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As with the list of communities, this list of resources is not intended to be exhaustive. It should be considered a starting point. The organizations included either provide information and technical assistance to communities or have extensive links on their web sites to sources of information on sustainability.
AtKisson, Inc.
The AtKisson Group is an international network of professional consultants, trainers, facilitators, researchers, writers and designers, dedicated to advancing sustainable development. They provide strategic consulting, training, and communications support to sustainability leaders and innovators around the world. The AtKission Accelerator (tm) is a comprehensive toolkit that helps integrate sustainability into organizations, initiatives, and plans.
Balaton Group -- see Sustainability Institute
Citizen's Network for Sustainable Development
A volunteer organization established prior to the UN Earth Summit as a vehicle to work on issues relating to sustainable development, the environment, government policy, and civic participation.
Community Tool Box
The Tool Box provides free how-to resources for people working to develop healthier communities.
Corporation for Enterprise Development
Nonprofit organization working on fostering widely shared and sustainable economic well being. Their report 2005 Assets and Opportunity Scorecard is a state-level snapshot of how the country is performing in six key areas: financial security, business development, homeownership, health care, education, and tax policy and accountability.
Crossroads Resource Center
Crossroads' mission is to promote the growth of regenerative local communities. Services provided include conducting studies of economic assets, creating customized indicators to monitor progress toward goals of the community, assessing skills of local residents (to help create community linkages), and producing summaries of lending activity within the community. Published Neighborhood Sustainability Indicators Guidebook on how to develop local indicators of neighborhood sustainability and the Neighborhood Balance Sheets Assess Local Economies
Global Footprint Network
The Global Footprint Network is dedicated to advancing the scientific rigor and practical application of the Ecological Footprint, a tool that quantifies human demand on nature, and nature's capacity to meet these demands. Created in 1993 by Mathis Wackernagel and William Rees, the Ecological Footprint is now in wide use by governments, communities, and businesses to monitor current ecological resource balances and to plan for the future.
Green Mountain Institute for Environmental Democracy
GMI provides technical assistance to communities and organizations working on environmental indicators, comparative risk, and community process development. Their web site includes a great deal of information on environmental indicators including links to many different indicator projects.
ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability
ICLEI lists a vast amount of sustainability information on its web site. Including an information clearinghouse, summaries of local government projects addressing environmental and development issues. Recently published the U.S. Mayors' Climate Action Handbook, a tool kit for addressing global warming at the local level.
Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR)
A nonprofit research and educational organization that provides technical assistance and information on environmentally sound economic development strategies. Researches the feasibility of communities generating a significant amount of wealth from local resources. Projects include New Rules -- a proposed set of rules, based on the ideas of 'new localism' for building community by supporting humanly scaled politics and economics - and Waste to Wealth which focuses on better ways to recycle including deconstructing buildings and reusing the material locally.
International Institute for Sustainable Development
IISD is a non-profit organization whose mandate is to promote sustainable development in decision making within government, business and the daily lives of individuals in Canada and the world. One of the best starting places for web-based information on sustainable development. They have a number of documents on world wide sustainable development/community projects available for a fee in hard copy format. Includes the Bellagio Principles for sustainable community indicator development.
Izaak Walton League of America
Non-profit conservation organization that has written a number of guides for communities on issues relating to sustainability. Publish a monthly Sustainability Communicator on local issues
Land Stewardship Project
Private, nonprofit organization founded in 1982 to foster an ethic of stewardship for farmland, to promote sustainable agriculture and to develop sustainable communities. Published Monitoring Sustainable Agriculture with Conventional Financial Data by Dick Levins.
Lowell Center for Sustainable Production
The Lowell Center develops, studies, and promotes environmentally sound systems of production, healthy work environments, and economically viable work organizations. The web site has a training guide on sustainable production indicators and a hierarchy for classifying indicators, a valuable tool that enables the companies and other orgainzations to understand the extent to which they are measuring their overall input to community sustainability.
Minnesota Office of Environmental Assistance
This office of the Minnesota state government is an excellent source of information about sustainability. Although the emphasis is on Minnesota, much of the information is also relevant to other areas. Manages excellent monthly e-newsletter on sustainability issues for the Minnesota Sustainable Communities Network.
National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership
NNIP is a collaborative effort by the Urban Institute and local partners to further the development and use of neighborhood-level information systems in local policymaking and community building.
National Roundtable on Environment and Economy
Created by the Canadian government in 1988, the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy (NRTEE) is dedicated to exploring new opportunities to integrate environmental conservation and economic development, in order to sustain Canada
Natural Logic
A for-profit consulting company that provides strategic, analytic and management services, supported by proprietary protocols and tools, that build their customers' profit, resilience and competitive advantage through exceptional environmental performance.
North Central Regional Center for Rural Development
One of four regional centers coordinating rural development research and education throughout the United States working on rural development research and education programs to improve the social and economic well-being of rural people. Web site includes interactive workbook Measuring Community Success and Sustainability.
Ontario Healthy Communities Coalition
The OHCC (Ontario Healthy Communities Coalition) works with the diverse communities of Ontario to strengthen their social, environmental, and economic well-being. Have Pathways To A Healthy Community: An Indicators And Evaluation Tool Kit, a document on 19 different evaluation and indicator tools with a User's Guide that provides comprehensive details to help groups select the tool most appropriate to their needs. In addition, the User's Guide includes details on how to obtain copies of the various tools, an annotated bibliography of other tools and resources, an annotated list of evaluation/indicator web sites, and a list of local contacts for folks working on evaluation/indicator initiatives around Ontario. Another useful document is Signs of Progress, Signs of Caution: How to Prepare a Healthy, Sustainable Community P rogress Report Card
Oregon State University Extension Service
The publication, "Looking for Oregon's Future: What is Sustainability?" is now online. The web site, from the Oregon State University Extension Service, features 33 articles about sustainability, an interactive quiz to test your sustainability knowledge and links to other sustainability sites.
Redefining Progress
Non-profit public policy organization working on changing the way that progress is measured. Developed the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI). Co-authored Community Indicator Handbook.
Renewable Energy Policy Project and CREST, the Center for Renewable Energy and Sustainable Technology (CREST)
A good source of information on sustainable energy and development. REPP researches, publishes, and disseminates information, creating policy tools, and hosting highly active, on-line, renewable energy discussion groups. The site has links to other sites on sustainable energy. Well worth checking out.
Sightline Institute
Formerly Northwest Environment Watch, Sightline Institute is a not-for-profit research and communication center --a think tank--based in Seattle--whose mission is to bring about sustainability--a healthy, lasting prosperity grounded in place - with a focus on the Pacific Northwest (Cascadia), a region that includes Washington, Oregon, Idaho, British Columbia, and adjoining parts of Alaska, Montana, and California. Nonpartisan and wholly independent, Sightline's only ideology is commitment to the shared values of strong communities, fair markets, and responsible stewardship. Publishes the Cascadia Scorecard, first released in 2004, an index of sustainability for the Northwest.
Smart Communities Network
Developed and maintained by the National Center for Appropriate Technology, this website contains more than 4,000 subpages of information, resources, and links that highlight sustainable development efforts within urban and rural communities throughout the country
Sustain NorthWest
An email discussion list on building sustainable communities in the Cascadia region of the Inland and Pacific Northwest and Western Canada maintained by Washington State University and managed by Katherine Baril, Director, WSU- Jefferson County Extension housed at WSU.
Sustainability Institute
Founded in 1996 by the late Donella (Dana) Meadows to apply systems thinking and organizational learning to economic, environmental and social challenges. The organization continues to build on Dana's vision and provides research, workshops, tools and games about sustainability. Contact point for the Balaton Group, which produced a report Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development, available on the web site in pdf format.
Sustainable Community Network
On line directory of information about sustainability including case studies on sustainability projects, information about how to plan a 'sustainable' event and links to other sources of information.
The Natural Step
An intenational non-profit environmental education organization working to build an ecologically and economically sustainable society using the Natural Step, a framework based on science that serves as a compass for businesses, communities, academia, government entities and individuals working to redesign their activities to become more sustainable. The Natural Step is based in Sweden. The US-based affiliate is the Oregon Natural Step
The Nature Conservancy
Conservation organization working to protect the most ecologically important lands and waters around the world for nature and people.
United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development
Created to provide follow up on the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), in Rio de Janeiro (also known as The Earth Summit). In addition to the CSD list of sustainability indicators, the web site has links to many UN sites related to sustainability.
United Nations Environment Programme, Sustainable Production and Development Working Group
Created to provide support to industry and policy makers on sustainable products and services, including information on the fundamentals of sustainable production and consumption, renewable material resources, sustainable services, and renewable energy.
United Nations Sustainable Cities Programme
Joint facility of the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat) and United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) for the development of a sustainable urban environment, founded on broad-based public participation. The programme has been in operation since 1990 and is now active in over 15 countries around the world.
United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Community-Based Environmental Protection
A web site on community-based environmental protection, an important component of a sustainable community. Web site includes a list of the regional EPA contacts. The bibliograph section has list of available (free) publications.
World Resources Institute
Nonprofit organization that does policy research and technical assistance on global environmental and development issues. Produces the yearly World Resources series of data books, an excellent source of national and international level data on a wide variety of issues related to sustainability.
Worldwatch Institute
Nonprofit public policy research organization working on sustainability issues. Publishes World Watch magazine, the annual Vital Signs and State of the World reports, as well as the World Watch Series on particular issues. Excellent source of detailed information about sustainability issues.
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