Strategic Planning for Sustainability

The Partnership for a Green City is an innovative sustainability collaboration of three of the largest public employers in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. We created a strategic planning process using the partners, select members from the community and an experienced facilitator to construct a strategic plan for increasing sustainability within our public organizations as well as targeting underserved populations in the community.  Our process resulted in five strategic priorities: 1) collaboration, 2) resource enhancement, 3) advocacy, 4) research and demonstration, and 5) measurement.  We continue working on the plan to review our progress and continuously improve the plan. 

Upon the completion of the written plan, our regional community college, Jefferson Community & Technical College, asked to join the Partnership and become a part of the sustainability plan.  One of our strategic community participants (a CHMM) was hired as the new Sustainability Director for Louisville Metro government.  We revised and revitalized our committee structure, we are working with another leadership group in the community to create a 501c3 as an advisory sustainability council to the Mayor and Sustainability Director with the intent of creating a Sustainability Plan for the community, and we are measuring our collaborative success by money saved and other sustainability indicators.

This model is easily reproduced and can be a driver to achieve sustainability success in other areas.  Interaction is encouraged and attendees can take away from this course ways to collaborate on a strategic plan for sustainability whether the partnership is public, private or mixed.