What We Do
| The EcoDistricts Initiative |
Accelerating environmental performance at the district scaleAn EcoDistrict is a neighborhood or district with a broad commitment to improve its environmental performance in an integrated strategy that includes engagement, self governance and benchmarking to make informed decisions about demand management, green building, infrastructure, and community engagement best practices. The concept continues to evolve as we test and learn more. The StoryThe EcoDistricts Initiative is fundamentally about accelerating urban innovation. We can no longer afford to tip toe around the realities of climate change, resource limitations, and population growth with incremental improvements. It’s time for real momentum around innovative, resilient projects in communities that are willing to take a risk for the potential of significant rewards and lessons learned that will apply to other cities and neighborhoods around the world. This awareness inspires EcoDistricts. We build on international thinking in the opportunities beyond buildings and into neighborhoods with integrated systems that value distributed resources. Nationally, the conversation focuses on this scale with products like LEED for Neighborhood Development, One Planet Living, and Climate Positive. And we see increasing initiative around district scale projects that find the most innovative sustainability solutions such as Treasure Island, in San Francisco and Destiny, in Florida.
While we have wide ranging technologies and strategies for reducing environmental impact, we are not yet comfortable with the risk involved in managing and financing these projects or with the implications for public policy. The EcoDistricts Initiative focuses equally on physical development – buildings and infrastructure (the “hardware”) and community engagement – demand management, governance and behavior, (the “software”) to guide the work. Right now there are a variety of strategies gaining increasing credibility – existing building retrofits, plug-in electric vehicle grids, demand management campaigns, and incentives that value savings over consumption – but not enough application. With EcoDistricts, we aim to bring these projects to the market by testing on the ground application. EcoDistricts build on the potential of high performing technologies and demand management strategies and focus on the enabling strategies of engagement, governance, finance, and policy to create new models for doing business in our own backyards. What’s powerful about this is the momentum. We know that EcoDistricts, in themselves, are not an end game. They are simply a tool, or strategy, to accelerate a broad regional and international agenda around reimagining sustainable urban environments as the solution to global challenges. Until we have tested models for implementing the kinds of projects that make a sustainable urban environment, we will only continue to talk about their potential. The EcoDistricts Initiative values the messiness of innovation and the risk inherent in being the first. We believe we are on the right track and have been encouraged by the astounding interest and enthusiasm around EcoDistricts.
Through this approach, we believe we can significantly evolve the conversation around urban sustainability best practices so that city governments can create new policies and regulations to support our tried and tested models; so that designers can cultivate and export their expertise in the design and engineering of complex urban systems; so that utilities can reconstruct their financing models to value conservation over of consumption; and so that property owners and residents have the financing, zoning, and regulations that support demand management strategies and physical development that challenge current codes. Our process is iterative and we admit not to know exactly what the end game looks like. Because the EcoDistricts Initiative is fundamentally an initiative, and we are most concerned with creating real momentum around urban sustainability solutions that allow for faster innovation cycles, the initiative will evolve as necessary to support the broad regional urban sustainability agenda and respond to lessons learned in our process. For further information:Check out our publications page to read the EcoDistricts Initiative framework, a program summary, and view an overview presentation. Some of the projects that inspire us: |
In Portland, we focus on the district, or neighborhood, because it provides the appropriate scale to test integrated sustainability strategies and concentrates resources, making size and risk more manageable. For us, it involves multiple players in the public and private sectors and relies on neighbors to help move projects forward in their own communities. This powerful combination of players positions us to span silos and tap key decision makers.
Our approach includes five pilot districts in the Portland area with property owners and residents who accept the risk inherent in being the first and are willing to test new technologies and business models.