Panel in Houston discuss the “Three Es” of sustainable development

Are we doing what’s necessary?

Wendy Natt, Mar 12, 09.

Five community experts from the private, public, and nonprofit sectors participated today in a symposium about what sustainability and sustainable growth means for Houston, and also to describe their own agendas, practices, and programs to create a more sustainable city. Ideas and suggestions were also shared among panelists and audience members about specific challenges for Houston, and how we might begin to work together across various community sectors to achieve our sustainability goals, many of which are interdependent.

The event, titled “Sustainability in Houston: Strategies Across the Private, Public, and Nonprofit Sectors,” was organized and sponsored by the Texas Economic & Demographic Association, and was open to both TEDA members and the general public. Panelists included City Council Member Peter Brown, Chair of the City’s Sustainable Growth Committee; Cris Eugster, PhD, the City’s Chief Officer for Sustainable Growth; Adam Saphier, Principal for development and real estate investment company Trammell Crow; and Amanda Timm, Executive Director of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation. Houston Tomorrow president David Crossley led the discussion.

Crossley opened the session with a presentation about the history and meaning of sustainability. He noted that one history says the first time the term “sustainability” was used in the US in relation to human settlement and activities was by Dennis Meadows, one of the authors of The Limits to Growth. That 1972 study and the 1974 book of the same name, which has sold more copies than any other book on environmental issues, said that the world was headed for a variety of collapses without some serious changes in how we approach the future. The book, whose principal author was Donella Meadows, talked of policies for a “sustainable” future.

Then, in 1987, the United Nation’s World Commission on Environment and Development issued the Brundlandt report, which defined sustainability as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” The report identified three dimensions or components of sustainable development, also commonly known as the “Three Es”: economic development, environmental integrity, and social equity. The discussion today explored all three issues. Here are some highlights.

Crossley then made the case the Grand Parkway, which is now scheduled to be constructed in the heart of the sensitive Katy Prairie, is a metaphor for unsustainable development, as opposed to the Metro 2012 light rail transit system, which he said is a key part of Houston’s ability to survive and thrive into the future.

Adam Saphier described how Trammell Crow recently installed energy recovery or enthalpy wheels - a technology that has been employed in Houston buildings since the mid-1990s - atop Hess Tower and Energy Center II in Houston to help greatly increase the efficiency of the buildings’ cooling systems. Both of these office buildings are LEED Gold certified. (LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rankings are based on nationally-accepted standards for energy-efficient, green building design and construction.) Saphier spoke about other innovations the company is using to increase building energy efficiency and improve air quality and he emphasized the important role of energy efficient technological innovations in our unpredictable energy economy.

Cris Eugster said the City’s efforts to become a sustainable, economically competitive city can be seen in its current ranking as the largest municipal purchaser of renewable energy in the nation. He said that one quarter of the energy to power the City’s municipal buildings comes from wind power.

Amanda Timm said that we, as a city, need to be smarter about the way we connect sustainability with the opportunities that economic growth brings to our region. Our most vulnerable, disadvantaged neighborhoods and communities are not getting a fair share of the benefits that this kind of growth creates, she said, adding that we need to start giving these members of our community more opportunities and options to become participating and contributing members of our economy, through access to education, public transportation, and job training.

Council Member Brown noted that we need to approach sustainable development in Houston from both a “macro” and a “micro” level. Progress is being made by many individual groups at the micro level, but not on a more holistic level that considers the interdependency of the three components of sustainability. He called attention to Richard Florida’s article in Atlantic, “How the Crash Will Reshape America,” which says that those cities that embrace sustainable planning and practices are the ones that will come out on top economically. Houston, he noted, has the highest per household transportation costs in the US, and that this trend will be maintained so long as the middle and lower classes cannot afford to live in the city center, due to a lack of affordable housing within the 610 Loop. He spoke about the need for an efficient, attractive, urban plan that focuses on transit-oriented, infill development, and more affordable housing options.

Crossley noted a major obstacle to this kind of change in Houston is that the City tax system does not encourage development of urban land.

On the environmental level, panellists spoke about the need for greenspace as essential to a sustainable, healthy quality of life. In addition to increasing residents’ access to city parks, David Crossley said that perhaps more important is the preservation of large pieces of undeveloped, natural land or farm land and the tributaries and estuaries that surround our city, both to preserve the incredible natural biodiversity of our region and retain land for future agricultural needs.

Eugster spoke about the new Houston Parks and Recreation Department Urban Gardening Program, which is making tracts of tax-delinquent city land available for residents to create community gardens, and providing instruction and resources on how to garden. Crossley mentioned the important work that Urban Harvest has done in creating gardens and programs and providing the resources to allow more Houstonians to be urban gardeners and support local farmers at the city’s farmers’ markets.

Audience member Gary Edmondson of Urban Harvest said that much more work needs to be done on this front to create a more sustainable, local food supply network for Houston. He called for the City to implement, or provide the economic assistance to implement, a program to educate and train people to become urban farmers, noting that there are many large tracts of accessible land within the city that could be used for this purpose.

Energy-efficient, greenhouse gas-reducing strategies like LEED building practices, transit-oriented development, improvement of our transit system, and other possibilities for reducing the City’s carbon footprint were also discussed as important steps toward environmental sustainability.

Audience member Laura Blackburn of the Houston Chapter of the League of Women Voters noted that a discussion of Houston’s notoriously poor air quality was essentially lacking from the discussion. She sees this as an environmental and social justice issue, and the biggest challenge that Houston faces in achieving sustainability.

Timm was the panelist whose work is most closely tied to the social equity component of sustainability, but she made the point that human equity relies on and is inextricably linked to issues of environmental and economic sustainability, and that it must be part of any holistic approach to creating sustainable communities and neighborhoods. “A more equitable city is an economic benefit to everyone.” She said that “we, as a society, are obligated to help people on that path to a healthy productive life,” and that this can only happen through a more equitable distributions of resources and access to opportunities to succeed.

One of the most-repeated messages by all participants in the discussion was that communication among stakeholders from public, private, and nonprofit sectors is critical if effective, broad-scale, equitable sustainability projects are going to happen in Houston. Most agreed that we currently are not communicating at the level we should be; rather we are too often working as separate, siloed entities, and that all interested parties must be included in the process of developing sustainable neighbourhoods, and a sustainable city.

Most of all, panelists said, we need leadership in this effort from our city government, and a much greater level of citizenship, responsibility, and advocacy at the grassroots level. And all agreed we need a long-range plan for Houston’s growth.