believe Jeanne also cited plans for community wind and solar projects, as well as novel ideas for urban planning from a class right here at the UW, and various building energy efficiency improvements, that could be used (and are being used) by the city to become more sustainable and save money. What a great example of good government to save taxpayers money and become more sustainable at the same time.
Finally, I thought Kristen’s talk about the nonprofit Sustain Dane offered some unique and valuable perspectives. I always see myself working for a large infrastructure or energy company, so I had not given a lot of thought to nonprofits in the past. But now I am starting to pay a lot more attention to say the least. Kristen was forthright in explaining that nonprofits technically have no direct policy-making power and are often dependent on donations and sponsorships. But, her key point was that nonprofits use their resources to achieve some mission in service of the public good. They educate the public about important issues and foster great ideas and facilitate sound policies. I always talk about the need for people to really search for the truth in our era of blogospheres and cable news and mindless information everywhere, and I see nonprofits being able to combat this sort of distracted mindlessness, which so often leads to awful policies. Her example of Badger Rock Middle School providing healthier lunch choices at school was a perfect example of how nonprofits help from the bottom-up. I think these types of smaller changes at the community level really get peoples’ attention and build support for sustainable ideas on higher levels of government.