Second, Don’t Isolate Sustainability
Memorize the Triple Bottom Line
Too often plans isolate “sustainability” as a separate category of action. These types of plans often focus, for example, on the natural environment as the only essential issue. In practice, planners need to stop “isolating” environmental sustainability as a separate planning issue and ensure consideration of three interlocked components: environmental conservation, economic vitality, and social equity. These three essential goals were first defined as a “Triple Bottom Line” (TBL) by John Elkington in 1997. His recommendations were aimed at the private sector, where the concept of the “bottom line” represents an absolute requirement for a successful business. Elkington clearly noted how, in the long term, there are really three bottom lines that must be met for a business (and by extension a community) to survive. When we fail to achieve any one of these bottom-line goals, we cannot achieve the other two. All three are necessary:
• Without economic vitality, cities risk bankruptcy or poverty and cannot protect the environment or social services.
• Without environmental protection, cities risk natural disasters and degrading health and economic well-being.
• Without social equity, cities risk political quagmires, divisiveness and basic morality.
These three places (Lucerne’s riverfront, Chicago’s lakefront, and New York’s Central Park) all address major social, economic, and environmental issues. In the Chicago illustration the economic bottom line is clear. In Chicago’s case, however, the environmental need to reduce traffic-induced carbon emissions seems to be ignored. In addition, the social value of viewing the waterfront has been disconnected for the vast majority of viewers at street level (although views are maintained for wealthier individuals who occupy upper floors in the high rise buildings).
Must Planners Solve All Three “TBL” Problems?
The short answer is “yes”. A longer answer would suggest that planners start where they can, and then expand their plans to include all three needs. As planners we often start small and then “scale up”. Over time good plans include ways to integrate multiple goals and actions. Here are some examples:
1 Economic Vitality
Economic development, job creation, tax structure, and business improvement all lead to public discussion. Planners navigate the obstacles to resilience with both government agencies and private developers. To do this, planners see their communities not only from the 30,000-foot level, but also on the street — parcel by parcel, job by job, business by business. Economic success varies for each public or private and investor — there is no one-size-fits all. As planners we can help implement compact community design, waterfronts that increase property value, and programs to create family supporting jobs. Each project can balance economic success with positive impacts on the environment and social equity. For example, lack of good transit creates an economic problem for employers and a social equity problem for lower income employees — a solution that focuses on just one side of this issue will fail over time.
2 Environmental Protection
Today many communities recognize the need to limit actions that harm freshwater supplies. The struggle for environmental protection yields multiple viewpoints, but it is no longer just a back-burner issue. Planners work every day on projects to improve water quality and preserve other natural resources. Our solutions fit differently within each community. In some places planners try to preserve agricultural businesses; in other places planners improve community awareness of significant environmental issues; and, in still other challenges, planners implement designs for major environmental improvements complete with scorecards for monitoring triple-bottom-line progress. Again, environmentally oriented projects also should advance economic goals and social gains for their communities. For example, major floods usually damage harbors, ports, and neighborhoods — without addressing environmental and economic factors concurrently, neither can be solved in the long term.
3 Social Equity
Achieving social equity may be the most critical “bottom line,” yet it is perhaps the most intractable problem with few pragmatic answers in sight. Here again, as planners, we can approach this issue with small, incremental steps tailored to each place. Small steps can lead to bigger and widespread solutions in the future. In some communities planners improve diversity by creating new public places that are inclusive of multiple people and groups. In other places, planners propose major shifts in housing policies and job access to improve connectivity and inclusivity. For example, public health problems (like pandemics, addiction, and violence) are produced by complex economic, environmental and social conditions — attempts to simplify and isolate the roots of these issues often underestimate or misunderstand their interwoven complexities.
Plan Resilience From the Bottom-up
Planners should use a robust set of pragmatic tools to reframe seemingly overwhelming problems of resilience and sustainability from the bottom-up. When planners use incremental steps, they can create key milestones where communities discover new options. Achieving each small solution redefines the problem, changes the problem context, and uncovers new incremental steps to move forward. As we implement plans, we must constantly check on each of the three bottom lines. Planners should, at least, make clients fully aware of the need for interconnected problem solving. Here are some examples:
An update to the River Edge Master Plan in Wausau, Wisconsin, combines environmental best practices with features that add to the economic value of abutting properties and provide high-access opportunities for diverse social groups to use public places and appreciate the natural environment. Wausau, 2018
Neighborhoods facing socio-economic inequities can be improved by increasing homeownership opportunities in small scale clusters on a lot-by-lot basis. This illustration (from the “Transform Milwaukee” plan prepared for the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority) proposed incremental improvements in environmental quality for stormwater management and economic value through new jobs and tax base. Milwaukee, 2015
An economic bottom line for sustainable cities may include higher value housing that maintains the wealth of the community, as well as affordable housing. This photo shows high-value townhomes along the Milwaukee River. The added property taxes (economic value) help pay for the public riverwalk (social and environmental value). In addition, visitors and area residents can share the view and recreational value of the water’s edge.
Steer Your Whole Region Towards Resilience
In planning, real change often results from actions embedded everyday life that, over time, percolate up to bigger issues. Planners work in cities, suburbs, and rural areas — all of which require actions that lead to resilience. Sustainable triple-bottom-line solutions will never be simple, never be “one-size-fits-all,” and never occur without full community engagement. As the idea of resilience grows in one community, nearby communities will see both advantages and challenges that relate to their unique circumstances. Each place that becomes more resilient will help to inform others in the same region. “Resilience” will work only when the idea becomes ingrained in our culture.
Topic Summary
Memorize the Triple Bottom Line
Must Planners Solve All Three “TBL” Problems?
Plan Resilience From the Bottom-up
Steer Your Whole Region Towards Resilience