Intellitics will attend the 2009 IAP2 Annual Conference “Making Sustainable Decisions”, September 21-23, 2009 in San Diego, CA. From their website:
Making Sustainable Decisions
In recent years, sustainability has become the watchword for many human, social, corporate and governmental endeavors. In some formulations, there are three “pillars” and in others there are four. Others refer to this concept as the “triple bottom line.” Whichever version one subscribes to, however, IAP2 sees people and governments around the world struggling both to incorporate sustainability into their decisions and with how to involve stakeholders in participating in those decisions.
Sustainable decision making has long been an underlying principle of public participation. IAP2’s emphasis on inclusionary processes is predicated on the belief that better decisions are made when community and social implications of that decision are fully factored into the decision making process. When the IAP2 Core Values were reviewed and revitalized in 2005, sustainable decision making was explicitly added as part of our values going forward.
The 2009 IAP2 conference will provide the opportunity to discuss the multiple facets of sustainability. In a kind of double entendre, we want to explore the state of the art both in terms of how to make decisions that reflect sustainability principles, as well as, how to make decisions that are themselves “sustainable.” We believe these two facets feed into each other, but as the world’s premier organization focused on public participation in public decisions, IAP2 believes that the sustainability of the decision itself is in need of closer examination.
More from the preliminary conference program (PDF):
The 2009 IAP2 conference will provide the opportunity to discuss the multiple facets of sustainability. In a kind of double entendre, we want to explore the state of the art both in terms of how to make decisions that reflect sustainability principles, as well as how to make decisions that are themselves “sustainable.” IAP2 believes that the sustainability of the decision itself is in need of closer examination.
IAP2 wants to expand the definition of sustainability to encompass all the characteristics that make decision‐making processes and the resulting decisions sustainable. Specifically, presentations will be focused around the following themes:
- Sustainable decision‐making processes: what characteristics are necessary for a public participation process to be sustainable?
- Sustainable decisions: In what ways does public participation lead to decisions that are more workable and enduring than those made without public participation?
- Sustainable outcomes: How do public participation processes and better decisions specifically contribute to the sustainability of projects and programs?
Starting September 18, additional training sessions will be offered via an extensive pre-conference program.
For conference updates, subscribe to the IAP2 blog or follow @iap2 on Twitter.
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
As a practitioner in public participation (and an environmental engineer), I have noticed that people use the terms “sustainable” and “sustainability” without having a very good idea of just what it is.
Unfortunately, it ia often used (or abused) to mean “good for the environment (or whatever the subject at hand).
After reading and re-reading the IAP2′s text about “sustainability” in Decision-Making, Decisions, and Outcomes, I can honestly say that I do not understand what they are talking about.
I suggest this Wikipedia link on “sustainable development” (the latter one has a U.N. list of topics, underwhich “Capacity-Building” might be what IAP2 is reaching for):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_development
I suggest they choose one (of the many) definitions out there, and THEN see if what they are trying to say still makes sense. If it does, then they need to *cite* that definition to their audience.
Otherwise, the IAP2 conference session will only create a lot of nodding heads — without any real focus or result. (As such, the session may become a good example of “unsustainable decision-making”, if that’s what they mean.)
vr,
Stephen Buckley
http://www.UStransparency.com
As I understand it, IAP2 refers to sustainability as the conference theme in two ways:
First, sustainability (Wikipedia) as “the capacity to endure” (e.g. decisions that can and will last because they are wise and have broad support).
Second, sustainability in the context of making decisions that affect or need to be in line with the triple bottom line (Wikipedia) of economic, ecological and social performance.
Let me see if I can get someone from IAP2 to clear this up further.
IAP2′s intent, in referring to sustainable decision-making, is summed up well by Wikipedia’s first definition of sustainability which says, ‘Sustainability, in a broad sense, is the capacity to endure’.
Many of us realize that ‘sustainability’ has now become overused and wrongly applied in many cases. IAP2 has used it in reference to lasting decision-making for so long we might have assumed we had grandfathered rights…maybe not.
The point is that for issues that effect people, authentic public involvement and citizen engagement results in better, enduring, lasting, sticky, sustainable decisions, than decisions that are made without public participation.
Thanks, John!
First, as the conference convenor and the person who suggested sustainable decision making as the conference theme, I must bear some of the responsibilty for any confusion that has resulted. Second, thanks to John for clarifying our meaning.
I do think we were explicit in saying that the “double entendre” is intentional, i.e., it is meant to speak to both the sustainability of the decisions themselves (an IAP2 concern) and the degree to which sustainability as a principle (triple bottom line) can or is incorporated into decisions by government, industry and others.
The reason, as John points out, that we are looking at these two aspects together is that we believe that achieving the triple bottom line of sustainability (not good for the environment alone) is nearly impossible without broad, inclusive stakeholder participation. How else do we understand more fully all of the intended and unintended consequences of our proposed actions and solutions.
The world is full of examples of where “experts” got together and came up with the “perfect” solution, only to see it fail miserably, because it did not account for some aspect of whatever system was being tinkered with. In hindsight, there is almost always someone who says “I could have told you what was going to happen” – or WORSE – says “I told you so.”
Public participation is all about identifying people and information that are relevant to a decision. We encourage decision makers to be inclusive and get all points of view. We implore them to think about how people will be differentially affected by their decisions and help give voice to those people. In doing so, we believe public participation is the natural ally of decision makers that respect and desire to incorporate sustainability principles into their decisions.
The conference is intended to explore that relationship.