In 2009 WELL Network and our partners brought together more than forty leaders from business, government, nonprofit organizations, and foundations for the Fort Baker Leadership Summits,  held in Sausalito, California. Participants developed a vision and set of guiding principles, as the basis for recommendations to state policymakers for addressing California's sustainability. The recommendations appear in a new report, “Re-Imagining California, A Sustainable Future for the Golden State."
For printed copies of the report, contact Plauer@WellNetwork.org.

California Leaders Under Pressure is a knowledge map, which uses graphics and descriptive terms to explain complexity management to business executives, government officials and non-profit leaders.   The knowledge map describes the complex interrelationships of the social, environmental and governmental challenges that face Californians today.  It explains some barriers to sustainability policy and identifies the characteristics and strengths of an integrated planning approach (sometimes known as green planning) to most effectively address these challenges. California Leaders Under Pressure challenges us to imagine a framework for coherent, integrated policy making: how it would look, how it might operate, and how we can achieve it together.

A VISION FOR A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE FOR CALIFORNIA

The course correction California makes in 2009 will give every Californian a stake in a less fearful, more certain future in which all Californians take responsibility for the quality of life for present and future generations.

In this future, we breathe clean air, drink clean water, and fairly share in the benefits of a zero-waste, energy-secure economy, and where it is understood that everyone has an active role to play in creating healthy communities, restoring natural resources, and ensuring social equity.

In our vision, we act as national and global citizens to meet the challenges of climate change. We hold ourselves, along with the earth's leaders, accountable for the environmental and social consequences of our actions.

As we look out over our beautiful state, we envision Californians connected to caring, self-organizing communities. The working relationships among our communities and the public and private sector are based on transparency and mutual respect.

We are proud to teach our children the skills and values that will help realize this vision, and in so doing, prepare them to take part in a future that has been made more secure through our commitment to one another's well-being.  It is a future of promise.


GUIDING PRINCIPLES

1. Protect California's air, water, soil, and ocean from further harm; repair the damage that has already been done.
   
   
2. Build a vibrant economy around healthy ecosystems, creating conditions to optimize the well-being of all life.
   
   
3. Implement cohesive and integrated planning practices that bring government, industry, nonprofits, and the public to the same table for long-term, systemic planning for California's future.
   
   
4. Develop integrated indicators that both measure progress and signal any unintended consequences of policies addressing such interdependent issues as water, energy, waste, environmental health, pollution, climate change, and the economy.
   
   
5. Publicly account for the long-term, systemic consequences of our commercial, social, and environmental practices; so that Californians can identify the true costs of any given policy or practice.
   
   
6. Eliminate waste using the concept of Cradle-to-Cradle (i.e. full-life-cycle) design.
   
   
7. Assess the impacts of decisions and policy creation using the three E's: the Environment, Social Equity, and the Economy.
   
   
8. To ensure equity, actively promote the participation of diverse communities in decisions that affect them, and ensure transparency in the decision making processes.   Demonstrate both public and private support for equity in decision-making processes by enabling diverse stakeholder inclusion and insisting on transparency.
   
   
9. Educate Californians about the interdependent natural systems crucial to our survival (e.g. water, energy, waste, environmental health, pollution, climate change, the economy etc.), and provide opportunities to make their voices heard.
   
   
10. Invest in strong local communities, supporting residents to take every possible step toward our shared health and safety.