Regional Sustainability Summit    
for the Delaware Valley

"Our Lives, Our Legacy - Creating Our Future Together"

Executive Summary 

         This describes an approach to creating a region-wide working agenda shared by all the sustainability-oriented organizations, clubs, networks, businesses, funders, and government agencies throughout the Delaware Valley (centered on but not limited to the area around the City of Philadelphia). 

All of us – people and institutions – can have a far greater impact on the quality of our physical environment and on the quality of life for present and future generations if we work together.  To marshal the varied groups create a common agenda for the region’s growing sustainability movement, we will employ the technique known as “future search”.  This has proven to be extremely effective at enabling large groups with diverse perspectives and beliefs to find common ground, create practical action plans allowing broad participation, and operate cooperatively with intelligence.  This Regional Sustainability Summit  took place February 14-16, 2003, at the Schuylkill  Center for Environmental Education.  

Background

         All over our region, people interested in sustaining our common ecological well-being have been organizing.  They meet in church basements, classrooms, living rooms, and workplaces.  They’re talking about how to live in harmony with Nature – and how to shift personal and institutional priorities to bring about this harmony.  Whatever their objectives and however they may be organizing, people in these groups.

·       Seek fundamental change in the way in the way our institutions respond to ecological perils;

·       Make changes in their personal lives to limit their own contribution to environmental deterioration;

·       Advocate for positive system change in their own communities and geographic areas;

·       Extend and support learning about land use, water quality, endangered species, healthy agriculture, air pollution, and more;

·       Create opportunities to celebrate the gifts that earth and all life on it represent;

·       Strive to bring about all these changes within a context of cooperation and democracy.

·       Sacrifice time and personal resources to extend good ecological practices through their circle of contacts;

·       Employ a range of tactics to accomplish their goals: informal education, grass-roots organizing, letter-writing, lobbying, and much more

·       Know little about parallel or similar efforts in other parts of the region and have only occasional contact with each other.

The depth and quality of commitment shown by environmentalists and sustainability advocates in all walks of life bodes well for all of us in the region, except for one fact: these groups have not yet discovered how to work together for greater, more efficient impact.  The Regional Sustainability Summit (RSS)  changed that.  

Sustainability

         What is sustainability, and why is it important to the Delaware Valley?

         On one level, it’s about making sure we have the resources we need to live the way we wish for generations to come.  On another level, sustainability is a personal or family practice of living in a manner that consumes resources no faster that the earth’s regenerative power can replace them.  A United Nations report says that sustainability is achieved when we can meet “the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.  Or, to paraphrase a Native American proverb, the frog does not drink up the pond in which it lives.

         Our region continues to grow and use up land and other resources at a pace that may make it impossible, in just a few decades, for people to enjoy a lifestyle we’d regard as comfortable.  The earth has been gradually building the capacity of our area to support life in all its form for millions of years.  We are rapidly reversing that trend.  We run the risk of not being able to pass on the rich legacy of the past to our children and grandchildren. 

         Unfortunately, no department of government at any level, no corporation, no single human institution of any kind can address the challenge alone.  The task is too big to tackle in piece-meal or limited fashion.  Assuring a healthy, productive, rewarding life for all needs a systems approach.  It requires the efforts of people across institutional, governmental, and social boundaries.  Sustainability for the region calls for all of us to step forward, together.

Regional Focus

The Regional Sustainability Summit will address the needs and interests of the Delaware Valley, defined as the area around Philadelphia on both sides of the Delaware River.  The RSS will draw people who define themselves as being citizens of the region, who wish to advance sustainability here, and who are willing to take responsibility for bringing about useful change.

Results of the Regional Summit

         We anticipate three outcomes as a result of this effort:

1.     A common ground agenda uniting the visions and aspirations of sustainability-oriented organizations throughout the region.

2.    Action steps spelled out to begin achieving each item on the common ground agenda.

3.    Unified, ongoing support for fulfillment of the above items by all Summit participants.