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6
MOVING FORWARD
Catherine Mosbacher, president and CEO of the Center for
Houston’s Future, explained that the center’s goal is to help make
Houston one of the top 10 global regions in which to work and live. She
noted that there are language problems when it comes to discussions
around sustainability, and that her center couples the word
competitiveness with sustainability because this better resonates with the
business community. One of the center’s projects is Scenarios 2040,
which is a business-led regional public interest scenario that engaged up
to 50 people from across the region from many different ages, industries,
ethnicities, and political views to work for three years on different
scenarios of what Houston might look like in the future.
The scenarios are presented as short films—Learning to Live and
Playing to Win—and can serve as tools to identify areas of concern, as
well as areas where opportunities exist to better compete and be
sustainable. Learning to Live showed that the region has become very
inwardly focused, emphasizing quality-of-life issues. Playing to Win
showed a vastly increased population, a booming economy, and an
increased global presence. Three overarching themes guided the research
for the scenarios: Houston’s support system, the economy, and
Houston’s relationship to its biosphere. Also important to the research
was understanding how Houston relates to other cities in the United
States and globally.
The films were created to be neutral and as straightforward as
possible in order to engage the intellect instead of drawing on emotions.
The films are narrated equally and have the same graphic style in order
to emphasize the difference between the content of the films. The films
are presented to different audiences, including business groups and non-
profit organizations. One of these scenarios shows a population of 7
million and the other shows a population of 12 million, so the films
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52 PATHWAYS TO URBAN SUSTAINABILITY-HOUSTON
caught the attention of the business groups in terms of the workforce and
infrastructure that may be needed in the future.
John Randolph noted that thinking about the future through such
scenario-based storylines allows viewers to identify both the negative
attributes of the future that can be addressed, as well as positive
elements. These scenarios also enable the conversation around
sustainability to continue as a collaborative discussion about the future.
He added that some of the topics in the scenarios are debatable, such as
the role of energy in the economy and hazard mitigation from natural
disasters.
Incentives and Challenges to Pathways to Sustainability
Participants discussed barriers to collaboration in moving
sustainability initiatives forward, focusing on external stakeholder
collaboration and inter-organizational collaborative models. One of the
challenges identified during the discussion was a general lack of
awareness about sustainability efforts in the region and about the
existence of other potential collaborators. Better dissemination of
activities and communication tools to share initiatives with other
organizations are needed, some participants noted. Also mentioned was
the need for a process that can develop trust and serve as the foundation
or underpinning of collaborative efforts among organizations. One step
in beginning that process is to recognize that many people share common
goals even though they may approach issues differently. It is also
important to recognize privacy in the collaborative process, and that
when engaging the private sector, proprietary information may need to
be protected.
Collaboration is an important process as it builds social and
intellectual capital, some participants stressed, noting that collaborations
that are done well lead to further collaboration. If they are not done well,
however, then barriers to more collaboration are created. Participants
discussed the need to preserve the value of a collaboration created during
the process once a given activity is over so that a collaborative network
can be continually expanded. This allows for engaging new participants,
and bringing in knowledge from new communities and different socio-
economic backgrounds. During collaboration it is important to create a
vision, many said, and once the vision is created, it is possible to share
leadership, goals, message, planning, and the many other steps needed in
the collaboration process.
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MOVING FORWARD 53
Some participants emphasized that a functional collaboration is a
process and a practice. Organizations must remove themselves from their
own silos in order to learn from the process and improve it moving
forward. It is important to be cognizant of the goal while moving through
the process, and to keep expanding the network into new communities.
Noting that there are challenges in finding funding sources for
collaborations, several participants discussed a network model in which
funding is provided to support the collaboration of different
organizations and further build collaborative capacity within those
organizations. It is important to have funders at the table, they stated, in
order to provide updated information and expectations of the
collaboration.
Participants also discussed incentives to advance sustainability,
which revolved mainly around communication. Many participants
reinforced the importance of the three pillars—environment, economics,
and social equity—in order to find the best way to engage others and
discuss what is needed to best maximize the benefits from the three
pillars. A collaborative engagement is needed to identify co-benefits and
commonalities among the pillars, and to closely consider the language
used in communicating visions. The audience is important too. Engaging
developers and the business community is just as important as involving
other organizations.
Major Themes for Moving Forward
Jim Lester, president of the Houston Advanced Research Center,
summarized what he saw as some of the major themes voiced by many
participants in the workshop:
• The poverty rate, underdeveloped areas, substandard housing, and
health issues are all linked, and a more sustainable Houston will
address all of these elements, resulting in a happier, healthier, and
more prosperous population.
• Houston’s political and regulatory legacy may be problematic in
moving forward. There still exists an anti-regulatory culture in the
Houston area, and so the pathways to sustainability will require a
long time and creative approaches to affect change in land use
decisions, infrastructure development, policies, culture, and
regulations.
• To engage political leadership, it is important for decision makers
and elected leadership to understand that it is in everyone’s interest,
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54 PATHWAYS TO URBAN SUSTAINABILITY-HOUSTON
including their constituents, to move in the direction of a more
sustainable metropolitan region.
• Better communication is important in identifying commonalities
among organizations and across ethnic communities in Houston, but
tremendous challenges remain given the complexity involved in
interfacing with diverse audiences and economic groups.
• A common language is needed for more effective communication
around sustainability, so that the social, economic, and
environmental conditions are all addressed
• The components for making the region sustainable already exist, but
need to be brought together and integrated at all scales—from larger
neighborhood projects down to backyard projects.
• Implicit in collaborations are networks, and multiple collaborations
mean multiple networks, but the challenge is connecting all of those
networks. A functional collaboration is a process and a practice, and
there is a role for social media in making these bridges. It is not
practical to bring tens of thousands of people together to hold a
meeting on making the region more sustainable, but through social
networking it is possible to have many smaller meetings that can
ultimately be connected and informed by other meetings and
individuals.
• To change legacy issues, it will be important to integrate economic
development, social progress, and environmental stewardship by
maximizing the benefits in each of these pillars of sustainability.
