Oct 1, 2008

Program Focus Area - Indicators into Action

Sustainable Seattle is a catalyst...

Indicators into Action is one of Sustainable Seattle's three focus areas. The goal of this focus area is to turn the abundance of neighborhood, city, and regional indicators into actionable agendas. Our strategy to accomplish this goal is to increase awareness on key issues, bring meaning and context to indicators, and serve as a catalyst to stimulate action on indicators. You can learn more about our past work with regional indicators here.

Below you will find more information on the three programs in this focus area:

B-Sustainable. B-Sustainable is our user-friendly relational database of regional indicators. Without question, the B-Sustainable website is poised to become one of our new flagship programs and has already been referred to as “the information network for all things sustainable in the central Puget Sound” by one of our program partners. The website is a regional resource of relevant, trusted and actionable information, providing an innovative framework and open platform for taking our collective sustainability efforts to the next level. Spearheaded by Sustainable Seattle, B-Sustainable is the collaborative effort of many individuals and organizations.

Neighborhood Indicators. While Sustainable Seattle's past work on the SUNI (Sustainable Urban Neighborhoods Intitiave) has come to an end, we recognize a need for neighbohrood-level sustainability indicators to help inform neighborhood groups and galvanize action. Sustainable Seattle, in partnership with the Communities Count Action Agenda Coordinator and interested neighborhood groups, are currently researching and brainstorming about how to establish these local indicators. Look for more information in the future!

Communities Count Partnership. Sustainable Seattle and Communities Count are partnering together to promote more effective dissemination and communication about the main social and health trends in King County. Communities Count is a collaboration of stakeholders across King County who are committed to improving community health and well-being through information advocacy—providing accurate and timely reports on conditions that matter to King County residents. Every three years, Communities Count reports on 38 social, economic, health, environmental and cultural indicators. The report is used by city and county governments, public agencies, foundations, human service funders, non-profit agencies, community-based organizations, and residents. The next Communities Count report comes out in December 2008. Much of the Communities Count information is available on B-Sustainable. The Communities Count Community Action Agenda Coordinator (Megan Horst) is housed at the offices of Sustainable Seattle but her work revolved primarily around promoting an Action Agenda based on Communities Count indicators. >> Read more about Megan's work...