Spartanburg Rising Creating a Sustainable

Village of Spartanburg

Sustainability as a word evolved in the 1980s to describe a phenomenon that would address renewable natural resources as well as the full integration of architecture landscape architecture urban design industrial design urban planning engineering graphic design and interior design It would create intergenerational equity to insure that health diversity ecological integrity and environmental factors would be included in the future wealth of all of us

Some people have always lived in complete harmony with the earth They recycle everything they use sleep in a tent grow their own food teach their children at home use only solar energy drink from a mountain stream compost their waste breathe only clean air never extract minerals from the earth avoid disease and live in peace with neighbors

We talk about Footprints in the Sand which wash away with the tide but our Carbon Footprints do not wash away A Carbon Footprint is an overall measure of your personal community or corporate environmental impact on the earth You can measure your own baseline Footprint at wwwearthdaynetfootprintindexasp Each of us can start with our personal base and then explore ways to set priorities to change our actions to reduce our Output

Output begins with Intake Intake measures resources going in This includes energy land people water money supply chain leadership strategy and efficiency Output is the result of the intake process It may include waste carbon water energy productivity brand social factors health governance and profit or loss These are factors we used to take for granted but can no longer

Yesterday I attended a luncheon in Greenville with the USC Moore Business School presenting Their premise was that in the 70s and 80s International was the buzz Today international is a given and their energy is being transferred to the Emerging Process of Sustainability

We have been asked what is our model We are not following This is a project being created as a potential pilot for other communities to copy Spartanburg can be on the cutting edge Because it is the natural and right thing to do this grassroots initiative has not been forced Participants are volunteering and contributing to the leadership from Clemson Architecture in design thoughts USC Upstate has contacted us and two professors are contributing to expand the plan to incorporate Urban Sociology and Biology We are exploring Advanced Materials and Engineering Landscape Architecture and Entrepreneurism from Clemson We invite other collaborators

The City of Spartanburg is facing economic crisis According to Sam Mc Clary with the SC Employment Security Commission which can be verified at wwwblsgov the July 2009 Unemployment Rate was 266 This number exceeds Depression Era levels This is no time for the Status Quo Is it time for us to embrace Thomas Friedmans Green Revolution as a means to working out of this crisis

Please feel free to contact Elizabeth Belenchia at ebccpcindustrialcom wwwcpcindustrialcom or 864-542-4455 for further information or to offer your thoughts for the success of the project