Accelerating environmental performance at a district scale

In 2009, the Portland Sustainability Institute, in partnership with the City of Portland, launched the EcoDistricts Initiative as part of the Portland region's broadening commitment to sustainability.  The EcoDistricts Initiative is a comprehensive strategy to accelerate sustainable neighborhood development.  PoSI drafted a Framework, released in March 2010, to clarify the value proposition, define performance areas, and outline an implementation strategy.

An EcoDistrict is a neighborhood or district with a broad commitment to accelerate neighborhood-scale sustainability.  EcoDistricts commit to achieving ambitious sustainability performance goals, guiding district investments and community action, and tracking the results over time.

PoSI recognizes that technologies and strategies for enhancing neighborhood sustainability, such as energy and water management systems, green streets, and resource conservation, are well known.  However, the widespread deployment of these strategies has been slow to develop due to lack of comprehensive assessment tools, scalable project capital, and public policy support.  The EcoDistricts Initiative focuses on removing these implementation barriers and creating an enabling strategy to accelerate neighborhood-scale sustainability.

The EcoDistricts Initiative is distinct from most green development strategies focusing on brownfield or greenfield development that are primarily led by master developers or public agencies.  Instead, the EcoDistricts Initiative targets neighborhoods — at the intersection of buildings, infrastructure and people.  PoSI is working upstream of rating systems like LEED-ND to develop tools and strategies for engagement and project implementation.

The EcoDistricts Initiative brings together community stakeholders, property developers, utilities, and the City of Portland to solidify a shared sense of purpose and partnership through the following actions:

• Create an engagement and governance strategy to build community support, set priorities, and act
• Develop an assessment and management toolkit to guide project development and track ongoing performance
• Implement sustainability projects through technical and economic feasibility analysis, assembly of project financing, and establishment of public-private partnerships
• Identify commercialization opportunities for companies to test promising products and practices
• Establish municipal policy and regulatory structures to support EcoDistrict development

To test these concepts, PoSI is working with five pilot districts to guide strategic planning, community engagement and catalytic investments.  Over a three-year period, district stakeholders agree to set rigorous goals, develop a roadmap, and implement projects.  In return, PoSI and its public partners are providing technical and financial resources to support the work.  The EcoDistricts pilot process includes the following four phases:

1. Engagement to Governance
2. Assessment and Action Planning
3. Feasibility and Project Implementation
4. Ongoing Monitoring

The five pilot districts are:

• Lloyd District
• Portland State University
• Gateway
• Lents
• South Waterfront – North Macadam

Fundamentally, the EcoDistricts Initiative is an effort to deploy appropriate district-scale sustainable projects that drive experimentation and innovation.  PoSI expects the EcoDistricts Initiative to produce a set of tools and strategies that cities can use in support of integrated policy goals around climate change, green building, mobility, watershed and ecosystem health, economic development, and community wellbeing.

For further information:

Check out our publications page to read the EcoDistricts Initiative framework and a summary of the program.

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