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February 9, 2009

Want to be more sustainable? First, define it

By ROGER VALDEZ
Special to the Journal

Valdez

There are as many definitions of sustainability as there are people who care about the issue. Platitudes about environmental degradation almost always include the word “sustainability” and now it has taken its place alongside meaningless terms like “proactive,” “value added” and “win-win.”

Sustainability gets used interchangeably with words like “green,” “environmentally sensitive” and “green building.” To builders, “sustainable” applies to material. To a salmon advocate it means sound water policy and to someone working on climate change, it means reducing the vehicle miles traveled in our region. The word has become all things to all people.

Seattle even has the Office of Sustainability and Environment, with the laudable but broad goal of collaborating with “city agencies, business groups, nonprofit organizations, and other partners to protect and enhance Seattle's distinctive environmental quality and livability.”

What is sustainability?
Words like affordable, sustainable and livable are thrown around regularly in conversations about how Seattle should grow. But we want to know what these words actually mean, and how the city can achieve them.

Today, SeattleScape blogger Roger Valdez introduces the topic of sustainability. An upcoming editorial page will offer 50-word definitions of sustainability provided by members of the community, including elected officials, organizers and A/E/C industry players. Bloggers at the DJC blog SeattleScape will also weigh in. We hope you will join in the discussion. Here’s how you can participate:

• Email our AE editor, Shawna Gamache, at shawnag@djc.com with your thoughts or 50-word submittals for the page.

• Join the discussion at SeattleScape at https://www.djc.com/blogs/SeattleScape/.

The Brundtland Commission defined sustainable as meeting “the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” This language — borrowed from the Iroquois — is comforting, but can it help us make sensible land use policy?

It is time to develop a definition of the word that is tied to measurable outcomes. Change begins with measurement.

Sustainability is an economic concept, like return on investment. Economies aren't just about money, but about the relationships between production, distribution and consumption. Our bodies, our physical environment and our time all have economies.

We can assess sustainability by asking whether something (a project, a plan or a policy) consumes only as much as it can viably produce or less. Our activities should generate long-term profit whether that profit takes the form of excess energy, materials, dollars or other measurable benefits.

Planning, building, eating and living should generate something extra for future use. For example, developable land should not lay fallow and we should replace impermeable surfaces with permeable ones. Some areas should be up-zoned for more housing and others should be depaved for open space and urban farming.

Imagine a city that produces its own food, energy and goods. This vision of sustainability is possible with a definition, a plan and a system of accountability.

Roger Valdez is a blogger on the DJC's SeattleScape blog and a former city council and legislative staffer. He now works as a consultant with an interest in using zoning to support neighborhood arts and cultural organizations.


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