Sustaining Sustainable “Sustainability”

Here’s a simple test. Look at oral and written presentations about any “sustainable” effort. How many begin with some definition of “sustainability” , often accompanied by observations about differing meanings, or the difficulties of definition? When the speaker feels obliged to define “sustainable”, that spells trouble. This isn’t about the sustainability concept: it’s about shared values and aspirations.

It’s always more powerful to say what you mean. Instead of defining the word or concept, start with the results we can have, and some actions to take us there. Describe those results and actions in concrete terms, and talk about how things are connected, not about the abstraction.

People who are promoting ways of doing things that make sense in the long run, are trying to make the word “sustainability” do too much of their work – and, as a result, are making themselves less clear to their audiences.

The concept is both urgent and useful. Some phrases, like sustainable building practices or sustainable energy use, are relatively easy to understand. Some – like sustainable communities – too often reveal use of a buzz word that weakens the communication, by substituting a familiar-sounding and undefined placeholder to stand in for what the author actually means.

Do a word count in any given piece, of variants on “sustain”. In many of those uses, the writing can quickly become more vivid and much clearer by replacing the catch-all with phrases that say what is actually meant in that sentence. The word stands in for the theoretical underpinning – talk instead about results.

As a noun, “sustainability” is used to describe a way of looking at things: the world as interconnected dynamic systems, human behavior as part of those systems, and long term systemic consequences of human actions.

“Sustainable” when used as an adjective is often useful, if it describes a way of doing things, as in sustainable forestry or sustainable agriculture. But then the emphasis is on the doing, not the conceptualization.

A lot of advocacy communications are premised on the belief that getting more people to understand “Sustainability” will lead to positive social change. And it might. But people who want to influence actions need to focus on what their audience already knows and believes. Inviting them to gather under the flag of Sustainability doesn’t do that. Instead we should be telling stories our audiences already see themselves in, based in shared values and aspirations.

Sustainability is not like Coca-Cola It can’t be treated as a brand name for marketing a profound social shift in practices and perceptions. The policy work is about organizing for power, and leading more institutions and decision makers to change. It’s not marketing. It’s talking in public to make things happen.

“To me, sustainability means doing things that makes sense in the long run,” says Nathan Norris, director of marketing and design for a planned community near Montgomery Alabama. Norris was featured in The National Association of Realtors’ “Common Ground” magazine article “Marketing a Sustainable Future”. That definition is accessible and elegant, and what particularly recommends it is its emphasis on doing things. Norris has plenty of knowledge about “sustainability”, but, because of his expertise in marketing, he describes choices in terms of the direct and immediate benefits to his audience. He says that broad changes won’t result from people making new  choices because of our responsibility to look ahead seven generations.  He says “The big change will … come from economic self-interest.”

The article also quotes Candace Lightner, who sells real estate through Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage She knows about selling, and about influencing public action – she founded Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Lightner recommends to her fellow realtors that, instead of talking about sustainability and hard science, they talk about making homes healthier and safer, as well as more comfortable, cost effective and durable. “Green sounds too far out there,” she said. “Energy efficiency is more interesting, more something you can touch.”

Advocates for “sustainable communities” can increase the clarity and power of their language by not leaning, unsustainably, on the buzz word, and instead, by talking about the things we can touch.

Would you rather be Green than Red White & Blue?

There are two kinds of competition unfolding over the projected economic stimulus package, and we would all do well to develop strategy that recognizes the difference between them.

The specifics of the appropriation are of course a competition for dollars: will spending on transportation infrastructure continue to reflect the lopsided 80-20 split for highways over transit that has prevented America from developing cheaper and more efficient ways to move goods and services?  Will an emphasis on “shovel-ready” projects lead to unwise investments that spend the money quickly at the expense of long-term economic, social and environmental benefits?  This is the nuts and bolts of the fight now playing out in the Congress and new Administration.

But the design and shape of the fight will be determined by the other competition – the rhetorical competition for control of the terms of debate, for naming the game and defining what’s really at stake. On December 24^th, The Washington Post spelled out this competition with its headline, “Green” Jobs Compete for Stimulus Aid Those quotation marks around the word Green mean, “so-called Green” or, watch out for this word which signals the agenda of a special interest.  The article’s lead paragraph makes this explicit:

In one of the first internal struggles of the incoming Obama administration, environmentalists and smart growth advocates are trying to shift the priorities of the economic stimulus plan that will be introduced in Congress next month away from allocating tens of billions of dollars to highways, bridges and other traditional infrastructure spending to more projects that create “green-collar” jobs.

The competition is between “environmentalists and smart growth advocates” and highways, bridges and traditional spending (nice word, traditional – not outmoded, gasoline-intensive, wasteful or inefficient, just traditional).  For the reader who is not a self-identified environmentalist-smart growth believer, “green” is readily understood as somebody else pursuing their own interests, not yours.  The article quotes Representative Baron Hill D- Ind., saying of the stimulus package “I think there are members of our (Democratic) caucus who are trying to make a Christmas tree out of this.” And we all know what color that Christmas tree is.

If you, personally, would rather be “green” than red white and blue, it’s time to examine whether some of your personal underlying ideological biases are helpful to your public speech and advocacy. The unexamined assumptions in promoting “green”, are working against policy that moves us forward, by giving the opposition too much opportunity to marginalize or demonize those policies.  In a recent speech to the National Council for Science and the Environment, writer Thomas Friedman talked about the need to examine our use of the word “green”:

“I believe if you can name an issue you can own that issue… despite what you may think, the people who own the definition of green are actually its OPPONENTS, they own the definition and they define it as liberal, tree-hugging, sissy, girly-man, unpatriotic and vaguely European.”

Friedman correctly points out that the issue isn’t “green” cars, “green” buildings, or “green” jobs, but cars, buildings and jobs that are efficient, technologically innovative, provide the highest return on investment, help us keep what matters to us all, and build for lasting value. This isn’t a special interest of environmentalists and smart growth advocates – it’s a patriotic, mainstream American agenda, in everyone’s interest.

Those of us working toward these goals should stop talking about “green” and start saying what we mean.  We can’t allow the issues to be debated as some interests opposing immediate results for the economy, or opposing some kinds of jobs as not being “green” enough.  People are hurting, and it’s not just the new President who has to show some fast results from the stimulus package.  In fact, every part of the country does have crumbling, neglected roads and bridges that are hazardous, increase congestion costs, and are only going to get more expensive if the neglect continues.  “Fix it first” is a highly resonant slogan, and one that has long been the call of citizens who recognize that we must invest in older existing infrastructure instead of continuing to build farther out in wasteful patterns of growth and development.

The economic stimulus package, and the transportation and land use policies that follow it in the years ahead, will not consist entirely of repair of 20^th century infrastructure, nor entirely of development of the innovative infrastructure (including housing, schools, et al.) that we need now: it’s going to be both.  We can’t afford to spend money on bad ideas; we can’t afford to waste energy or to plan for the past instead of the future.  Every investment we make has to meet the real needs of our cities and towns, and create opportunity for everyone.  That’s not “green”.  It’s red, white and blue.

“…of, by and for the people.”

In Grant Park on election night, President-elect Obama celebrated the unprecedented voter participation by saying “government of the people, by the people, for the people has not perished from this Earth.”  He reached a core value shared by millions of Americans who did not vote for him.

Earlier this year, groups of voters from the Detroit metropolitan region sat down with ActionMedia to discuss their outlook for the area.  They were eager to talk about ideas that might lead to greater economic opportunities, and make Detroit and its suburbs more vibrant places.  As in every part of the country, the residents had serious concerns about how things were going and what the future might hold.

Bill, a business owner without political party preference, was especially frustrated by elected officials acting in their own, not the public’s, interest.  Michael, a college student and Republican, talked about the inability of government to do a really good job at simple jobs such as garbage collection and road repair.  Nicole, a young African American medical technician, said there seemed to be a disconnect between what people want from government and what they are actually getting.

Bill says, “It’s more like a divide between the government and the people.”  “Exactly, ” Nicole agrees, “they’re supposed to work together.”  “That’s perfect — a divide between government and the people,” says Michael.  Bill continues, “The government is not Detroit.  Unfortunately they’re running Detroit, but they’re not Detroit.” “But that’s the problem,” offers Michael.  “The government should be Detroit, the people are the government,” and everyone around the table vigorously agrees.

These citizens were describing something we’ve heard in focus groups around the United States, across all demographics and political beliefs.  Americans feel disconnected from government, that government is a separate force run by self-serving politicians acting in their own interests.  At the same time, these voters are true believers, and reveal an abiding idealism.  They believe deeply in the principle of self-government, and the ideal of participatory democracy.  Many of them have practiced it, at local government levels, sometimes without satisfaction — but even that experience reduces their expectations, not their belief in the ideal.

Advocates for better decisions about land use and the built environment are particularly well-positioned to build from this idealism, especially in its currently robust form.  Whether advocacy is focused on local, State or Federal policies, decisions about what, where and how to build ultimately depend on local governments.

Americans of all political persuasions believe that public processes that engage more people lead to better decisions.  When focus groups are asked what could have made a specific bad decision better, the answer is certain and immediate:  “talk to the people”  “find out what people want” “listen to the people who will be affected.”

This is clearly a time to mobilize citizens to participate in local government decisons.  And it’s more than that.  We have an opportunity to make every land use and development issue a story about public participation, about what people want and a government that does, or does not, listen.  This is a trump value: no public official can refute it, and wider discussion of the options generally strengthens the position of advocates for change.

It’s time to answer Obama’s call from Grant Park: “I will ask you join in the work of remaking this nation the only way it’s been done in America for two-hundred and twenty-one years -  block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand.”

Leadership and the campaign trail

Martin Linsky at the Kennedy School of Government defines leadership as the ability to disappoint your friends at a rate they can absorb.  Candidate Obama now sounds like all Presidential candidates, speaking in calculated phrases and steering toward the middle.  But if you’re disappointed by the televised debates, be assured that President Obama’s leadership will be sorely tested by Linsky’s measure.  His base may not be disappointed by the first few months of the new Administration –  we could and should see significant legislation on several fronts out of the 111th US Congress.  But Obama is no ideologue, and his positions, singly and in several, will inevitably disappoint many progressive Americans.

He’ll take the helm of a government that’s broke, bogged down, and bogus.  Our only hope is the hope his own candidacy has inspired: belief that we can save ourselves and our country, that we can be honest, fair and effective through government of, by and for the people.   It was disappointing in last night’s debate that, when asked what sacrifices he would ask of the American people, he latched onto individual reduction of energy use — the people as consumers, again.   But see his commencement address to Wesleyan University’s Class of 2008 if you want to hear what he knows about the importance of community service , of sacrifice and duty.

That’s the leader we’ll need in the months and years ahead, one who understands that “the Government” and our democracy is only as strong as our belief in ourselves as a self-governing people.  It will be much worse than a disappointment if the President’s speeches and actions fail to inspire the better angels of our nature.    And that failure would not be his alone.

Turn Off The News

A lot of people are walking around shocked by the election news,CNN 09/15 , feeling worse and more scared every day.

But here’s the thing about the “dead heat” polls and the constant poll results being reported as “news”.

To be polled, you have to answer your landline phone — which only half of young people even have. Trying to use the internet instead is dicey at best, in terms of the quality of sample.

To qualify as a respondent, you have to be a likely voter, which has in the past always meant people who voted in the past.

Overall, the polls suggest that today, most people who voted for Bush in ‘04 are for McCain, and most for Kerry are for Obama — our first community organizer President.

The Obama campaign is going to own the ground on Election Day. In cities across America, people are riding buses part of each day, registering voters. Not just the on-line, but the phone-bank and door-knocking are going great and are extremely well-organized, in many key locations under the local supervision of experienced organizers who have been on the job for 5 - 16 months.

Retailers with Obama-ware are selling baby onesies with slogans like My Mama’s for Obama and Barak-A-Bye Baby. Imagine anyone buying such a thing during any past presidential election? One Mom’s group I know of lined up all their kids in their Obama-ware, for a picture to show their children that they’d been part of the election of 2008. And of course, most people who buy onesies are young enough to have babies in diapers. And the young, like African Americans and poor people, have had the lowest voting rates.

In the 2000 election, 76% of the eligible population were registered, and only two-thirds of those, or 51.3% of the total, showed up or were allowed to vote on Election Day. It was a close election. So in 2004 voter registration went up to 79%, and turnout was 69% — the newly registered voted. Still only amounted to 55.3% of the total.

So here’s some advice for the next few weeks.
Quit paying attention to the polls, and turn off the news.
Spend time with young adults.
Show up every day, and then again on Election Day.
Then, keep showing up.

President Obama is not going to make things OK. Like he says, it’s not about him: it’s about us.