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Sustainable Cleveland - the Experience of Place

Northeast Ohio, a geographical area of some 16 counties based in and around Cleveland and adjacent to Lake Erie, is making a name for itself as a seedbed of sustainability practices and a model for other communities wishing to become more sustainable. An August 7 conference showcased the vitality of the region and the breadth of the groups working to make Cleveland economically, environmentally and socially sustainable. The meeting was held on the campus of Cleveland State University and was co-hosted by CSU's Nance College of Business Administration, Currere, Inc., and CEO. It was a follow-up to CEO's October 2008 sustainability conference held in Los Angeles, which had featured several groups from Cleveland. This series of conferences examines how organizations can work together to address complex problems essential to the health of the communities, economies, and ecologies in which they operate.

Recognizing that a community is a complex system of many subsystems and agents, CEO senior research scientist Sue Mohrman, Currere president Sally Breyley Parker, and the Nance College's Director of Outreach and Business Centers Colette Taddy Hart organized the conference to bring together people from several disparate fields, including business, agriculture/urban gardening, K-12 education, higher education, the arts, healthcare, government, the port, and public housing. The work of each of these groups is reshaping Cleveland. The premise of the conference was that this work can have more lasting impact in an accelerated manner if there are more connections and greater synergy through the network of initiatives. The purpose of the conference was to explore opportunities and organizing approaches for leverage and synergy.

Cleveland is not a newcomer to sustainability. The groups represented at the conference have been advancing practice in their areas and in northeast Ohio for years. Indeed, at this meeting participants weren't asking, What is required to be more sustainable? -- but rather, How can we apply the resources in the city to make greater progress toward this end? How can we take a loosely connected set of initiatives and find ways to scale them up and broaden their impact? The focus is on creating a viable future. An underlying question was: How can we solidify and mesh sustainable practices into everyday life so that our children see them as the standard? The importance of K-12 and higher education, the need to engage with young people, and to make a seat at the table for them in this endeavor, was repeatedly stressed.

Even to the casual observer, the Cleveland community's commitment to ecological sustainability is immediately evident - beyond recycling paper and plastics, composting is common here, both in individual homes and institutions. With the "bird and bee" ordinance enacted by the city government, individual homeowners can raise chickens and tend bees. Urban food gardening is exploding in popularity. and farmers' markets abound.

There is also an impressive array of initiatives geared to building social and economic sustainability in this city that has been in the middle of the rust belt challenges. Highly successful charter schools have developed models for urban education. The Cleveland Metropolitan Housing Agency has been a national leader in building sustainable communities that focus on the education of residents, broadening the skills and aspirations of the youth, and developing leadership capabilities. Public private partnerships are being widely applied to address Cleveland's needs and build its future, including seeding the new "green" economy.

The August 7 "tasting" of the varied programs operating in Cleveland afforded an opportunity to network, share accomplishments and problems, and identify areas where participants can work together to accelerate the path to a sustainable Cleveland. It also provided a rich laboratory from which much can be learned about how organizations can work together more effectively for greater impact. CEO will be working with the participants to capture and disseminate the learnings from this conference--and tracking progress through time. We will also expand the investigation to examine other communities.

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