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Like other transactional aspects of sustainability, most notably supply chain issues, getting the incentives right allows for greater transparency, better decision-making, and more “sustainable” sustainability solutions.

NGOs and civil society organizations can develop credible standards, decipher local issues, and create the environment that supports sustainable urban growth.

Business can deploy systems that address real social and environmental challenges — along with the partnership of government and civil society

Government policies can create income distribution, economic and social mobility, the right incentives for the private sector to invest, space for truly engaged discussion, and a commitment to longer-term sustainability strategies.

City-focused initiatives, lead by NGOs and the private sector, are drawing more attention to the clear opportunities, but the results are still lagging behind the pace of the growing challenges. While innovation is important for developing sustainability solutions, technologies and infrastructure systems that will help achieve sustainable growth already exist. Companies that provide infrastructure systems and components for energy, buildings, and transportation, must push fast-forward to deploy these technologies faster. They can start by collectively understanding the challenges and the role that each stakeholder sector can play in support of sustainable growth:

At BSR, we know that when business engages stakeholders proactively, the insights gained will lead to more informed decision-making, more valuable collaboration, and more inspired business models. The challenges are large, but the quiet and unstoppable megatrends are larger. The sooner meaningful engagement is at the forefront of the sustainable urban infrastructure agenda, the sooner we can hit fast-forward and have a chance at truly sustainable growth.

Per capita economic activity increases 10 percent with every 5-percentage-point increase in urban population.

Just like in corporations, setting goals and having a vision proves to be an essential start for cities that want to engage business. The WBCSD Urban Infrastructure Initiative (UII)

“Cities are looking at sustainability as their strategy,”

The global infrastructure and technology firm Siemens also entered the fray with its Green City Index, which ranks more than 120 global cities on a variety of environmental dimensions. Cities at the bottom have the greatest opportunities, and the ones at the top have the most lessons to offer

“I talk to cities about their strategy and goals just like I would with a company. City CSOs are making the same decisions as companies and have very similar challenges with internal engagement.

Matthew Lynch, the project lead, said one of the main success factors is the opportunity for direct and open dialogue. “The companies in the UII are engaging collaboratively with cities upstream in the planning process, demonstrating the value of the early involvement of business and showing how a multisector group of leading companies can help cities find integrated solutions to interconnected challenges,”

encourage the idea that it was business, not just individual companies working with cities.

The WBCSD expects that companies will use the landscape reports to refine their own approaches to working with these cities, targeting specific challenges and opportunities.

Kate Brass, GE Energy’s ecomagination program manager, said there’s a “need for better coordination and understanding among governments, industries, and NGOs so that cities holistically plan for and build the infrastructure of tomorrow rather than create an infrastructure of mismatched components and potentially stranded assets."

Events

Makeovers

Company culture. Generate greater customer engagement by giving your clients an inside peek at your business through a board or boards that offer a feel for your company's style, ideas, projects and commitments.

Why we are failing to generate place capital

Along with the homogenizing forces of globalization, the increasingly placeless nature of our built environment tends toward homogeneity and is created with less participation and resources and less creative processes.

Placemaking for these purposes can be defined as the empowerment and engagement of the individuals in a community to participate in, understand and contribute to the evolution of the spaces that define that community. Placemaking however, is not a new profession, discipline or field of study, but a growing movement that is bringing out the best of professional knowledge and skills while supporting the communities in connecting to places and taking ownership over the planning process and the emerging results.

We are more discerningly and deliberately choosing to identify ourselves with places we feel express our identity, or to use places as a way to express our identity. Now, more than ever, we go were we like.

Seeing ourselves as co-creators of these places, through our relationships as participants, or as placemakers, elevates our role in society to builders of civilization.

The efforts people undertake to improve places that matter to them – Placemaking

We are left only to be passive consumers.

With the increasing importance of place comes the prioritization of happiness as a desired outcome and goal of human settlements. Experiencing a comfortable, engaging, sociable place is offering a compelling opportunity for happiness.

seeing a sense of place as an increasingly important -even vital- part of our lives.

But places are not just defining our communities; they are emerging as the leading factor in defining the global economy and human progress.

In light of this inevitable trend, communities need to define themselves as places to attract place building business and business models need be directly responsive to the places and communities they are meant to serve.