Chapter 4
In the Community:
Encouraging Nonformal Learning

If sustainability is to become a reality, educational strategies must reach people of all ages -- as citizens of the world and of the United States, as residents of a community, as members of the nation's workforce, as individual consumers -- at all phases of their lives. Fostering such opportunities for lifelong learning means that the transition to sustainable development can begin today rather than with the next generation.

Museums, zoos, libraries, extension programs, the media, the workplace, and community organizations are just a few venues for providing lifelong learning opportunities. These nonformal educational settings can expand awareness and put sustainability concepts in a familiar context. To be most effective in doing so, nonformal educational institutions should expand their relationships with formal educators to identify those areas in which schools are inadequately preparing students and to help fill those gaps and develop appropriate materials.

Until sustainability becomes a public philosophy, conscious or unconscious, it will not become a reality in our country. -- Olin M. Ivey, Executive Director Georgia Environmental Organization, Inc.

Several sources of nonformal education deserve special consideration:

• Because Americans obtain most of their news and information from the print and broadcast media, a key strategy in nonformal education is to foster public awareness of sustainability via television, computers, newspapers, and magazines. Information on sustainability must be communicated through these media in appropriate and accessible formats.

• Work-based learning is another avenue for equipping adults with the knowledge and skills they need in a fast-changing world. School-to-work opportunities and retraining programs for dislocated workers will become increasingly important as the economy shifts to more efficient enterprises and sustainable practices.

• Also in light of these shifts and changes, communities will be instrumental in coordinating sustainability concepts and including them as part of community outreach and participation plans.

POLICY RECOMMENDATION 2

Five actions are suggested for implementing this recommendation:

• encourage lifelong learning.
• raise public awareness,
• provide outreach,
• expand community "visioning," and
• foster workforce training.

Encouraging Lifelong Learning

Studies show that in early childhood -- from birth to age six -- the home is the primary educational influence. Between ages seven and 12, the role of the home diminishes while that of the school and -- to a lesser extent -- the community, church, and media increases. The influence of the home continues to lessen, and that of the school grows, during the teen years. In the individual's next decade, however, the school's impact drops dramatically, and that of the community increases proportionately. The greatest influences during the adult years are the community, church, and home, in that order. Interest groups remain relatively constant as an influence throughout one's life, beginning at about age seven.1

There is no easy dividing line between formal and nonformal education. We are all committed to a continuum of lifelong learning. --Tom Keehn, Senior Consultant American Forum for Global Education

Most adults received limited information directly related to sustainability during their formal schooling. Through the U.S. educational system, many students do not develop an understanding of the interconnections among economic, environmental, and equity issues. More than three-fourths of U.S. citizens do not obtain a college degree, and even those who do graduate from college lack an understanding of sustainability.² In other words, for the vast majority of Americans, knowledge of sustainability will have to be obtained during their adult years. Continuing education programs in local communities and educational opportunities offered by the media, civic organizations, clubs such as the 4-H, nonprofit organizations such as the YWCA and YMCA, and informal venues such as museums and churches are needed to fill the gap and equip adults with the knowledge and skills required for committed and effective action.

The challenge for nonformal education is to find ways to reach a voluntary, "noncaptive," adult audience. Motivations of adult learners range from the opportunity to socialize to mental stimulation, personal growth, and professional advancement. The challenge is to harness some or all of these incentives to stimulate interest in educational experiences related to sustainability.

For some aspects of environmental education, the challenge of attracting adult learners is not a difficult one. Outings offered by environmental organizations such as the Sierra Club, The Nature Conservancy, and the Audubon Society often contain instruction in natural history and attract intensely interested learners. Interpretive programs offered in national parks are drawing participants at a faster rate than park visitation overall.³ Interest in this area is also indicated by the explosive growth of ecotourist excursions led by naturalists.

Although these programs are growing in popularity, a new challenge is emerging -- how can these programs help adult learners link environmental education experiences to their everyday lives? Extension offices and conservation districts offer one avenue for widening participation. In recent years, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Cooperative Extension Service has boosted its efforts to create an environmentally literate citizenry, targeting a broader audience than their traditional farm clientele.

Other avenues are continuing education classes offered by community colleges and school districts. The nation's 1,200 accredited community colleges represent the fastest growing type of educational institutions in the United States. Since they are well-connected to local businesses, community colleges are ideally suited to serve as catalysts for sustainability.

Nonformal educational organizations should work closely with educators to identify areas in which schools traditionally have not prepared students adequately. Once these opportunities are identified, nonformal educators can develop materials and work with formal educators to determine possibilities for partnership. In this way, nonformal education can complement classroom teaching.

Examples of successful nonformal sustainability education efforts follow.

• EARTHWATCH: A Model for Lifelong Education for Sustainability. Founded in 1972, EARTHWATCH has become a model for global education for sustainable development. To date, 40,000 citizen volunteers have served in EARTHWATCH's EarthCorps program, which has funded 2,000 expeditions to 120 countries. The majority of these volunteers are business and professional members of EARTHWATCH; and the remaining 25 percent are teachers and students preparing for careers in the arts and sciences. The program is intergenerational and interdisciplinary in design, and involves citizens from 30 countries each year, who share costs and contribute skills to protect heritage, biodiversity, public health, and treasured habitats worldwide. Partnerships with corporations, foundations, universities, and U.N. and government agencies produce on-line education for sustainability.

• YWCA: Education for Global Responsibility. Education for Global Responsibility is a program for educating YWCA members, volunteers, staff, and the community about the causes of global poverty and how it affects particularly women. With support from the U.S. Agency for International Development, the YWCA has held international conferences and workshops on women's sustainable economic development. Participants have included local and national leaders from the United States, Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. The purpose is to develop a cadre of consultants on women's sustainable economic development issues who will work to educate others in their communities and networks.

• Course in Sustainability for Community Leaders. A land-use course designed in 1994 by the Rome Teacher Resource Center in Rome, New York, was targeted at key community representatives and interested groups. "Open Space: Defining-Assessing-Deciding" stressed the profound impact of current decisions on community open space in the future. Participants included representatives from the community's education, business, industry, local government, and special-interest sectors. The course reached local community organizations not usually targeted by environmental education programs.

• The Presidio Institute. The Presidio Institute now being formed in the San Francisco Bay Area will help businesses, citizen organizations, and governments promote sustainable economic development that incorporates environmental protection and social equity. Located at a former military base, the institute will -- under National Park Service auspices -- be converted into a laboratory to explore policies, practices, and technologies to enhance sustainability worldwide. The institute will work in partnership with various area resources, including Stanford University, three University of California campuses, many national laboratories and private research facilities, and Silicon Valley organizations. It will focus on both critically needed programs for today's leaders as well as on longer range research aimed at solutions for tomorrow. The institute's overall goal is to balance the demands of economic health, environmental quality, and social fairness in order to offer solutions to the problems of the present without depriving future generations of opportunities to meet their needs.

Raising Public Awareness

Raising public awareness is central to any plan to move the nation toward sustainability. If citizens are to reverse such negative trends as urban sprawl, loss of biodiversity, and decreasing voter turnout, they must understand the issues and have accurate and accessible information. In general, people rely on the mass media for their news and information. A 1995 Roper poll found that 72 percent of survey respondents obtained most of their news and information from television, 38 percent from newspapers, 18 percent from radio, and eight percent from magazines.⁴ The fact that Americans rely so heavily on print and broadcast media underscores the importance of supplying information on sustainability that is accurate, easily understood, and readily applied to everyday life.

Polls disagree on Americans' overall understanding of the concept of sustainability. On the one hand, a 1995 national survey of 1,036 adults conducted by pollster Paul H. Ray to determine Americans' attitudes toward sustainability revealed that a strong majority -- 61 percent -- favored sustainability. Further, a majority agreed that they would be willing to pay 10 percent more for consumer goods and 20 cents more per gallon for gasoline if they were sure it would help the environment.⁵ Ray concluded that American citizens are aware of the concept of sustainability and agree with it. It should be noted, however, that a sizable minority (40 percent), were against sustainability or unsure about what it is and its benefits.

On the other hand, a pair of 1995 Roper surveys tested Americans' "green point average." These environmental quizzes revealed that the average adult and teenager could answer fewer than four out of 10 questions correctly. The average adult score was 33 out of a possible 100 points; teens scored 31 out of 100 points.⁶ Moreover, the Roper surveys indicated that the majority of respondents believed that the only actions they can take to improve the environment are those related to litter and indoor air pollution. Sixty-one percent believed that large companies are responsible for causing the nation's environmental problems and should be the ones to implement solutions, failing to take into account pollution from individual sources such as automobiles and lawn mowers.⁷

The conclusion to be drawn from these findings is that a substantial minority of Americans need more information about sustainability -- what it is and what they can do to live more sustainably. Even those citizens who don't need to be convinced that long-term development problems exist do need information showing how their actions can affect sustainable development. They also need information and ideas, presented through the popular broadcast and print media, about practical things they can do that have a positive effect on sustainable development. For many people, the desire to change is not the issue; they are ready to change their behavior but need the guidance and mechanisms to do so.

A media campaign on nationally and regionally relevant issues should be used as a vehicle to raise awareness about sustainability. This campaign could feature and publicize easily understood benchmarks of sustainable development. People have become familiar with national numeric measures of the economy, such as the gross domestic product, inflation rate, and unemployment index, as well as such indicators of environmental quality as the air quality index. As indicators of sustainability are developed, the media should feature these "yardsticks" as part of their regular coverage.

Daily and weekly reports of trends and measures will help increase understanding of costs and benefits, and contribute to public awareness of areas where a change in course is needed. Like economic indicators, sustainable development indicators will provide policy makers and the public with a more accurate view of progress in achieving sustainability goals. These national benchmarks will make it easier for all sectors of society to reach consensus on tough issues related to sustainability.

Much is being done toward developing relevant indicators and benchmarks, as the following examples illustrate.

• Federal Indicators. A federal interagency effort, the Interagency Working Group on Sustainable Development Indicators, is aimed at creating indicators and yardsticks by which the American public can track and monitor progress in specific areas relating to environmental quality; sustainability; and the complex interconnections among social, economic, and environmental forces.

• National Goals. The President's Council on Sustainable Development, in its report Sustainable America: a New Consensus, released 10 national sustainability goals and a set of corresponding indicators.

• Community-Level Indicators. The Foundation for the Future of Youth, through its Rescue Mission Indicators Project, is working to create partnerships among groups of students around the world to create community-level indicators to measure progress toward meeting sustainable development goals. The foundation is developing youth-run state centers to coordinate this work locally.

• Urban Indicators. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is working with the Rutgers University Center for Urban Policy Research to develop urban and shelter sector indicators at the national level based on research in 77 U.S. cities. This research has been compiled in a database and includes indicators in the following categories: employment and economic development; demographic factors; housing and land use; poverty and income distribution; fiscal conditions and the public sector; and environment, health, and other social indicators. HUD is also working with nonprofit organizations, professional journals, and Canadian housing groups to promote further public engagement and awareness of indicators and the role they play in identify ing key problems and working toward their solution.

• State Benchmarks. Oregon has selected benchmarks to serve as indicators of the state's well-being. Oregon's 259 benchmarks are organized according to core and urgent indicators. Core indicators examine primary and long-term goals for the state: family stability, capacity, enhanced quality of life and the environment, and promotion of a strong and diverse economy. Urgent indicators examine critical issues facing the state, such as endangered wild salmon runs and rising teen pregnancy rates. According to the Oregon Progress Board, which was created to maintain focus on its vision of the future and to assess trends affecting this vision, "Failure to reach urgent benchmarks in the near term threatens our ability to achieve other, more fundamental benchmark s years down the road."

Providing Outreach

To complement a public information campaign on sustainability, a vehicle is needed to ensure that information is accessible and accurate at the community level to initiate community action. This can be accomplished through information sharing on practical actions that individuals can undertake as consumers, members of the workforce, and community residents. The same vehicle also could facilitate coordination with state efforts to encourage education for sustainability, and help guide nonformal educational venues such as museums and nature centers in making the transition. Similarly, technical assistance will be needed to help introduce new sustainable technologies within the nation's industrial, transportation, and communications sectors. Clean environmental technologies will be needed to help industry augment current practices for controlling pollution and cleaning up wastes by adding sustainable practices such as prevention of pollution and efficient use of energy and resources.

A national extension service, which collects and disseminates information on particular topics of interest, could be used to meet the research, technology transfer, and community needs generated by those interested in charting a sustainable course. It could make information on sustainability widely available to the public, schools, media, communities, and businesses and could clarify and infuse sustainability issues into the nation's environmental, economic, and social agendas.

Extension services have a proven track record of providing outreach and integrating research and education at the community, county, and state levels. Various federal agencies and organizations have successfully coordinated and made available existing information through such services. Notable models for a Sustainable Development Extension Network include the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Cooperative Extension System, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Sea Grant College Program, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Space Grant Program, the Department of the Interior's National Parks Outreach Program, and the Department of Commerce Manufacturing Extension Partnership. Also, the Office of Economic Conversion Information at the U.S. Department of Commerce has a clearinghouse offering information on economic development, defense adjustment, technology transfer, and community sustainability. And the Committee for the National Institute for the Environment is establishing a national library to link major collections of data and centers of scientific expertise for use by scientists and public users. A new or expanded national extension network on sustainability could work collaboratively to focus on interrelated issues such as communities, agriculture, forestry, manufacturing, coastal zone and marine environments, technology transfer, and education.

Information gives people the power to shape their own futures. The extension network can provide educational expertise, needed information on sustainability, technical assistance, and training for individuals and employees in organizations and businesses interested in applying sustainable development principles.

Establishing a Sustainable Development Extension Network could help ensure that local needs drive national policy. In addition, the network could help clarify research, education, and extension roles for government agencies and the private sector. It could help ensure that national policy and programs for sustainability are coordinated.

The success of the extension effort will be measured by the actions taken by local communities and the adoption of new technologies by industries. A major criterion for evaluation may be responsiveness to actual community needs. Extension activities will have to remain flexible and innovative so that they are targeted to changing conditions as society advances along the path to sustainability.

Some model extension services and networks are already being forged locally and nationally, as these examples describe.

• Sustainable Communities Network. Concern, Inc., on behalf of a national partnership, announced plans to create the Sustainable Communities Network, an interactive, on-line clearinghouse that will help communities improve their economic, social, and environmental well-being. The network will make information on tools, technologies, and innovative projects and programs readily available to citizens, planners, public officials, educators, and entrepreneurs. An ongoing, extensive evaluation will be conducted by participants in eight communities around the country to provide feedback on the effectiveness of the network's information. Supported by public and private funding, the network is being developed collaboratively by organizations from the Pacific No rthwest to the Chesapeake Bay and in cooperation with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

• Education for Sustainable Development Clearinghouse. Second Nature is developing an electronic Environmental Reference Center to provide sophisticated and sound information that will empower educators from all disciplines to become environmental and sustainability experts. The center will also encourage educators to revise their courses to include education about the relationship between humans and the environment. It includes 1,500 references to the latest resources on sustainability including books, articles, videos, and electronic resources. In addition, the center will include a database of over 250 courses with environmental content to provide examples to professors in all disciplines and to demonstrate the realistic integration of sustainability concepts into courses.

• Farm and Home-A-Syst. The pollution potential of over 22,000 private land- and homeowners was assessed through a joint program, Farm and Home-A-Syst, administered by the Extension Service, Natural Resources Conservation Service, and EPA. First, a site-specific environmental risk assessment is conducted and then it is followed by an education program. The goal is to encourage farmers and homeowners to voluntarily fix potential or existing environmental problems brought on by petroleum and pesticide handling, decaying underground gasoline tanks; and household disposal of wastewater, cleaning fluids, and paint solvents. The Future Farmers of America has worked in partnership with the program to integrate the lessons into the school curriculum in both Span ish and English. By applying research-based, best management practices, the Farm and Home-A-Syst educational program costs $1 for every $3 to $9 realized in savings from pollution prevention efforts.

• Fetzer Extension Partnership. An educational partnership between the University of California Extension, Fetzer Winery, and the local school district was launched using the SERIES model. A 4-H program, SERIES (Science Experiences and Resources for Informal Educational Settings) is a multidimensional delivery system where scientists mentor teenagers, and teenagers mentor younger children. The goal is to teach about the entire food system, from the farmer and the field to the consumer and society, and to learn about sustainable agriculture techniques. Fetzer was an ideal site for this project, since two-thirds of the Fetzer vineyards are farmed under the organic gardening label.

• Florida Sustainable Development. Because of recurring water shortages in Sarasota County, Florida, a two-year moratorium on all building construction was proposed and defeated in 1991. Citizens decided, however, that if there is to be development in their community, it must be properly managed. The extension agents in Sarasota County initiated a discussion forum with public planners, private developers, licensed building contractors, landscape architects, and public and private commercial and residential property owners. The result of the forum was that a statewide educational program called Build Green and Profit was developed to educate about alternative practices that reduce the environmental impact of building construction.

• Nonpoint Education for Municipal Officials (NEMO). Local municipal officials on the Connecticut River watershed are being taught how to use geographically based resource information from remote-sensing satellites to make land development decisions. The University of Connecticut Cooperative Extension, in partnership with The Nature Conservancy and EPA, are combining technology with outreach and education to better understand and predict the effects of urban and suburban development on nonpoint source pollution. NEMO addresses storm water treatment through more effective zoning, and development planning and watershed management through coordinated uses of technology and education.

Expanding Community Visioning

Flourishing communities are the foundation of a healthy society. At the community level, sustainable development means building partnerships among business, government, the nonprofit sector, and citizen groups to develop a shared vision for the future. It means working together to provide jobs for all citizens while simultaneously managing community resources responsibly. It also means providing all citizens the opportunity to live in a healthy, clean, and safe community. Overcoming barriers to change is not an easy task. For this reason, people need to embrace their own vision of the advantages of living in a sustainable world before they will be inspired to act and make the necessary behavioral changes. Community residents need to create a collaborative vision of what their community needs to sustain itself into the next century. Across the country, people are meeting this challenge by participating in planning, implementation, and assessment exercises that measure their progress toward meeting their goals.

With proper education and jobs, citizens themselves can transform urban areas, renovating and creating affordable housing, cleaning streets and parks, ridding their neighborhoods of crime and drugs, planting trees and gardens, and even encouraging new smaller scale economic development. --Francis H. Duehay, City Councilor Cambridge, MA

Chapter 28 of Agenda 21 charges communities with formulating action plans to move toward a sustainable future.⁸ The first step in each municipality's long-range planning for sustainability is to initiate a "visioning" process. How does visioning or community planning work and how will it promote community sustainability? This process involves bringing diverse members of the public together to discuss and define sustainability at the local level. From their collective vision emerges support for implementation plans and projects. These in turn are measured periodically by indicators gauging the community's success in meeting its goals.

Citizens who participate in community visioning exercises are asked to describe their idea of an ideal community. This vision usually comprises a safe and healthy community with parks; walking and bike paths; good schools supported by parents and community organizations; affordable and clean housing; recreational facilities, museums, and libraries; clean, energy-efficient transportation to replace traffic jams and road noise; and clean, safe, and friendly streets. Creating a vision of a desired future lets a community compare an ideal state with what will likely occur if present trends continue. By backcasting from the vision to the present, appropriate changes in policy and behavior can be identified. Participants in the visioning process clarify their values and become proactive change agents rather than victims of circumstance.⁹

Just as municipalities vary enormously, so will their visions. What is considered sustainable under certain conditions may not be sustainable under others. Each community will need an overall plan for becoming sustainable that addresses its unique local economic, environmental, social, or technological demands. In a community located in a desert, for example, sustainable use of water resources may differ greatly from sustainable use in a mountain community or a city situated on a major river or near a sizable underground aquifer. The natural environment and other factors will affect a community's needs and vision: This means that the plan developed must be regionally specific and must consider interconnections between the community and other locations near and far. There are many alternative paths to sustainability, and the task of visioning is to find a particular community's best road to a better future.

The reasons for initiating the visioning process are diverse. Some towns may embark on a visioning process in response to the closing of a military base, the devastation created by a natural disaster, economic doldrums, or environmental problems.

• Natural Disaster. After the Missouri town of Pattonsburg was literally washed away by the 1993 floods, the town used a consensus-based visioning process during its relocation to higher ground to ensure that the new community would be energy-efficient and economically prosperous.

• Economics. The community of Silverton, Washington, is engaging in a collaborative planning process to deal with the effects of economic changes in the area's logging industry.

• Resource Use. In Jacksonville, Florida, a local businessman's concern over growth and consequent strain on resources led to a visioning process that uses indicators of progress and targets for the year 2000.

• Long-Term Planning. In Santa Monica, California, a process was initiated to address underlying, long-term issues related to resource conservation, solid waste, water and wastewater, energy, transportation, pollution prevention, public health protection, and community and economic development. The program will be re-evaluated in the year 2000.

• Holistic Planning. In Albuquerque, New Mexico, a book entitled Albuquerque's Environmental Story: Toward a Sustainable Community was created to provide a holistic, interdisciplinary approach to Albuquerque's natural, built, and human environments. Now in its third edition, this book gives students the knowledge needed to develop current and future policies, and to carry out hands-on experiments and actions within their community.

Education is crucial to this process. An active community outreach and education program must be in place to help people understand and adjust to changes in their community brought on by the transition to sustainability. Such formal and nonformal educational efforts as the information clearinghouse previously mentioned will contribute to the visioning process and follow-up assessments. In particular, the proposed Sustainable Development Extension Network could provide information to help facilitate visioning activities.

Community visioning exercises need support at all levels of government as well as from organizations, businesses, and citizens. At the federal level, the Sustainable Communities Task Force, one of the eight task forces of the President's Council on Sustainable Development, has developed an action strategy to move our nation's communities toward sustainability. The Task Force drew constructive guidance from actual community experiences to develop policy recommendations that, when implemented, will invigorate our communities to be more livable in the broadest sense -- environmentally, economically, and socially. Other efforts at the federal, state, and local levels are emerging as well, especially with assistance from national organizations such as the National League of Cities, the National Governors' Association, and the International City/County Management Association.

Some examples of visioning in action follow:

• Seattle, Washington. Sustainable Seattle, a voluntary network of citizens from many sectors of the community, began meeting in 1990 to promote sustainability. This citizen-led public forum has hosted many events and roundtable discussions concerning the future of the Puget Sound area. The primary focus has been to develop indicators of a sustainable community. These indicators allow the community to measure its current health in the broad areas of environment, population, education, and civic engagement. Sustainable Seattle's neighborhood network is currently recruiting volunteers to participate in the city's neighborhood planning process. Through these efforts and others, Sustainable Seattle is working to infuse the concept of sustainability in Seattle's development.

• Noblesville, Indiana. In a year-long series of facilitated meetings, the town of Noblesville, Indiana, developed goals and set benchmarks to guide the community's future in the areas of land use and social and economic assets (development). The process, coordinated by Indiana University, was modeled after an Oregon statewide initiative but included several aspects unique to Noblesville. These included consideration of (1) social issues through the involvement of a local group representing community social service providers and (2) information on interrelationships among community concerns, such as the measurement of formal and informal business, education, and community partnerships.

• Plymouth, Wisconsin. The Plymouth Institute, which evolved from a 15 year-old community called High Wind, is a nonprofit consortium of environmental designers/builders, educators, artists, scientists, farmers, futurists, and entrepreneurs whose purpose is to define, demonstrate, and communicate values and practices of sustainable living. The 292 acres includes an organic farm, aquaculture system, solar homes, and a 70-acre eco-village that is in the design phase. It also cooperatively administers a comprehensive education and outreach program with several universities and school districts to local, national, and international communities. For example, Plymouth Institute/High Wind helped organize Sustainable Wisconsin, a statewide initiative to build a public agenda for sustainable development. Founder and resident of Plymouth Institute Belden Paulson believes that developing an environment ". . . where people live in honesty and harmony with one another and nature [allows them to] acknowledge and celebrate the divine interconnectedness of all life, and a commitment to holistic thinking and living."

• Greenville County, South Carolina. The United Way and Community Planning Council of Greenville County helps produce a community wide Needs Assessment Planning Study (NAPS) every three or four years. Using a community process that involves a broad range of citizens, NAPS identifies a set of issues related to the social problems faced in the county. In 1995, NAPS identified four such issues: early childhood development, dropout prevention, work and economic opportunity, and human services delivery and neighborhood development. The NAPS data provide the basis for focused action aimed at long-term improvement. Thus, in 1995, task forces representing broad areas of community life and collaborations of public and voluntary organizations were formed for each of the four issue areas. They are developing short- and long-range action plans, implementing them, and evaluating the results.

• Santa Ana Pueblo, New Mexico. The people of Santa Ana, whose tribal economy was traditionally based on agriculture, have lived near the convergence of the Rio Jemez and Rio Grande in New Mexico since 1700. During the 1970s, lack of access to credit discouraged family farming and led to off-reservation wage work. In 1980, tribal leaders formulated programs to establish greater economic independence while honoring traditional customs. These programs led to several integrated agriculture-based enterprises, including an organic tribal farm, a grain mill, a retail garden center, and a native plant and tree nursery. Today, tribal crops are sold in stores across the country and are the main food source for the Prairie Star, an upscale restaurant on the reservation serving the Albuquerque area. In addition, the tribal farm specializes in growing and processing blue corn products sold in cosmetics shops worldwide.

• Owensboro, Kentucky. Owensboro is western Kentucky's largest city. Until recently, many of its downtown sites were either unsightly or vacant. In a successful community wide effort to revitalize the downtown area, Owensboro residents raised $16 million to build Riverpark Complex, a civic and arts facility which includes a museum, theater, arts center, and administrative offices. Owensboro also convinced a paper company to locate a $500 million tissue products plant in the city, thereby creating 550 new manufacturing jobs. Through the vision of its citizens; creative financing; and the formation of solid partnerships among the public, private, and nonprofit sectors of the community, economic growth and revitalization in Owensboro are becoming a reality.

• The U.S. Network for Habitat II. The U.S. Network for Habitat II, a project of the Tides Center and a creation of the Citizens Network for Sustainable Development, is a national coalition of non-governmental and community-based organizations and interested individuals. These groups came together to advocate broad and diverse U.S. participation in the Second Conference on Human Settlements, June 3-14, 1996, in Istanbul, Turkey. Also known as Habitat II or "the City Summit," this conference focused on achieving universal housing and on building sustainable communities. To gear up for the conference, the U.S. Network for Habitat II conducted 12 town meetings to engage American citizens in a civic discussion about the future of its cities and towns. For most U.S. citizens participating in the town meetings and in the conference, the greatest benefit was linking the global issues of Habitat II to key needs of mainstream Americans.

Fostering Workforce Training

We will need farmers, business persons, writers, bureaucrats, builders, foresters, and workers who are also ecologically literate and competent and who can build sustainable solutions from the bottom up. -- David Orr, Oberlin College

Employers, employees, and the self-employed need education and training that lets them reexamine the nature of their work -- what is produced and how it is produced -- so that they will contribute to sustainability in their homes and communities as well as in their workplaces. Incentives such as increased wages, greater job security, and increased training opportunities should be offered to employees who find innovative ways for their companies to conserve resources, reduce production costs, and help the company prosper.

Educators are the key to readying the nation for the transition to sustainability. They can shape the workforce in part by focusing increased attention on career preparation, especially for those who do not attend college. A 1990 study concluded that the productivity of workers in jobs that do not require a college education will make or break the nation's economic future.¹⁰ The report states that America invests comparatively little in these front-line workers, who are fast becoming unemployable at U.S. wage levels. A 1988 report agrees, "Our economy, national security, and social cohesion face a precarious future if our nation fails to develop now the comprehensive policies and programs needed to help all youth."¹¹

Anecdotal support for this conclusion was voiced at a Chattanooga, Tennessee, roundtable convened by the Public Linkage, Dialogue, and Education Task Force to discuss jobs, labor, and sustainability. Participants noted that their biggest concern is preparing students to be community citizens who will have the knowledge and training needed to become part of the workforce. Despite this concern, representatives from the diverse industries and organizations in Chattanooga had never sat down to discuss impediments to reaching this goal. Their assessment was that schools are failing to connect curricula with real-life situations and, consequently, are failing to prepare students with the skills needed in the workforce.

But formal, in-school education will not answer to all the employment-related training needs raised by sustainability. Workers in all vocations -- from farmers and computer technicians to plant managers and shop owners -- will need to be trained to incorporate sustainability into their jobs. New industries employing sustainable practices will require a flexible and adaptable workforce that is prepared for a world in transition. At the same time, many resource-intensive industries may contract out for services, displacing workers who will need to be retrained for work in sustainable enterprises.

Worker training is essential, but if sustainability is to become a household word, advocates must respond to the job loss, insecurity, and falling wages facing America's workers. -- Ruth Caplan, Coordinator Economics Working Group Tides Foundation

Jobs in environmental industries contribute to sustainability and are presently high-growth areas. Demand for trained workers in environmentally related fields such as air quality management, sustainable energy production, hazardous waste management, and resource recovery is projected at a composite annual growth rate of six percent.¹² More jobs will be needed to design and build water treatment plants, increase the efficiency of power plants, insulate homes, build bike paths, and manage parks and wildlife. Workers will need to be trained for these jobs.

Business and organized labor can play constructive roles in educating workers for sustainability. Companies can help finance formal and nonformal educational programs and can support work-based training in sustainable practices. Labor can help focus attention on the need for this kind of training and the fact that in a sustainable economy all citizens can obtain secure, ongoing means of livelihood with full benefits at livable wages -- jobs that improve the quality of life while protecting the local and global environment.

Education must go beyond training workers. Educational outreach programs are needed to help community leaders and community-based economic development organizations become aware of the need for new strategies to develop a sustainable job base that promotes stability through diversification and locally owned, environmentally responsible enterprises. For example, in 1992, Boston announced plans to help create 10,000 new jobs in environmental services, including a $4 million recycling center.¹³ Communities will need technical assistance to implement similar economic development strategies. Entrepreneurs will need access to financing so they can establish sustainable enterprises, and communities will need funds for programs to train workers in the new industries. Rapid consolidation in the banking industry is making it increasingly difficult for communities and entrepreneurs to obtain that financing, a situation that must be remedied.

Educating workers and employers for a sustainable world needs to become a national priority, and a national effort to provide workforce training should be launched. In particular, training efforts should target K-12 students, students receiving vocational training at the secondary and postsecondary school levels, new employees and employers, employees and employers who need on-the-job upgrading of skills and training in sustainable practices, and displaced workers who must be retrained so they can find work in new industries.

Work-based learning is critical in equipping adults with the knowledge and skills they will need in a fast-changing world. On-the-job training is important in every economic sector, including service industries. One service industry -- health care -- is developing a program for educating its workforce that could serve as a model for other sectors of the economy. The National Association of Physicians for the Environment was founded in 1992 to educate physicians, patients, and the public. The association convenes conferences on environmental health issues, works to "green" the nation's 180,000 physicians' offices, and encourages physicians and other health practitioners to inform patients about the connection between pollution prevention and disease prevention.

Training and retraining programs must proliferate as the economy shifts to more efficient practices. Some businesses already are taking a proactive approach to training in business schools and should extend that effort. For example, companies are partnering with business schools to create internships and courses in environmental management that will help produce graduates knowledgeable of the environment's implications for business, including market opportunities resulting from environmental regulations.

Business and engineering schools at the University of Michigan and Carnegie-Mellon University have received funding for these kinds of programs from IBM and Dow Chemical. Similar initiatives in vocational education at the secondary and postsecondary levels should be established so that business will have the skilled workforce it will need to remain competitive in the global economy. Cooperative efforts by business and organized labor in this area would benefit both.

"School-to-work" opportunities offered through partnerships between industry and educators also should be encouraged. Promising models for career preparation range from career academies to "tech-prep" programs. The latter are often referred to as "2+2" programs, because they generally involve two years of high school and two years of postsecondary instruction. The idea is to administer a sequence of courses that prepares students for a variety of occupations within an industry. Tech-prep courses supported under the 1990 Perkins amendment to the federal vocational education law are coordinated through consultation with local businesses and unions. As of mid-1993, as many as 100,000 students in the United States were participating in tech-prep programs.

A recent study of 16 innovative school-to-work programs by Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation recommends that federal policy promote common themes and underlying principles rather than prescribe a specific program model. Localities should have the flexibility to customize their own school-to-work strategy, whether that means restructuring existing vocational programs or adopting another approach such as youth apprenticeships. Quality career preparation is desirable, achievable, and essential for attaining a sustainable society.

Some examples of ongoing innovative workforce training projects follow:

• Career Academies. While the modern American high school tends to isolate students from the adult world, career academies involve students in real-world careers early on. Career academies offer the opportunity to select an occupational theme, such as computers, finance, health, business, or tourism, and obtain actual experience through mentoring, summer work experiences, and internships. Typically structured as a "school within a school," a career academy generally consists of a group of students and teachers who get together for several hours each day. Businesses provide the academy participants with mentors, workshops, part-time jobs, and -- on graduation -- full-time employment with career potential. Career options range from jobs that require no postsecondary education to professions requiring advanced degrees. Curricula are formulated collaboratively through partnerships between schools and local employers.

• Business Schools for Sustainability. Created by the Management Institute for Environment and Business, the Business Environment Learning and Leadership program (BELL) is a consortium of 25 business schools committed to incorporating environmental issues into their curricula. BELL links universities, corporations, and communities to foster the "greening" of management education. Internships and permanent employment opportunities will offer MBA students the chance to integrate environmental concerns into management decision processes.

• Crouse School of Management. At present, only 100 out of 700 schools of business in the United States offer courses on business and the environment.¹⁴ One of those schools is the Crouse School of Management at Syracuse University. First year business students are required to take a course called Managing in the Natural Environment. Incorporated into this course are issues such as environmental ethics and ecology; jobs, competitiveness, and environmental regulation; global problems; businesses and challenges of sustainable development; and strategies for a sustainable society. The business school curriculum is also buttressed with courses such as land development law and environmental law.

• Zero Impact Program. GNB Technologies, an Atlanta, Georgia, division of Pacific Dunlop, manufactures lead-acid batteries for all markets in the United States. Together with EARTHWATCH in Boston, GNB has designed a Zero Impact Program to introduce the principles of sustainable development to GNB's 6,000 employees. EARTHWATCH and GNB hope that this educational program will help employees to find new and creative ways to make their process zero impact, minimum emissions, and low toxic material through-puts over the long term.