Dear Norm and all:

After tumbling in the non-profit world for a decade I don't want to be bruised again by "well meaning" bullies. My experience is that the people who operate organizations such as Entrepreneurs for Sustainability, Green City Blue Lake, the Ohio Sierra Club chapter (the NEO Sierra Club group is pretty good), and the more recent leaders of the Cleveland Green Building Coalition (now a chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council) can be welcoming and supportive of volunteers, to a point. Then these leaders somehow forget they are dealing with people who deserve respect. I try to forgive them. This is best done by walking away. Apparently it is their city, not mine.

Lee Batdorff

Mr. Appreciative Inquiry strikes again.

Okay, Sudhir, let's approach all this in a REALNEO/REAL COOP-appreciative way, as should be.

As you know, a core layer of REALNEO's taxonomy is your categories of "Sustainability". Therefore, most content on REALNEO in some way or other relates to making this a "Sustainable" place in 2019, and every year before and after.

In fact, we have broad categories - tags - for each of the six sustainability categories, and many related subcategory tags, so the related content is well organized, to the extent members have used this feature.

REALNEO/REAL COOP is a community of active individuals who drive many sustainability initiatives forward from within and beyond REALNEO, and REAL COOP - innovating as an organization in the process. Sustainable Cleveland 2019 is an appropriate time to appreciate our role in the sustainability planning processes and community, for the future.

What we as a community offer to the organizers of Sustainable Cleveland 2019 is one of the greatest forums in the world on sustainability, complete with engaged membership from within this community and worldwide, that has assembled 1,000s of articles on making this a more sustainable place. 1,000,000s of people have viewed these articles and many have posted comments - these are well articulated and discussed concepts developed in an open, appreciative and technologically sophisticated and inclusive way.

And we go back to 2004.

And, in fact, I proposed just that for Voices and Choices, and Green City Blue Lake, and Jump Start, and to David Nash and the other organizers of the Wind Advisory Task Force, for developing our wind cluster and economy as an open community.

Between now and the conference, we as a community may organize our content in a way that is useful to the objectives and structure of Sustainable Cleveland 2019 - elevate this to the level of "Office of the Citizen" - and we may develop insight to address specific needs and strategies of the organizers of Sustainable Cleveland.

We may also integrate insight developed through the process into the REALNEO community, by being the Sustainable Cleveland 2019 community... there is no sense in Sustainable Cleveland 2019 wasting money on yet another virtual community.

Everyone involved with Sustainable Cleveland 2019 is welcome to set up an account on REALNEO to participate in all of this, for free.

I'll see if the sponsors of the REAL COOP INFO FOOD initiatives believe this is a good focus area for our roll-out efforts, in which case there may be some funds available to make some quick enhancements to REALNEO in time to better support this collaboration, if of interest to the other members of REAL COOP.

I'll post about this more, on REALNEO, and touch base on this with the people who have invited me to Sustainable Cleveland 2019, and you are welcome to explore this with your contacts as well. Post your thoughts.

Disrupt IT

Dear Sudhir:

When I moved back to NEO, five years ago, I found the interpretation of "Sustainability" here, and the "Sustainability Movement" and community, to be very controlled and confining, and not open to discussion... much like I've found with the "social computing" movements and community here. 

As an environmentalist, I find this situation disturbing. I believe the starting place for any appreciative brainstorming on what may a "sustainable" Cleveland be, in 2019, must begin with development of understanding of what is sustainability, to which stakeholders, by stakeholder - an appreciative inquiry into the state of the sustainability vision and community in real NEO, and what we want that to be in 2019.

This is not a concern isolated to NEO - this is a global issue, at the definitional level. 

From Wikipedia:

Sustainability, in a broad sense, is the capacity to endure. In ecology the word describes how biological systems remain diverse and productive over time. For humans it is the potential for long-term maintenance of wellbeing, which in turn depends on the wellbeing of the natural world and the responsible use of natural resources.

Sustainability has become a wide-ranging term that can be applied to almost every facet of life on Earth, from a local to a global scale and over various time periods. Long-lived and healthy wetlands and forests are examples of sustainable biological systems. Invisible chemical cycles redistribute water, oxygen, nitrogen and carbon through the world's living and non-living systems, and have sustained life for millions of years. As the earth’s human population has increased, natural ecosystems have declined and changes in the balance of natural cycles has had a negative impact on both humans and other living systems.

There is now abundant scientific evidence that humanity is living unsustainably. Returning human use of natural resources to within sustainable limits will require a major collective effort. Since the 1980s, human sustainability has implied the integration of economic, social and environmental spheres to: “meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”[2]

Efforts to live more sustainably can take many forms from reorganising living conditions (e.g., ecovillages, eco-municipalities and sustainable cities), reappraising economic sectors (green building, sustainable agriculture), or work practices (sustainable architecture), using science to develop new technologies (green technologies, renewable energy), to adjustments in individual lifestyles.

Definition

The three pillars of sustainability.[3]

Although the definition of sustainable development (above), given by the Brundtland Commission, is frequently quoted,[4] it is not universally accepted and has undergone various interpretations.[5][6] Definitions of sustainability may be expressed as statements of fact, intent, or value with sustainability treated as either a "journey" or "destination."[7] Where we are now, where we need to be going, and how we are to get there are all open to interpretation[8] and will depend on the particular context under consideration.[9] What can meaningfully be described as sustainable will depend on the scale of space and time that is appropriate to the item under consideration. For example, if time criteria have not been met, then assertions of sustainability are more like predictions than definitions.[10] This difficult mix has been described as a dialogue of values that defies consensual definition.[11] Sustainability has been regarded as both an important but unfocused concept like "liberty" or "justice"[12][13] and as a feel-good buzzword with little meaning or substance.[14][15] The idea of sustainable development is sometimes viewed as an oxymoron because development inevitably depletes and degrades the environment.[16] Consequently some definitions either avoid the word development and use the term sustainability exclusively, or emphasise the environmental component, as in "environmentally sustainable development."[17]

Another representation showing economy and society bounded by the environment.[18]

The dimensions of sustainability are often taken to be: environmental, social and economic, known as the "three pillars".[19] These can be depicted as three overlapping circles (or ellipses), to show that they are not mutually exclusive and can be mutually reinforcing.[20] While this model initially improved the standing of environmental concerns,[21] it has since been criticised for not adequately showing that societies and economies are fundamentally reliant on the natural world. According to English environmentalist and author Jonathon Porritt, "The economy is, in the first instance, a subsystem of human society ... which is itself, in the second instance, a subsystem of the totality of life on Earth (the biosphere). And no subsystem can expand beyond the capacity of the total system of which it is a part."[22] For this reason a second diagram shows economy as a component of society, both bounded by, and dependent upon, the environment. As the American World Bank ecological economist Herman Daly famously asked, "what use is a sawmill without a forest?"[23] The concept of living within environmental constraints underpins the IUCN, UNEP and WWF definition of sustainability: "improving the quality of human life while living within the carrying capacity of supporting eco-systems."[24]

The Earth Charter goes beyond defining what sustainability is, and seeks to establish the values and direction needed to achieve it: "We must join together to bring forth a sustainable global society founded on respect for nature, universal human rights, economic justice, and a culture of peace. Towards this end, it is imperative that we, the peoples of Earth, declare our responsibility to one another, to the greater community of life, and to future generations."[25]

Disrupt IT