Questions to ask When Engaged in Sustainable Community Development

1. Questions to ask When Engaged in Sustainable Community Development Anu Ramaswami Professor and Director IGERT: Sustainable Urban Infrastructure University of Colorado Denver

2. Principles of Sustainability Engineering • Some thought into developing guiding principles for sustainability engineering • Anastas, P.; Zimmerman, J. “Design through the Twelve Principles of Green Engineering,” Environmental Science and Technology, 37, 94A – 101A, 2003 • Primarily design oriented

3. The Sandestin Declaration • EPA’s Nine Principles of Green Engineering * (http://www.epa.gov/oppt/greenengineering) • *as developed by more than 65 engineers and scientists at the Green Engineering: Defining the Principles Conference, held in Sandestin, Florida in May of 2003. • Principle 7: • Develop and apply engineering solutions, while being cognizant of local geography, aspirations, and cultures. • How do we do this and teach this?

4. University Colorado Denver Projects • Wind Generator Installation in Tribal Village in India • Site Assessment for Water Supply project in Tribal Village • Renewable Energy Project in Tsunami impacted area of Sri Lanka

5. Three Questions to Ask • Who owns the project? • Who sets project objectives? • Whose Knowledge Counts? • Who benefits from the project?

6. Who owns the project? • Often US University teams undertaking developing community projects pose the entire community as the “owner”. • In reality, the owner and driver often are: • The Non-Governmental Organization that pose the project • Priorities and Philosophies need to be understood • Important Social groups are excluded from agenda-setting • Examples: Rural Women who face the actual problem

7. Field Installation of a Horizontal Axis Wind Generator in India Rachel Werther and Mark Pitterle March, 2005

8. Village meeting at a distance • Village meeting held to assess needs

9. Close-up of Village Meeting • Representative from each of the 12 hamlets present at the meeting 12 Hamlet Leaders

10. Women Meeting • After 3 days of persistence, we were finally able to have a meeting where only women attended • Women from 2 hamlets attended

11. Whose Knowledge Counts? • Technically-detailed devices such as wind generators need trained and educated operators • This village had an electrical engineer who led and operates the project • Such leadership is sparse (not scalable)

12. Village Team after Installing the Windmill

13. Whose knowledge on sustainability counts? • Often developing communities are far more sustainable in resource use • Developing communities often have a systems view embedded in local knowledge • Care needed to integrate this local knowledge

14. Tribal Home Construction

15. Grain Storage

16. Close up of the distillery

17. Who benefits from the project? • Impacts in the communities can be complex • Unsure if projects really benefit the sensitive populations in the long-term • Example: Benefits to children in dormitory projects are at best indirect • Few community development projects conduct an end-point impact assessment • International student teams benefit • Hands-on experience, Education, Visibility

18. Education: Participatory Research Techniques and Principles From: Cornwall & Jewkes, 1995; Ramaswami et al., Environmental Science & Technology, 2007

19. Teaching Community Engagement at University Colorado Denver • Development projects in the US • Coursework on Defining and Measuring Sustainability