French Ties

In my role as a co-principle investigator in the Baltimore Ecosystem Study I was thrilled to participate last week in the 2d France-US Urban Ecology workshop in Baltimore.

The BES is one of two National Science Foundation-sponsored long term studies of cities as ecosystems. At the BES annual meeting last week, BES scientists and research teams continued to refine our understanding of how cities work in powerful ways. In recent years, for example, BES studies have shown that riparian zones (vegetation along the banks of rivers and streams) do not operate in cities the way they operate in rural and suburban areas. In urban areas, the change in the rate of flow is so great that the riparian zones simply cannot serve to filter stormwater and pollution they way they do in rural areas. As such, the true riparian zone in cities is the urban tree canopy as a whole, which filters stormwater before it even gets into the storm sewers and then into the streams.

Stormwater runoff in the context of a changing climate was one of the common themes that emerged in the conversations between the French-US teams that followed the BES annual meeting. Two other fascinating topics that the teams will be working on together: The role for scientists in desiging and implementing the Urban Environmental Accords, UN-sponsored action plans for buidings sustainable cities, signed by over 100 cities since 2005, and also the concept of territoire, or the concept or sense of space created by public process and participation. On this last project, a team of natural and social scientists will be exploring the use of territoire as a method for integrating the social and natural sciences in urban planning. Heady stuff, and yet both of these projects seek to bring French and US research teams into the discussion of how we manage cities in the 21st Century.

Solar Cities

Building sustainable cities requires innovation and partnerships at every level of government. In this political season, the debate over the role of government is reduced to sound bites over where there ought to be more or less government. As with all political discourse these days, that seems to miss the point.

At issue for sustainable cities is not whether local governments will be involved, it is how to redesign the role of government so that innovation can flourish. The Solar America Cities project is a good example. In 25 cities across the country, local governments are working with the Department of Energy, universities, non-profits and the private sector to develop sustainable solar power infrastructure by removing regulatory and other barriers to the implementation of solar power projects in each city. The cities are working to integrate solar power into city plans and zoning codes, to streamline city regulatory processes such as permitting and inspections and to promote adoption of solar power in the private sector through incentive programs, outreach and education.

The programs and practices in each of these 25 pilot cities should provide significant data as well as models for adoption by cities across the country. Building by building, neighborhood by neighborhood, solar projects will reduce the climate footprint of a city and its residents and work force. Look for solar panels soon on a school or business near you--here comes the sun.

The Costs of Meltdown

It is the nature of a crisis that we tend to focus on the problems in front of us. It is the nature of our democracy that we tend to solve problems in two and four years chunks. Remarkable, therefore, that during 2007 and 2008 we saw systemic changes in environmental business practices and legislative structures that looked across decades and not months. In the Summer of 2008, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts passed a suite of environmental statutes that truly change the regulatory landscape and that speak in terms of decades and not months or even years.

Similarly, I spent yesterday consulting to the Sustainability Committee of the Tree Care Industry Association (TCIA). The Association's board has committed itself to "Contribute to sustainable communities by promoting the environmental and economic value of maintaining healthy trees," and now the staff and dedicated members, small business owners all, are working on a sustainability strategy for the industry. Present at the meeting was a Vice President for a supplier to the tree care industry, a major manufacturing company that itself launched a sustainability strategy last year. As he described it, the company came to sustainability because of a concern over costs, and found that recycling steel in their manufacturing process saves the company $6 million per year. What followed was a company-wide explosion of interest in sustainability and a commitment to exploring environmentally sounds practices across the company--a culture shift. This VP reported that the company had changed forever and that he was urging his colleagues not to feel guilty about how they got to the table (reducing costs) and rather to focus on sustaining the momentum.

A true tragedy of the timing of this financial crisis then is that it comes at a time that new institutions were beginning to take sustainability seriously. Most of the Massachusetts legislative initiatives require new staff at the state level--and the Governor is sure to require a hiring freeze as the state looks at massive deficits and as the Treasurer cannot even borrow against current receivables. Quite apart from the fact that sustainability practices save money, layoffs and slowdowns will inevitably blunt the momentum within companies like the one I met yesterday as well. This morning in the Boston Globe, there is a story about the businesses, big and small, that are struggling in the face of the credit crisis. The point, of course, is that the financial meltdown is already hitting main street and has been for a long time. The article suggests we take a wider view on how this current crisis effects a broader scope of people and of issues--how it touches or will touch lives outside Wall Street and institutions and issues far removed from a handful of investment banks.

A new challenge, then, for the coming several years: How do we sustain the momentum for deep and systemic change in a climate of fiscal crisis?