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Community-Based
Environmental Innovation
An important trend within local communities is the development
of a wealth of environmental protection and conservation experiments.
Innovations that combine ecological rationality and sustainability
principles with local economic development—jobs creation,
for example—have begun to blossom around the country.
The best
of these experiments are practical examples of alternative
institutions and projects that nurture ecological rationality
while embodying such positive values as accountability to
the community and democratic participation. Though often small-scale
and fragmentary, they help point toward elements of a grounded
vision of how communities can step-by-step begin to implement
a sustainable development strategy. More than theories about
community sustainability, many innovations are beginning to
produce an actual enhancement of community life through better
environmental quality, waste management, eco-efficient transportation,
food of improved quality and sound practices of land management
and use.
Of particular
interest are efforts that embody a non-traditional ownership
and authority structure, such as municipally-owned enterprises,
community development corporations, worker or community-owned
businesses, cooperatives, and public-private partnerships.
Among the types of environmental innovations the National
Center is surveying are institutions and programs focused
on:
- Agriculture
(community supported agriculture; urban gardening; farmer's
markets)
- Green
construction and design (alternative building design and
materials for resource conservation; municipal "green" building
standards; community building projects)
- City-wide
environmental agendas (integrated municipal projects for
energy, water and resource conservation; transportation
and land-use planning for "liveable," walkable cities; greenbelt
and anti-sprawl initiatives)
- Energy
(efficiency; alternative generation; electricity cooperatives;
municipal energy enterprises)
- Green
business ("green" goods and services; scrap-based manufacturing;
eco-industrial parks)
- Community
greening (parks and greenspaces; urban forestry; "brownfield"
redevelopment; community land trusts)
- Military
base conversion (building deconstruction; reuse and "green"
renovation; civilan mixed-use development on former bases;
community business incubators)
- Transportation
(transit-oriented development; mass transit; solar-powered
vehicles; fuel cells; car sharing; bicycle and walking encouragement
plans)
- Waste
reduction (municipal composting and recycling partnerships;
reuse operations)
- Water
(conservation/efficiency; retrofit programs; "gray-water"
systems; biological wastewater treatment; constructed wetlands
and integrated pond systems)
Other Models
& Innovations include:
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