Economic Development: Sustainable Strategies
Environmentally sustainable economic growth or “Green Growth” is a new paradigm intended to pursue economic growth without jeopardizing the environment, and ideally creates synergy between the environment and the economy. The following strategies are intended to integrate sustainability into economic development.
Create a Green Economic Development plan document
Identify environmental and economic goals, and assess local and regional opportunities for achieving them. This will require a close analysis of the existing economic base, labor market, environmental conditions, and the potential for building on existing niches.
Lead by example
Engage public sector leadership to set environmental goals and benchmarks for both government operations and local communities; dedicate staff to sustainability issues; convene task forces/advisory councils; and develop sustainable business recognition and promotion programs.
Create demand for green products through procurement policies and green programs
Enact public policies and procurement strategies to drive investment into targeted green economic activity and increase demand for local green-collar workers.
Develop a green-collar workforce and build capacity to “green” existing business processes
Provide entry points for workers with varying skill levels to meet the diverse needs of businesses. Build broad-based green-collar job training partnerships that include stakeholders from the business, nonprofit, environmental, public and education sectors. Provide support to existing local businesses to identify opportunities to “green” their operations.
Strengthen locally owned business and Implement “Buy Local” campaigns
Develop programs and policies to support the development of a diverse set of locally owned businesses. A healthy local economy will have a balance between national, transnational, and local businesses. However, locally-owned businesses have been shown to return a higher percentage of revenue dollars to the local economy than do national chains in terms of taxes, utilization of local suppliers, distributors and service providers, and number of local jobs created. Other benefits include reducing the product carbon footprint due to transportation routes, and increasing transparency and control with regard to compliance of local environmental standards.
Promote sustainable zoning and landuse practices
The physical location of businesses has an impact on their sustainability as well. Sustainable economic development practice in this area will work to develop eco-industrial parks (designed to increase economic efficiency while reducing environmental impact); create green incubators to help green businesses share ideas, customers and services; and develop incentives and land-use policies that encourage businesses (green and otherwise) to locate on existing industrial land, other infill sites, and within transit-oriented developments.
Any party with an interest in an initiative.The related carbon generated from any given activity. For example: one mile of driving an average compact vehicle generates .6 pounds of carbon from the burning of gas. This does not count the embodied energy of the manufacture, maintenance and disposal of the car and nor the construction of the road and its maintenance.
