Sustainability and communities

A community doesn't necessarily mean a certain area of a city, or a small town. It can also mean any group with similar characteristics, such as religion, ethnic background, profession, group of nations, similar goals, or interdependent organisms (Ling, 2011).

But how are communities linked to sustainability?
A community has similar goals, ethics, and aspirations. They work together on issues, and bring them together into compromise or through policy that the majority will benefit from.

It seems the best level to reach more sustainable practices is through the community level.

Policy and government takes way too long, is tedious and often largely debated (Ling, 2011).
Individuals do not have much power, and have limited say over key areas, such as planning or utilities supply (Ling, 2011).
Everyone knows this (the former) about government.

My major project, or "thesis", for this program and my degree is to engage a community to reduce their use of plastic bags. Many governments around the world are tackling this issue through forced bag bans (China, California), or charging fees (Toronto). There has also been much anger from the public on this topic, especially from Toronto. If you google Toronto's policy on plastic bags, and read forums of how people react, the majority comes from the fact that people do not want to pay for bags, or inconvenience themselves to carry reusable bags.

More people are becoming aware of how light plastic in the environment is causing ecological harm, not just that it takes 10,000 or so years for plastic to break down, but that the plastic that enters the ocean, other water bodies and ecosystems breaks down into smaller pieces. These small pieces are being ingested by animals, filling up their stomachs until they no longer can eat real food and starve to death.

But these kinds of issues aren't major issues of concern to the majority of society. My project is not only to try and prevent the use of bags, but rather is a societal experiment to figure out how we can affect change in people. We are working the the municipality, the environmental committee, to create a social marketing campaign to help create this change. First, we are engaging the community through education and survey. Then we engage the businesses involved that provide the product (bags), hear their concerns, and present findings from the consumers. We research previous campaigns; experience from others. The final result will hopefully be a good one.

In recent times, a shift in the societal habits has occurred. Think of recycling. It is becoming a social norm to put recyclables into the blue bin instead of the garbage. How did this come to be? Does everyone who recycles care about the environment. I think not. Instead, some people are doing it because of societal pressure. From the shame if caught throwing it into the garbage. Other people telling them to do it. In a community, the majority will lead the pack into actions that reflect the community's values, and leave out those who disobey.


It is said that one individual, or often a small group of people have started the biggest change. Though as the world's population grows, I think this is becoming more difficult.
The paradox of management:
“One can more likely cause an effect at a fine scale, whereas success is more likely to be achieved at a broad scale.” Forman (1995)
A community can plan faster then government, but have the power to lead a large enough group to affect change. A sustainable community can be proactive, rather than reactive.

If a community plans together, in the event of a disaster, the people are more likely to survive working together.

Just a bit of thinking out of the box...