The journey to become a more sustainable city

What are the key successes and learning points on your journey to become a more sustainable city?

I’ve been asked by the good people at the Eco Technology Show to write a blog about the seminar I’ll be participating in; How to create an Environment Capital. Peterborough has been in this game for a long time, signing up to an Environmental Charter in ‘91 and becoming one of only four Environment Cities in ‘92 and committing to creating the UK’s Environment Capital in 2008. Peterborough Environment City Trust, the organisation I lead, was established in ‘93 with a vision of creating a truly sustainable Peterborough and a mission in support of the Environment Capital aspiration. So what have we learnt and achieved along the way? Here are a few of the key things that spring to mind:

• Define your vision in simple terms that people can understand. We recommend One Planet Living, it’s straightforward and whether or not you agree with climate science you can’t argue that three does not equal one – the reference being to the fact that if everyone lived as we do, by which I mean your average European, we would be using 3 planets’ worth of resources which rather flies in the face of the fact that we only have one.

But remember to move from gloom to vision of a better sustainable future, the win-win of better business, society and environment - as no one likes a doom-monger (see Futerra’s Sizzling Climate Heaven for tips).

• Communicate your vision, both the usual marketing and communications but also some time invested in your key stakeholders. And this isn’t an area for the marketing team, ‘people buy people’ so you need to sell it personally to them. Sitting down face to face with a councillor who has expressed eloquently that sustainability is ‘all well and fine but we don’t have the money for fluffy green stuff’ can be the most effective way to gain a strong supporter. Look for the genuine areas of overlap and understanding to avoid this becoming an argument or an exercise in insincerity; soul destroying on both counts.
• Action it, turn your vision into something concrete. Not that the above isn’t hard but this is the really challenging bit. SMART targets as always are required. We’ve found this to be a juggling act between the constraints of reality and the required action to actually effect the change we need. For example we cannot set a target to reduce car travel to zero by next year, it might be good environmentally speaking but it’s not realistic. However we can set a short-term target to double the number of businesses with travel plans. So the challenge is to set short-term targets that start progress in the right direction, and then to keep pushing these as hard and as quickly as is possible until we are really on track to achieving sustainable, one planet cities.
• Brands and bandwagons - if we are trying to sell and popularise sustainability then brands and bandwagons come into it. I’m not a purist about this, my view is that you need to use the brands and trends in a pragmatic way to achieve your goal. Politics, funding, media focus will continually evolve and change, steer a course through this in the most effective way to achieve progress but without loosing integrity and getting completely lost along the way. In my view way too much time can be wasted worrying about the wording or detail of your brand rather than the essence of what you are trying to achieve.
• Collaboration not competition, we do a lot of head scratching trying to work out what the best way to nail the conundrum of sustainable cities is. We knew we weren’t alone in this so we asked other cities who have similar sustainable aspirations what they were doing and how it was going and so the Sustainable Cities Network was born. A practical forum and space for sharing solutions and discussing challenges and how to overcome them. And its not just the information sharing that is useful but also the shared sense of purpose.
• In it for the long haul… My final snippet is that if you are reading this then my guess is you care about sustainability and what you do for a living. It is a challenge, like almost all worthwhile things in life, and your drive is pretty critical to both your effectiveness and happiness. We won’t win this one quickly so maintaining positive drive through the ups and, more importantly downs is required. I love the short animation The Incomplete Activist but it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, so you need to find what works for you in keeping the faith.

Rachel Huxley, Chief Executive, PECT