City Shifters - How on earth should we begin greening our metropolises?

How on earth should we begin greening our metropolises?
By asking the right questions, says The Natural Step.

Dave Cieslewicz, the Mayor of Madison, state capital of Wisconsin, US, has a favourite ‘nuts and bolts’ story about sustainability. We could start by asking the right questions.

“We have this huge converted factory, where we store all our 240 buses overnight,” he explains. “There’s a small part of the building where we fuel them up – and, for the comfort of our employees, we’d been keeping that warm.”

What the council hadn’t registered was that they were unnecessarily heating the bus storage area as well. So in 2007 they bought a door – which cost $70,000, but would pay for
itself, through energy savings, in two years.

Like many green solutions, the Madison bus garage door seems so obvious – but, according to Cieslewicz, it didn’t come about by chance. “It was such a simple answer,” he says. “But you don’t get the right answers unless you ask the right questions.”

What got Madison asking those questions in the first place was its engagement with The Natural Step (TNS) in a radical ‘change process’ to guide it towards the goal of ‘sustainability’ – and help it become one of the first Eco-Municipalities in North America.

TNS’s ‘municipal sustainability planning’ is different from your average city-level strategic plan, explains John Purkis of TNS Canada, in that it doesn’t only involve municipal officials. > download the article below to learn more.

This feature was written by Green Futures - a partntner of The Natural Step.  Sign up for free online updates from Green Futures.

Green Futures is the leading source of information, opinion and debate on progress towards sustainable development. It is published online and in print for senior decision makers in business, the public sector, environmental organisations and the media. In Green Futures, positive visions of a low-carbon, opportunity-rich future sit alongside a practical 'can-do' approach that is grounded in today's business reality.