Sustainability Report Card

The capacity of discrete geographical communities, involving their entire ecologies, economies, and cultures, to become locally self-sufficient and self-sustaining over the long term.

This capacity includes the understanding that communities will continue to inter-relate positively and generously with other communities in the context of a growing movement toward communities gaining more and more self reliance and self determination.

• This process will clearly be about community sustainability, not to be confused with other related and desirable ends such as maximizing economic development, or reducing crime rates, etc.
• We will respect, or interface positively with, other community measurement processes underway in the Spokane area.
• The following indicators are a starting point to form an aggregate measure of community sustainability for the Spokane regional community.
• Combined, these indicators begin to comprise a snapshot of the sustainability quotient, or index, of our community. -that is, if this community were to improve in these six areas, one could be fairly confident it would be improving comprehensively in its overall community sustainability.

Ecology:

1) Lowest Annual Flow of the Spokane River. 

2) Annual Greenhouse Gas Emissions of the City of Spokane.

Social Equity:

3) Children With a History of Dental Decay.

4) Amount of Food Bank Donations Which are Locally-Grown. 

Economy:

5) Those Living With an Income at or Below 250% of Federal Poverty Level.

6) Degree of Locally-Owned Enterprise.