The Need for Stewardship of Natural Resources by Households

Households play an essential role in the creation of more environmentally sustainable communities. Between 35% to 85% of a community's natural resources are used at the household level with up to 75% of these resources wasted through inefficiency and lack of awareness. Households are also a major source of a community's environmental pollution through auto emissions and toxic chemicals entering the ground water. In most communities, the financial burden of this inefficiency and environmental pollution falls upon municipalities as the primary accountable party responsible for providing services such as water, water treatment, landfills, roads, and environmental quality.

In today's fiscal climate, local governments have less money than ever before to provide these services to the community. Short of raising taxes or reducing services – not politically feasible in most communities – the only alternative is being more cost-effective. One of the major opportunities for cost containment is helping citizens better steward the community's natural resources. Developing a demand management approach is all the more critical in communities experiencing rapid population growth.

With these incentives, municipalities are motivated to help citizens develop lifestyle practices that conserve natural resources and protect the environment. Citizens are generally willing to cooperate, but have a hard time changing ingrained habits. Traditional methods used by municipalities – information and financial incentives – while achieving awareness and some behavior change, are not adequate for helping people change lifelong habits. And, they also do not tap into the enormous potential for resource savings that citizens are willing and able to achieve.¹ Municipalities need new tools to benefit from a demand management strategy.

¹ ''A Study of the Market Potential for the Green Living Program" Elizabeth Denny, Market Street Research, Northhampton, MA 1996. This independent market research study documents, through randomly selected phone interviews, the large market potential for the Green Living Program. This market potential is corroborated with other studies and surveys done in the past several years indicating significant willingness of Americans to develop resource efficient lifestyle practices. It also documents that EcoTeams achieve large resource savings and sustain them over time.

A Demand Management Assessment Tool:
The Citizen Sustainability Assessment

A starting point for demand management is to assess how well a community currently benefits from citizen resource conservation and the potential for improvement. In this regard, US EPA's Offlce of Urban and Economic Development provided Empowerment Institute (EI) funding to develop a tool which enables municipal decision-makers and citizens to evaluate how sustainably they are utilizing the community's natural resources. This Citizen Sustainability Assessment is the product. It will help a municipality assess:

• the effectiveness of the various municipal policies and programs that enable citizens to conserve the community's natural resources and protect it's environment, identifying the incentives and disincentives built into the system.
  
• the potential of an EI Sustainable Lifestyle Campaign to support the municipality's commitment to citizen resource conservation.

The Citizen Sustainability Assessment is divided into sections on solid waste, water, energy and transportation. In each section the user is guided by a series of questions. If the municipality is doing a self assessment, it will need to appoint a lead agency or staff person to manage the process. This agency or person will then identify representatives of each of the appropriate agencies to do the self assessment.

If the assessment is performed by a citizen advocate or group, they will need to research the data. This will be a remarkable education about the natural resource management of the community. In the beginning of each section there is a list of likely agency sources for the needed information. If the information is not in a readily usable form, persevere! In most cases the data is available, but may need to be interpreted. If after due effort, the data is not available, this knowledge, when remedied, will help the agency improve it's ability to do performance evaluation. For this feedback to be well received by the agency, it needs to be presented in the spirit of collaboration. If lack of time to institute changes is a concern for the agency, suggest that you or your citizen group are willing to provide volunteer help, if useful.

In some cases it will be seen that a new policy needs to be adopted or program improved. This is where this citizen assessment tool can serve as a catalyst for sustainable community development. To create change will generally require combined advocacy from within and outside the agency. A collective effort between the city and its citizens to improve the community’s environmental sustainability is one of the major outcomes of this assessment tool. Since citizens often need municipal services and programs to enable their adoption of sustainable lifestyle choices, and municipal agencies wish citizens to participate in its programs, a mutually beneficial partnership can be developed. And, as citizens take greater responsibility for natural resource sustainability the entire community benefits.

There is much at stake for the future of your community – preserving its natural resources will enable current residents and future generations to enjoy those same resources. Your actions can be of lasting value to your community. Success to you and your community on your path of sustainability!

Assessing the Sustainability of Your Community's
Residential Solid Waste Management

The agencies involved in solid waste management may have different names in each community. Generally they will fall under the following categories: municipal public works or solid waste agency, recycling coordinator, county or regional solid waste agency, private solid waste hauler or recycling hauler, local transfer station, and local landfill operator.

1. List the programs your community has in place to help citizens reduce the amount of solid waste they generate, e.g., recycling, composting or source reduction programs.
2. Describe why each program came into existence and its current goals.
3. What have been the principal strategies utilized to achieve citizen participation? Which have been successful and why? Which have been unsuccessful and why?
4. How is success measured? Include the numerical targets of the program. If there are no targets, how might targets be established?
5. What percentage of citizens participate in each program?
6. What percentage of solid waste does each program divert from the waste stream?
7. What have been the participation and solid waste diversion rates for each program over the last three years? Have participation and diversion rates increased, leveled off or decreased? Please explain what is causing this trend.
8. What neighborhoods have the most successful participation and solid waste reduction rates? Why is this? Please describe what has been learned.
9. What neighborhoods have the least successful participation and solid waste reduction rates? Why is this? Please describe what has been learned.
10. What incentives are there in the municipality, if any, for solid waste reduction? e.g., regulatory compliance with state or regional targets, landfill closing, avoided costs of expanding or building new infrastructure, increase in tipping fee expenses, city ordinance committing to natural resource conservation as a principal of community sustainability, etc.
11. Which service providers benefit from residential solid waste reduction? e.g., solid waste haulers in reduced tipping fee expenses, collection and transport costs, recycling service providers in increased feedstock to sell, and landfill operators in extended life of the landfill, e
12. If fiscal benefits are derived from residential waste reduction, how could these be calculated and projected over time? e.g., pounds of solid waste diverted equals a certain amount of financial savings for hauler, landfill operator, etc.
13. Are there any policies to reinvest these financial savings into creating greater solid waste reduction? Please describe. If not, how might a policy be established?
14. What disincentives are there in the municipality, if any, for residential solid waste reduction? e.g., contractual commitment to supply a fixed amount of residential solid waste to be placed in a landfill, financial obligations to pay off landfill site development based on tipping fees, etc.
15. Which service providers do not benefit from solid waste reduction? e.g., solid waste haulers who increase revenues from pounds of solid waste collected, landfill operators who increase revenues from tipping fees, etc.
16. Are there any municipal policies for assuring that incentives to solid waste diversion are enhanced, and disincentives eliminated? If not, how might these be pursued?
17. If the municipality has created disincentives to solid waste diversion, what can be done to remedy this? e.g., renegotiate contracts with service providers based on providing incentives for solid waste reduction, redesign policies, etc.

Assessing the Sustainability of Your Community's
Residential Water Management

The agencies involved in water management may have different names in each community. Generally they will fall under the following categories: municipal public works, water bureau, county or regional water agency, waste water treatment plant.

1. List the programs your community has in place to help citizens conserve water. e.g., free water saving fixtures, information campaigns, etc.
2. Describe why each program came into existence and its current goals.
3. What have been the principal strategies utilized to achieve citizen participation? Which have been successful and why? Which have not been successful and why?
4. How is success measured? Include the numerical targets of the program. If there are no targets, how might targets be established?
5. What percentage of citizens participate in each program?
6. What amount of water does each program conserve?
7. What has been the participation and amount of water conserved for each program over the last three years? Has participation and conservation increased, leveled off or decreased?
8. What neighborhoods have the most successful residential participation and water conservation?
9. What neighborhoods have the least successful residential participation and water conservation? Why is this? Please describe what has been learned.
10. Are the municipality's storm drains and sewers combined? If so, would water conservation help alleviate any problems of combined sewer overflows?
11. What incentives are there in the municipality, if any, for water conservation? e.g., regulatory compliance with state or regional targets, avoided costs of building new infrastructure such as wells or wastewater treatment facilities, city ordinance committing to natural resource conservation as a principle of community sustainability, etc.
12. Which service providers benefit from water conservation? e.g., city water department from reduced costs to meet peak water demand, waste water treatment plant from reduced operating costs and extended life of current facility, etc.
13. If fiscal benefits are derived from water conservation, how could these be calculated and projected over time? e.g., gallons of water needed to be saved to extend the life of the current facilities by a certain number of years, operational efficiencies of water treatment plant, etc.
14. Are there any policies to reinvest these financial savings into increased water conservation? Please describe. If not, how could a policy be put in place?
15. What disincentives are there in the municipality, if any, for residential water conservation? e.g., increased revenues based on residential water use, financial obligations to pay off water treatment plant based on resident fees, etc.
16. Which service providers do not benefit from water conservation? e.g. city water department who increase revenues from volume of water supplied, companies that build city wells, etc.
17. Are there any municipal policies for assuring that incentives to water conservation are enhanced, and disincentives eliminated? If not, how might these be pursued?
18. If the municipality has created disincentives to water conservation, what can be done to remedy this? e.g., renegotiate contracts with service providers based on incentives in water conservation, redesign policies, etc.

Assessing the Sustainability of Your Community's
Residential Energy Management

The agencies likely to be involved in energy conservation will generally fall under the following categories: municipal energy office, state energy office, electric utility, gas utility.

1. Does the municipality have a sustainable energy policy that includes residential use? If no policy exists, how could one be established?
2. If yes, how is residential energy conservation encouraged? How is using renewable energy encouraged? Please describe the policy and programs.
3. List the programs your utility(s) and municipality have in place to help citizens develop more sustainable energy households. e.g., home energy audits, appliance rebates, free energy saving fixtures, building codes promoting energy insulation, green energy products enabling easy use of renewable energy, etc.
4. Describe why each program came into existence and its current goals.
5. What have been the principal strategies utilized to achieve citizen participation? Which have been successful and why? Which have been unsuccessful and why?
6. How is success measured? Include the numerical targets of the program. If there are no targets, how might targets be established?
7. What percentage of citizens participate in each program?
8. What percentage of energy is conserved and is of a renewable source?
9. What has been the participation in each program over the last three years? Have participation, conservation and renewable energy use increased, leveled off or decreased? Please explain what is causing this trend.
10. Do certain neighborhoods have successful participation in energy conservation and renewable energy use? Why is this? Please describe what has been learned.
11. What incentives are there in the municipality/state/utility, if any, for providing energy conservation and renewal energy products? e.g., utility compliance with state public service commission to provide energy conservation programs, avoided costs of expanding infrastructure, financial incentives provided by the municipality for selling green power, city ordinance providing incentives for utilities to participate in natural resource conservation as a principal of community sustainability, etc.
12. Which energy utilities benefit from energy conservation or sale of renewable energy? e.g., utilities supplying their own energy that can avoid infrastructure expansion for peak demand, utilities that promote conservation to create financial capability for households to purchase green power at a premium, utilities that wish to maintain customer loyalty or development a competitive advantage by providing conservation services, etc.
13. If fiscal benefits are derived from energy conservation or sale of green power, how could these be calculated and projected over time? e.g., energy needed to be saved to extend the life of the current facilities by a certain number of years, operational efficiencies of energy generating plant, cost efficiencies from reaching a certain volume of green power sales, etc.
14. Are there any policies that the utility has to reinvest these financial savings into creating greater energy conservation or reducing rates for green power? Please describe. If not, how might the municipality, perhaps in cooperation with the public service commission, encourage the establishment of such a policy?
15. What disincentives are there in the utility, if any, for residential energy conservation? e.g., loss of revenues from less energy being used, etc.
16. Are there any municipal policies for assuring that incentives to energy conservation and sale of green power are enhanced, and disincentives eliminated? If not, how might these be pursued?

Assessing the Sustainability of Your Community’s Transportation Management

The agencies involved in transportation management may have different names in each community. Generally they will fall under the following categories: regional transit authority, municipal transportation or traffic agency' regional or state air quality control agencies, and regional or state departments of transportation.

1. Does your municipality have a travel demand management policy?
2. If yes, list the programs your municipality has in place to help citizens reduce vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and auto emissions e.g., walking and bike paths, shuttle services, public transit system, car pooling/car sharing, auto inspections, etc.
3. Describe why each program came into existence and its current goals.
4. What have been the principal strategies utilized to achieve citizen participation? Which have been successful and why? Which have been unsuccessful and why?
5. How is success measured? Include the numerical targets of the program. If there are no targets, how might targets be established?
6. What percentage of citizens participate in each program?
7. What percentage of VMT reduction is achieved through each program?
8. What has been the participation in each program over the last three years? Have participation and VMT reduction rates increased, leveled off or decreased? Please explain what is causing this trend.
9. Do certain neighborhoods have successful participation in VMT programs? Why is this? Please describe what has been learned.
10. What incentives are there, if any, for VMT reduction? e.g. avoided municipal and state penalties for air quality compliance, increased revenues to transit authorities from fares, increased prosperity of the city through quality of life improvement from reduced traffic congestion and noise pollution, city ordinance offering incentives to citizens to participate in natural resource conservation as a principle of community sustainability, etc.
11. Which transportation agencies benefit from VMT reduction? e.g., transit agencies selling fares, transportation departments in avoided costs of road maintenance and new construction, traffic agencies responsible for improving traffic flow, etc.
12. If fiscal benefits are derived from reduced VMT how could these be calculated and projected over time? e.g., avoided penalties, increased fares, operational efficiencies of maintaining current roads, etc.
13. Are there any policies that these agencies have to reinvest these financial savings into creating greater VMT reduction? Please describe. If not, how might the municipality encourage the establishment of such a policy?
14. What disincentives are there, if any, for VMT reduction? e.g., loss of revenues from toll collection, funding to particular agencies based on total automobiles serviced, etc.
15. Are there any municipal policies for assuring that incentives to VMT reduction are enhanced, and disincentives eliminated? If not, how might these be pursued?

For more information contact:

Empowerment Institute
1649 Route 28A
West Hurley, New York 12491
Tel: 845.331.1312

E-mail: info@empowermentinstitute.net