Provides a forum for measuring the San Francisco Bay Area's progress toward the achievement of regional sustainability: a healthy environment, vibrant economy, and equitable society.

Background

There are many dramatic illustrations today of how the San Francisco Bay Area is becoming less sustainable-- the lack of housing near workplaces, sprawling suburbs over once wild lands, increasing traffic congestion and air pollution, widening economic inequities, and the region's expanding Ecological Footprint and declining Genuine Progress Indicator.

The Regional Sustainability Initiative bolsters the work of public officials, businesses, and other interest groups with the capacity to enact real reform for a more sustainable Bay Area.  The RSI’s key urban planning tool, Scenarios for Sustainability (S2), provides decision makers with quantitative information about the degree to which alternative planning and policy options achieve environmental, economic, and social sustainability objectives. 

In addition to S2 refinement and application, the Regional Sustainability Initiative participates in regional working groups such as the Bay Area Alliance for Sustainable Communities, the Transportation & Land Use Coalition, and the Social Equity Caucus.  Through these partnerships, the RSI weighs in on major land use issues and conducts impartial sustainability analysis of competing planning and policy alternatives.   In 2003, the RSI released an inaugural indicators report for the Bay Area Alliance and the Northern California Council for the Community, Pathways to Results: Measuring Progress Toward Sustainability (pdf).  The RSI also hosted a series of Leadership Forums on Sustainability, addressing topics such as “Sprawl & Sustainability: Land Use and the New Budget Realities.”

RSI staff conduct sustainability workshops and presentations across the country, contribute articles regarding sustainability indicators, land use, and development issues to professional and popular publications, and maintain this regional sustainability website at http://www.regionalprogress.org. For more information on how to partner with the RSI on your sustainability goals, please contact Redefining Progress via the link on this site.

Established in 2003, the RSI aims to:

• Promote local accountability for sustainable development through tools like the Genuine Progress Indicator, the Ecological Footprint, and Scenarios for Sustainability;
• Build capacity in Bay Area leaders for addressing the relationship between economic growth, environmental health, and social justice; and
• Steer Bay Area policies towards social, economic, and ecological sustainability.

If your region or community is interested in learning more about how to measure its progress toward sustainability or if you have resources you'd be interested to link to this website, please contact Redefining Progress at sustainability@rprogress.org

Copyright 2006 Redefining Progress