Conscious Choice Seattle: Letters to the Editor

March 2006 | Letters to the Editor

Letters to the Editor

Kudos to Power Of ‘Conscious’ Women

Dear Editor,

Thanks for the women’s issue in February. I enjoyed the magazine right from the cover—who is that woman, she looks familiar? The women covered were strong and innovative. They are inspiring to the rest of us.

Sincerely,

Margaret Ellison
Seattle

An Open Letter from Sustainable Seattle

This letter popped into our email queue from the powers that be at Sustainable Seattle. We thought you would appreciate the update too:

Dear Civic Leader,

As we move into 2006, I would like to (1.) wish you a productive and sustainable new year; and (2.) update you on Sustainable Seattle’s progress.

On April 30, 2005 we organized our first Civic Leader Panel. It was a successful event attended by over 100 of you who spent the day considering the assets and concerns of our region and ways to measure progress toward a sustainable future.
Even though you have not heard much from us since then, we have been very active. We conducted four discussion sessions with community and business leaders on the indicator project to augment the information we gathered at the April Civic Forum.

The Steering Committee has met to review the 102 indicators that you selected. In September we organized a conference on Indicators and Performance Measurement that brought together practitioners from throughout Cascadia (Oregon, Washington and British Columbia). We viewed the conference as an opportunity to learn from others and help start a regional network of practitioners.

Since the inception of the Regional Indicator effort, we have been concerned about the ability of this project to go from measurement to action. For the last few months, we have researched different efforts throughout the country that have successfully done that.

All the efforts we have studied appear to have been particularly effective at using indicators to mobilize the region into changing at least some of the trends. They have inspired Sustainable Seattle to develop a framework for our own work and for the region to advance an integrated vision of urban sustainability.

This framework includes three phases:

1. Developing a unified VISION for the regions future.
2. Collecting FACTS (data and indicators) and making them available.
3. Using the VISION and FACTS to set a REGIONAL AGENDA.

Our work over the next few months will be to support the Steering Committee and Technical Advisors as we apply this framework to our project. We will convene the Civic Leaders, probably in the spring, to share our progress and ask for input.

Meanwhile, don’t hesitate to call with any questions or if you’d like to offer support to this effort.

Warmest wishes,

Chantal Stevens
Executive Director
Sustainable Seattle
www.sustainableseattle.org

Recommend this page to a friend

Top Ten pages recommended to friends: