Questions to ask When Engaged in Sustainable Community Development Anu Ramaswami Professor and Director IGERT: Sustainable Urban Infrastructure University of Colorado Denver

Principles of Sustainability Engineering Some thought into developing guiding principles for sustainability engineering Anastas, P.; Zimmerman, J. “Design through the Twelve Principles of Green Engineering,” Environmental Science and Technology, 37, 94A – 101A, 2003  Primarily design oriented

The Sandestin Declaration EPA’s Nine Principles of Green Engineering * (  *as developed by more than 65 engineers and scientists at the Green Engineering: Defining the Principles Conference, held in Sandestin, Florida in May of Principle 7:  Develop and apply engineering solutions, while being cognizant of local geography, aspirations, and cultures.  How do we do this and teach this?

University Colorado Denver Projects Wind Generator Installation in Tribal Village in India Site Assessment for Water Supply project in Tribal Village Renewable Energy Project in Tsunami impacted area of Sri Lanka

Three Questions to Ask Who owns the project?  Who sets project objectives? Whose Knowledge Counts? Who benefits from the project?

Who owns the project? Often US University teams undertaking developing community projects pose the entire community as the “owner”. In reality, the owner and driver often are:  The Non-Governmental Organization that pose the project Priorities and Philosophies need to be understood  Important Social groups are excluded from agenda-setting Examples: Rural Women who face the actual problem

Field Installation of a Horizontal Axis Wind Generator in India Rachel Werther and Mark Pitterle March, 2005

Village meeting at a distance Village meeting held to assess needs

Close-up of Village Meeting Representative from each of the 12 hamlets present at the meeting 12 Hamlet Leaders

Women Meeting After 3 days of persistence, we were finally able to have a meeting where only women attended  Women from 2 hamlets attended

Whose Knowledge Counts? Technically-detailed devices such as wind generators need trained and educated operators  This village had an electrical engineer who led and operates the project  Such leadership is sparse (not scalable)

Village Team after Installing the Windmill

Whose knowledge on sustainability counts? Often developing communities are far more sustainable in resource use Developing communities often have a systems view embedded in local knowledge  Care needed to integrate this local knowledge

Tribal Home Construction

Grain Storage

Close up of the distillery

Who benefits from the project? Impacts in the communities can be complex  Unsure if projects really benefit the sensitive populations in the long-term Example: Benefits to children in dormitory projects are at best indirect Few community development projects conduct an end- point impact assessment International student teams benefit  Hands-on experience, Education, Visibility

Education: Participatory Research Techniques and Principles From: Cornwall & Jewkes, 1995; Ramaswami et al., Environmental Science & Technology, 2007

Teaching Community Engagement at University Colorado Denver Development projects in the US Coursework on Defining and Measuring Sustainability