So what exactly is a local economy, and what are the benefits?

A common definition of a local economy is one in which businesses are owned and operated locally, local people are employed, and money is kept circulating within the community through spending and earning locally.

But is a strong local economy good for the community, aside from employing people and ensuring businesses thrive? How can local economies be further leveraged to create more benefit in communities?

The Centre is exploring the concept of a ‘shared value’ local economy, and how this can be built in a community. According to Michael Porter and Mark Kramer in the Harvard Business Review, “The principle of shared value involves creating economic value in a way that also creates value for society by addressing its needs and challenges. Businesses must reconnect company success with social progress. Shared value is not social responsibility, philanthropy, or even sustainability, but a new way to achieve economic success. It is not on the margin of what companies do but at the center. We believe that it can give rise to the next major transformation of business thinking.” Harvard Business Review, Creating Shared Value, by Michael Porter and Mark Kramer, January 2011.

So, financial return on investment (ROI) isn’t the only measure of a successful local economy, or individual business. Well-being of customers, protection of the environment and resources, employee satisfaction and retention, a healthy social fabric are all things that create a social return or community return on investment. A shared value economy is one in which economic value is created in a way that also creates value for society by addressing its needs and challenges. I love this idea: “Businesses must reconnect company success with social progress.”

I was thinking about this when I visited one of Whistler’s new businesses, and intrigued by their company motto “Optimizing work productivity with happiness!” I was immediately struck by the atmosphere as soon as I walked into their office – lots of blank wall space cluttered with sticky notes, and a room full of food for employees to be happily fed throughout the day – no doubt to increase creativity! The CEO declared to me that his personal mission statement for his business is to ‘increase the median income in Whistler,’ while providing professional, meaningful work in a collaborative and idea-generating environment. I’d call that shared value.

Embedding social values and return right into the business model, where ROI is measured by both, rather than incorporating a corporate social responsibility strategy as an aside to the business plan, is what shared value is about. “The concept of shared value …. recognizes that societal needs, not just conventional economic needs, define markets.”

If we are to build a stronger shared value local economy, we need to figure out what it could really mean for our communities. The Centre is currently talking to innovators, entrepreneurs and strategic thinkers in the Sea to Sky Corridor to delve deeper into this shared value local economy, and how to create and build it. Stay tuned to see what we find out.

If you are interested in learning more about  creating shared value, or any of the other work we do, please contact Cheeying Ho at 604-935-8209 or cho[at]whistlercentre.ca

By Cheeying Ho

In Whistler, after more than 15 years into our sustainability initiatives, we are fortunate to now have many sustainability champions in the business community – see the list of iShift Businesses below. There are two champions in particular that are excelling at deep integration of sustainability into their business, and providing the models that are so helpful in moving the community-wide evolution forward. Alta Bistro and Ziptrek Ecotours are two of Whistler’s main champions and models of success, and we are very lucky to have them. In addition to their iShift Business profiles linked to above, you can also take a quick video tour of Alta Bistro’s sustainability practices  with co-owner Edward Dangerfield.

So how can you find or create, and then support champions in your community?

First you have to find your local champions. One way municipalities can connect with the local business community is by hosting learning events with the local chamber of commerce that link business and sustainability strategies together. This can be done with expert guest speakers who may be local or brought in from abroad. To reduce costs, host an event using online presentations by experts (try TED.com), and combine this with some facilitated discussions to share insights and ask questions.

If you don’t have any clear champions yet, create them! It won’t happen overnight, but it will be worth the investment. Again, use learning events and focus them initially on explaining the business case for sustainability so they begin to realize that sustainability is as a sound strategy for success. Bob Willard has a number of excellent offerings and resources that you can use for this purpose and there are more and more success stories spread across cyberspace, with GreenBiz.com being a good starting point.

Now that you’ve found one (or maybe a few), how can you support them? Our experience has shown that there are three important and fairly easy ways to do this: profile and promote them; use their products and/or services; and share learning and innovations.

Profiling and promoting them can be done in a number of different ways, but all should take advantage of some very effective ‘community based social marketing’ techniques, commitment, peer influence, persuasion and vivid information. We have profiled local champions by sharing their success stories and their commitments in local newspapers, online and at learning events. Our Whistler-based iShift Business program coupled the business profile with interesting information and tips about a topic related to the profile.

Buying the products and/or services offered by your champions is probably the most important part of the partnership you can develop with them. It puts your money where your mouth is, demonstrating that not only do you talk about the value of their business model, but that you actually value what they offer and you purchase from them. In exchange, there will likely be ways they can support your efforts, for example, local restaurants can host your learning events and maybe help make the event more affordable, knowing they may be exposed to new patrons – a win-win for both partners.

Finally, share information and innovative ideas that help to keep you both motivated and inspired to continue the sustainability journey. This can be done through such channels as email of course, but also through fun lunch and learn sessions hosted by a different business each time. We once had a group of people from Whistler businesses and non-profits that met monthly called SLUG – the Sustainability Learning and Understanding Group, and we ate lunch and discussed a new topic each time we net. And don’t forget to make it fun – share a light hearted video clip like this one to help make the journey more enjoyable.

We have extensive experience supporting champions and hosting learning events in Whistler. If you would like to speak with us to learn more, please contact Shannon Gordon at 604-935-8120 or sgordon[at]whistlercentre.ca

Reference/resource:
Community Based Social Marketing online resource thanks to Doug McKenzie-Mohr, Ph.D. – Environmental Psychologist

iShift Whistler Businesses who are developing sustainability strategies:

1. Alta Bistro (Watch this short, sweet video about their sustainability practices!) 
2. Araxi’s
3. Avant Contractors
4. Black’s Pub & Restaurant
5. Callaghan Country Wilderness Adventures
6. Canadian Snowmobile Adventures
7. Coast Blackcomb Suites at Whistler
8. Creekbread
9. Edgewater Lodge
10. Evolution
11. Four Seasons/Sidecut Restaurant
12. Gone Eatery/Moguls Coffee House
13. Green Table Network
14. inspirEarth
15. Maggi Thornhill Real Estate
16. Prior Snowboards
17. RDC Fine Homes
18. Squamish Lillooet Regional District
19. The Grocery Store
20. The Whistler Question
21. Tourism Whistler
22. Upper Village Market
23. Whistler Blackcomb food services
24. Whistler Chamber of Commerce
25. Whistler Community Services Society
26. Whistler Cooks
27. Whistler Dental
28. Whistler Golf Club
29. Whistler Real Estate Company
30. Whistler Sport Legacies Society
31. Ziptrek Ecotours

By Shannon Gordon

Getting people together to collaborate can obviously lead to great things, so why is it often avoided and the source of much consternation for some leaders? Well, no doubt public engagement processes can go sideways, with participants soap-boxing and grandstanding at best, or worse: completely hijacking the process. However, engaging groups with careful process design and facilitation will create clear objectives that are agreed to and ultimately achieved, with everyone enjoying the process along the way.

And what about getting groups together if they have not collaborated previously? This has the potential to be extremely challenging, but may also provide significant and lasting value and innovations. At the Centre, we have had the pleasure of convening groups of this sort and witnessing the collective light bulb go on as they realize that they are stronger collaborating rather than competing.

This fall in the Town of Creston, BC, we had the opportunity to do more in-depth engagement work with seniors and their service providers to develop an age-friendly action plan. Besides the obvious benefit of creating a community-wide action plan to address ageing in place, the groups were keenly aware at the beginning of the meeting that they had not collaborated previously – ever. They had similar mandates (to assist seniors in some manner), were located in the same community, knew of each other, yet had not gathered to discuss common issues and identify potential solutions. In one meeting, two of the community’s key service providers identified a number of concrete opportunities to work together to address common issues and mutual objectives. They also identified an easy way for them all to get together on an ongoing basis, which will have lasting value to seniors in Creston.

Not rocket science, you say? True. Collaboration isn’t anything new, yet some still shy away from convening community stakeholders – worried about the potential pitfalls and resource requirements. The lack of collaboration is also often caused by inertia and how easy it is to get stuck in silos and traditional ways of doing things. It takes leadership, courage and, as mentioned, careful design and facilitation to convene groups and achieve desired outcome.

So what about this new term, “social innovation”? Is it just a fancy, ‘emperor’s new clothes’ term for collaboration? Apparently not. It’s a concept gaining traction and the attention of researchers and investors. Social innovation is about solving existing societal and environmental problems with new solutions – new relationships, new technologies, new institutions, new products and services.

“The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same
level of thinking with which we created them.” Albert Einstein

Collaboration is at the heart of social innovation, and so we encourage communities to engage stakeholders and convene groups to address today’s challenges – whether it be with traditional solutions (some of which still work, by the way!) or new innovations. Don’t underestimate the value of getting people together!

Happy Holidays from the Whistler Centre for Sustainability

Social Innovation Resources:

-          Helsinki Design Lab (which refers to social innovation as strategic design)
-          Social Innovation Generation
-          McConnell Foundation Social Innovation Fund webpage and resources
-          BC Social Innovation Council 
-          Centre for Social Innovation
-          Mindset Foundation

By Shannon Gordon

Competition between dealing with short term priorities and moving toward long term visions creates tension and this tension is at crux of many discussions, disagreements and overall political pressure on community members and decision makers. An example of this might be a proposal for a new industry and jobs that doesn’t fully embody all the environmental characteristics of the community’s recently articulated future. As the tension rises, so does the rhetoric, entrenchment of positions and loss of trust. But it doesn’t have to be that way, or that bad.

One way out of this conundrum is to go back to reading those long term plans and visions and asking “Are we being strategic in our approach to getting there?” What I mean by that is, “Are you moving toward all your community’s desired outcomes via the solutions of today, or, at a minimum, ensuring that you can still reach those desired outcomes at some point in the future?” This question is akin to a mountain climber asking, “Is my current progress moving me in the direction of the summit, and if I continue, will it lead me to a dead end or help me launch an attempt at the summit?”

As more and more communities are developing a shared sense of where they want to be in the future, this question about being strategic today in getting to that desired future has more relevance than ever.

Being strategic in today’s decisions leads to innovative approaches, collaborative decision making, reduced conflicts and most importantly ensures the best chance that you will end up where you ultimately want to be.

So, “How can we make better decisions for today and tomorrow?”

1. Starting with the end in mind: Dust off those long range community plans that so many community members and staff contributed to making and reacquaint yourself with the long term vision for your community.

2. Use your priorities and desired future to guide the creation and consideration of multiple solutions: Having only one big solution or proposal to a problem is a sure fire way to ignite controversy. We’ve all experienced it, right? The recently proposed industry rezoning and development concept that is going to save the town’s jobs even if it means placing stresses on the community and environment. Having one option is a sure fire way to ignite the ‘us vs. them’ mentality and pit your most cherished priorities and dreams and community members against one another. Instead, ensure you have multiple options to consider with respect to your priorities and desired future so your community is not backed into a corner and forced to try and decide in toxic decision making environment.

3. Choose the best of the crop and improve it again: Next, figure out how to leverage or mitigate impacts from the best of the proposed solutions. For example, if the best proposal for jobs and new industry still compromise certain community desires then consider how it might be redesigned to mitigate the impacts on these ideals. You will be amazed at how the once considered conflicting priorities can provide design inspiration to bring about more innovative approaches.

4. Fully consider what ‘role’ the solution might play in launching you toward meeting your longer term desires

a. Determine the ways you can build off today’s solution in the future in order to meet the priorities you cannot manage today, and to ensure the solution or other solutions will help you meet your future desires without compromise. Use these ideas to guide how you implement today’s solution or how you bundle it with other approaches toward your future. At a minimum, ensure today’s approach doesn’t lead you to a dead end where you can no longer improve.

b. Determine the ways others can help you with the priorities you can’t get to today. These others might include: other levels of government, industry, citizens, customers etc. Each of these groups has tools or approaches to help your community build off your solution today and reach your desired future.

5. If you are still unsure of the benefits/costs or role of a particular course of action start small and give yourself an out.

a. Employ a precautionary pilot approach: With respect to the example above; perhaps start small versions of the industry with many controls for the potential negative environmental or community impacts. Release or redesign these controls if the potential impacts don’t materialize, and expand the project.

b. Employing a pilot with sunset clause: With respect to the example above; perhaps start with a very small industry without many controls for negative impacts, but only allow a short operation or test window to study whether the potential impacts materialize. Learn from this test window and expand, redesign, or not as needed.

Following these approaches to creating better solutions and incorporating approaches for future improvements should help you to reconcile the conflicts between today’s priorities with tomorrow’s desires, and if they don’t then you have to ask yourself “Is the opportunity worth pursuing if it won’t allow us to get to where we really want to be?”

Our aspirations for better communities are too important for us to let them drift into the background as we deal with the many priorities of today. In fact, if used correctly and strategically our aspirations will inspire innovative solutions, reduce conflict and help us to make better decisions for today and tomorrow.

If your community’s long range plan is sitting on the shelf, or used only in a trivial way, then dust it off and bring it along with the strategic approach presented above to your conversations of today. You will be amazed at the energy and innovation you create by applying your most important values to decision making, exploring multiple options and ensuring a thoughtful stepwise approach to bridge today with tomorrow.

The vision of the WMF is to conserve, construct and celebrate mountain regions as vital ecosystems, by engaging their inhabitants and all those who benefit from mountains, and to jointly promote their conservation and sustainable development. At various points during the day, the WMF will connect with the communities of Verbier, Switzerland; Lima, Peru; Kathmandu, Nepal; and Whistler, Canada. The whole event will be livestreamed.

In Whistler, the one and a half hour programme, live-linked to Verbier, will feature pro skier Mike Douglas, mountain entrepreneur and newly elected councilor Jayson Faulkner, and All.i.can filmmaker Dave Mossop, as they share their personal and professional experiences with mountain culture. Whistlerites are invited to come to Millennium Place for breakfast, and to take part in the conversation with a Verbier audience, including a 30 minute presentation by David Breashears, world-renowned photographer, mountaineer and producer of IMAX film Everest.

When and Where: Sunday December 11, 2011, from 7am-9:30am at Millennium Place

The World Mountain Forum is part of the three-day Green Pioneering Summit in Verbier, developed in partnership with the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). The forum’s intent is to raise awareness of issues of climate change and environmental degradation facing mountain communities, and the need for more sustainable development, while uniting and celebrating the global community of those who live, work and play in the mountains.
The evening prior, the Whistler Forum for Dialogue will be hosting a special event at the Whistler Museum with three 80+ year old Mountain Pioneers: John Fraser, Don MacLaurin, and Howard Rode. Contact william@whistlerforum.com for more information.
Thanks to our sponsor Arc’teryx.

For more information about, and to RSVP for, the World Mountain Forum event in Whistler contact:

Cheeying Ho
Whistler Centre for Sustainability
cho (at) whistlercentre.ca
604 388 8421

Claire Daniels
Whistler Centre for Sustainability
cdaniels (at) whistlercentre.ca

John Rae
Resort Municipality of Whistler
jrae (at) whistler.ca
604 935 8184

More information about the World Mountain Forum:

Recent years have seen a massive increase in construction and investment in mountain resorts like Verbier. Climate change and environment discussions are focusing more on the risk of melting snow caps, glaciers and seasonal melt water which provide life support for billions of people around the world. Mountain communities need business development, but they also want to ensure that it is managed and sustainable in an environmentally friendly way.

The WMF is a network of individuals and organisations concerned with the wellbeing of mountain dwellers. The theme of this first Forum is to construct, conserve and celebrate our common mountain home, a subject that links the abiding reverence of traditional mountain cultures to the powerful restorative forces the modern societies still find in the high places of the world. This forum will, for the first time, unite the global community of those who live, work and play in mountains.

The WMF is a public-private program that aims at stimulating business relations for generating funding to enhance communication and implement practical sustainable solutions in the world’s mountain regions. The vision of the World Mountain Forum is to conserve, construct and celebrate mountain regions as vital ecosystems, by engaging their inhabitants and all those who benefit from mountains to jointly promote their conservation and sustainable development. The WMF will celebrate the International Mountain Day with a special interactive space with live streaming and activities focused for the younger generations.

http://www.verbiergps.com/index.php/programmes-2/day-3-world-mountain-forum/?lang=en

PDF of this release

I’ve got dreams on my mind – specifically community ones. With municipal elections on the near horizon and the current state of the global economy, I’ve been thinking lately about how our community will respond to these events.

While my role at the Centre is to help communities articulate their aspirations for a better future and get there, I’ve also got kids, a mortgage, debt, taxes, and, like many people, lots of things on my mind. In fact, I’m feeling just like everyone else and what they’re focusing quite a lot on today.   When we ‘feel’ that our prosperity is on the line our focus turns inward to the present. In this state it is difficult to think about shared community aspirations and better futures.  That seems rationale doesn’t it? I mean if we are feeling personally vulnerable today, why care about next month, next year or even the next 10 years?

I know that I’m not alone; citizens everywhere are questioning the need for long term community dreams, visions and paths to a better place. “Achieving these dreams costs too much”, “we don’t want to pay for it today” is the mantra expressed with the belief that tomorrow’s future is incompatible with today’s reality. Visions of sustained success for our communities are being brushed aside and being called a waste in an attempt to make room for discussions about tightening our financial belts, better (less?) government, and creating jobs.

But if we step back from our fear for a moment and consider this, aren’t these really one in the same?

I’ve yet to read a shared community vision that doesn’t strive for efficiency, more effective government and jobs for everyone.  How is it then, that these community visions and current issues get cast in opposition of each other? Perhaps it is because the three most commonly shared priorities in these plans: ensuring a strong economy, enriching our communities, protecting and restoring the environment for us and for future generations, are often framed as incompatible to one another. This has to change, and a greater understanding of how change happens is what’s needed.

Yes, there is a little truth to the notion that, in the short term because of established structures, there may be short term trade-offs that need to be made (like relying on car travel for your business success and income despite the real environmental and human health impacts of fuel combustion) between these goals. But does this mean it makes sense to just give up on your community’s greatest shared aspirations and accept these trade-offs as foregone conclusions forever?

No. The truth is that the places that are enjoying the most success are organizations, communities and individuals that hold onto their visions. They are finding ways to make them work, and they do this by getting creative. This means they are finding short term success while making the types of short term trade-offs that still allow them to get to their end goals.  In other words, they aren’t throwing the baby out with the bathwater. For every incompatibility truth (think: it’s the environment OR the economy), there are stories of real success where communities and businesses are blowing up entrenched thinking to find smart ideas that lead to economic, social and environmental success at the same time.

Take Kristianstad, Sweden for example, as profiled recently in the New York Times. This community had a vision to create more jobs, enhance their energy supply, and ensure price security in the city. So in 1999 the city pledged to wean itself from fossil fuels. I can’t think of a vision that is trying to achieve something that most consider impossible. But they did it. And they are succeeding.

Today, Kristianstad has reduced the need for fossil fuels for all community heating to virtually zero and the city is focusing on transitioning the community transportation system to run on locally made biogas.  This biogas is already used significantly by the city itself; in fact, it’s helped them to avoid purchasing over 2 million litres of diesel or gasoline every year. The city’s heating systems have cut their heating bills more than half to $3.2 million from $7 million.

What is notable about this community’s approach is the compatibility of their goals:   secure relatively safe, stable, lower cost energy, provide local jobs and ensure emissions reductions. (You can view the NYT slide show here.)

The thing about community dreams is that they exist in the future and therefore, by definition, the way in which we achieve them has not yet been written. In fact, the comment that “achieving these dreams costs too much” doesn’t even make sense, given the fact that we have never gotten there to know that.  Sure your community may have tried to get there in the past, failed and learned, or not, but today is not the past and the approaches to get there need to be undertaken because the benefits can be so great.

Henry Ford, the American businessman, once said, “If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right.” The same advice applies to a community. So instead of lowering your aspirations and dreams and succumbing to the camp of past assumptions that say “you can’t do it” or “it costs too much” consider going after your community’s dreams and aspirations with more intent, more vigour, more intelligence, more friends, tougher questions and, of course in this day and age, with a sharpened pencil.

I mean really – it is clearly in everyone’s best interest to fulfill your community’s highest goals. After all, we decided what they should be.  So get out there and do your part to make them happen.

By Mark Allison

mallison@whistlercentre.ca

NEWS RELEASE – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

August 25, 2011

The RBC GranFondo Whistler Raises the Sustainability Bar for Whistler

Whistler, BC – The Whistler Centre for Sustainability is working with GranFondo Canada, the producers of the RBC GranFondo Whistler, on a sustainability strategy to make their events as sustainable as possible. This is the first event of this size in Whistler (apart from the 2010 Winter Games) that has developed a comprehensive sustainability plan to guide its planning and execution for this and subsequent years.

“The RBC GranFondo Whistler has just set the bar for Whistler events. We hope that all events coming to Whistler will begin considering their own sustainability strategy that will achieve positive economic and community outcomes as well as having lower environmental impact,” indicated Cheeying Ho, Executive Director of the Whistler Centre for Sustainability.

For this year’s event, taking place on Saturday September 10, the RBC GranFondo Whistler has already committed to initiatives such as compost bins for food waste at all aid stations and the finishing area. “We are excited to welcome the RBC GranFondo Whistler again this year with over 7000 riders and their supporters,” said Mayor Ken Melamed. “This event generates tremendous business for our community, and I am particularly pleased that they are reducing their environmental footprint as well.”

GranFondo Canada has adopted CSA (Canadian Standards Association) standards for sustainable events and its own strategic goals that it aims to achieve by 2020 in order to become a sustainable event:

1.    All of our suppliers, partners and sponsors have a proven commitment to sustainable practices, and are local where possible.
2.    Our events create a positive impact in each community we start, touch and finish in.
3.    Our events use materials efficiently and are zero ‘waste to landfill.’
4.    We use only sustainable energy sources and modes for all our transport needs.
5.    All toxic materials have been replaced with alternatives or are recycled/reused in tight technical cycles.

The RBC GranFondo Whistler is a cycling event from Vancouver to Whistler along the Sea to Sky Highway. GranFondo’s are mass cycling events that have been popular in Europe for decades, and are gaining momentum in North America.

For more information please contact:

Cheeying Ho, Executive Director, Whistler Centre for Sustainability at cho [at] whistlercentre.ca or 604 388 8421.

Naomi Devine, Sustainability Planner, Whistler Centre for Sustainability at ndevine [at] whistlercentre.ca or 604 935 8220.

For more information about the Whistler Centre for Sustainability, go to www.whistlercentre.ca or send an email to info [at] whistlercentre.ca

For more information about the RBC GranFondo Whistler, contact Kirsten Mihailides at kirst [at] direct.ca or 604 732 1921, or go to http://www.rbcgranfondowhistler.com/

-30-

About the Whistler Centre for Sustainability
The Whistler Centre for Sustainability is an enterprising non-profit organization, with a mission to ‘lead communities and tourism toward a sustainable future.’ The expertise of the Centre is derived from the experience in the development and management of Whistler’s award-winning community sustainability plan, Whistler2020, over the past five years. The Centre now exports this expertise to other communities and the tourism sector through consulting services, education, capacity building and research.

That resource is Whistlers authentic and sustainable brand.

In this two hour session, John Harrington will explore the characteristics, potential value, and how all that is Whistler can be further developed and leveraged for the benefit of all stakeholders and the pursuit of sustainability itself.

Listen, learn, discuss…

• Understand the characteristics of a sustainable brand
• Assess Whistlers brand equity and how to manage and communnicate it
• Review ‘place’ brands from around the world
• Explore new opportunities to develop new offerings based on brand position
• Discuss the role of citizens, visitors, businesses, and the municipality in developing and leveraging Whistlers brand resource
• Explore the role of social media as a valuable tool to both engage and inform brand strategy

Join Sustainability expert John Harrington with RealEyes Sustainability from Dublin, Ireland for an informal presentation and dialogue on the value of a sustainability brand, and the opportunities to leverage that using social media. Everyone welcome.

When: Tuesday, August 16, 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Where: Whistler Public Library
Cost: Free

Any questions can be directed to Erin Romanchuk: eromanchuk [at] whistlercentre.ca

See you there!

To enter the competition for a free event registration, send an email to info [at] whistlercentre [dot] ca with ‘RBC GranFondo Whistler’ in the subject, and include a short paragraph describing your vision of the role cycling should play in creating a more sustainable world.

The RBC GranFondo Whistler is a road ride from Vancouver to Whistler along the Sea to Sky Highway, and is open to cyclists of all ages and abilities.

Looking to make your cycling footprint smaller? Read Cheeying Ho’s blog on the topic here.