Regional Sustainability Summit Summaries

The Common Ground Agenda

 From February 14^th to 16th, 2003, over 70 individuals gathered at the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education in Philadelphia and, in spite of two major snowstorms, created a common agenda for sustainability in the Delaware Valley.   The text that follows is the consensus common ground agenda to which all participants agreed, reflecting a vision for the year 2010 and after:

 A.  Housing

We call for sustainable green affordable housing for all, created within an effective, equitable, regional watershed-based plan that offers choices of walkable, mixed use villages and revitalized urban centers in which diverse, harmonious, fully engaged communities can thrive including economic equity in our educational system.

B.  Ecosystems

We pledge as part of our ecosystem

to restore and protect all ecosystems through comprehensive land use planning in ways that balance the needs of all species

maximize open space and protect wilderness and farmlands

use biomimicry* for technological development solutions

* nature as mentor, model and measure

 C.  Sustainable Education

To promote sustainability and responsibility as a centerpiece of both formal and informal education available for all ages

D. Food

We support availability of a sustainable supply of locally grown organic food.

E.  Transportation

To have in place an affordable, sustainable public transportation system accessible throughout the region.

 F.  Economy

A thriving economy that promotes locally sustainable production and consumption through businesses that act responsibly and are held accountable to people and the environment.

G.  Government

We want responsive democratic government at all its levels and activities to support sustainability and behave sustainably through participation of stakeholders which will be accountable, community driven, vertically aligned.

H.  Communications

Communications is basic to the life of all individuals and their communities.   We are committed to media, our modern day storyteller, communicating and proliferating sustainable values.

I.  Spirituality

We are expressing our core spiritual values through sustainable systems thinking by knowing our interconnectedness and diversity as well as our cultural and natural abundance.  We can achieve social justice in mutually sustainable communities.

J. Health

We are committed to transforming health care based on the understanding that we humans are delicate, dynamic living systems.   It includes freedom for all to select and receive health counsel of their choice with compassionate dedicated care givers responsible for the health of their communities.

Definition of Sustainability

We set forth these conditions as necessary to sustainability, acknowledging we live in a community of interconnected and interdependent systems.

°  meet the needs of all today without compromising the needs of tomorrow

°  accessible and affordable to all

°  democratic – acknowledges and respects the concerns of all stakeholders, no one is left behind

°  accountable for health and well-being of all people and life support systems

°  based in science, systems thinking and consistent with natural systems

°  cyclical processes – intelligent use of matter and energy with no exported waste

°  based on human and spiritual values, respect , humility and cooperation