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Eco-municipality Leadership Training
June 6-11, 2008
Tufts University, Medford, MA

In June, 2008, a 5-day national training session will take place at Tufts University to increase citizen and planner leadership capacity in communities and their local governments to initiate and lead a change process to become a sustainable community. This sustainable communities approach has a substantial track record of successful implementation — possibly the most extensive in the world — in over 100 municipalities in Sweden, U.S., and around the world. The objective of the training is to prepare potential local leaders — including citizens, local officials, planners, or municipal staff — to be able to lead a process involving sustainability education, communication, and a strategic implementation process.

Faculty
Sarah James & Torbjörn Lahti, co-Directors of the Institute for Eco-municipality Education & Assistance (IEMEA), and co-authors of The Natural Step for Communities: How Cities & Towns Can Change to Sustainable Practices (New Society Publishers, 2004, winner of the 2005 Planetizen Top Ten Book Award. Torbjörn Lahti is the founder of the Swedish eco-municipality movement, and he and Sarah James are co-founders of the emerging U.S. eco-municipality movement. Between them, they have worked with over 150 municipalities in Sweden and the United States.

David Waldron, recent Director of The Natural Step's Masters Program In Strategic Leadership Toward Sustainability, Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden, and former Sustainability Coordinator of Whistler, Canada, the first North American municipality to adopt The Natural Step framework.

Julian Agyeman, Associate Professor of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning (UEP), and Chairman of the Department of UEP at Tufts University. He is author of Sustainable Communities and the Challenge of Environmental Justice (New York University Press, 2005), among other books.

Cost
The fee for attendees requiring accommodations will be $2,275, inclusive of tuition, room, and board. Participants registering and paying before April 15, 2008 pay a discounted rate of $2,175. For persons not requiring accommodations, the cost will be $2,000, or $1,900 if paid before April 15, 2008. Unfortunately, no scholarships or reduced rates are available.

Primary Sponsor
The Tufts University Department of Urban and Environmental Policy & Planning. Co-sponsors: The Massachusetts Chapter of the American Planning Association and the American Planning Association Environment, Natural Resources, & Energy Division.

Registration
To register for this training, send the accompanying registration form and a check made out to IEMEA. (Sorry, no credit cards!) There is a 27-person limit. In the event of oversubscription, priority will be given to individuals presently leading or involved in local eco-municipality initiatives. Final registration deadline: May 15, 2008.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN
An in-depth understanding of what sustainability means both at the global and local community level, including the Natural Step framework for sustainability. An in-depth examination what it means to satisfy human needs within a sustainability context, including psycho-social human needs. How to present and communicate sustainability ideas and concepts to a variety of different audiences, plus tools and materials to accomplish this. How to design and lead a five-year "bottom-up" process for transforming a municipal government and its larger community to become an 'eco-municipality' — a sustainable community led by (particular) sustainability objectives which are practiced throughout the government and larger community. How to engage and involve the entire community — citizens, businesses, institutions, municipal departments and agencies — in defining a guiding vision and implementing actions to move toward sustainable practices. How to bring key municipal tools, such as master plans, land use regulations, capital improvements planning, and municipal budgeting into alignment with sustainability objectives.

Program Questions
E-mail Sarah James at james.s@att.net

Tufts facility & Accommodations Questions
E-mail Beth Kurth at beth.kurth@comcast.net

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