Integrating Sustainability and Economic Development

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Promoting environmental sustainability and pursuing economic development strategies have typically been considered two separate and (often) competing goals. But times are changing, and a growing body of evidence supports the notion that sustainability typically delivers more enduring and broad-based economic returns. Cities across the continent are beginning to wed environmental sustainability to economic development, looking at investments in a sustainable economy as one tool to build broad-based prosperity.

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Are Climate Action Plans Worthwhile?

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Although it’s clear that we need to curb global greenhouse gas emissions, there’s little consensus on how we go about reaching long-term emissions targets. In fact, we don’t even agree on what those targets should be, whether it’s economically feasible to implement broad emissions reduction strategies, or if it’s already too late to take meaningful action. In the absence of a coherent global or national strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the battle to curb emissions in the U.S. is being waged at the local level.

Depave(ing) to Make Livable Cities

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They don’t call it the concrete jungle for nothing. Miles of sidewalks and acres of asphalt typify many of our urban environments, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Depave, a Portland-based nonprofit, is leading a local effort to transform under-utilized asphalt into spaces for habitat restoration, urban farming, tree planting, native vegetation, and social gathering.