Urban sustainability summit coming to the Arboretum

The email invited me to attend SEUSS, abbreviating the South East Urban Sustainability Summit. At first I thought the acronym was a bit childish and flippant; then I remembered some of the author’s profound words. “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.” As Dr. Seuss wrote in The Lorax, the titular character "speaks for the trees" and confronts the Once-ler, who causes environmental degradation.

I had the pleasure of attending this SEUSS gathering last week in Greensboro  on the beautiful campus of NC A&T State University. I was honored to represent the coastal southeast urban area of Wilmington/New Hanover County and felt a strong responsibility to represent the Cape Fear Region well.

This two-day conference was a sea of academic PhDs, public sustainability managers, industry representatives and nongovernment organizations gathered for influence and decision making to determine research needs to help sustain our state’s urban areas in the face of change. The desired outcome is the formation of a “Convergence Research Network” or simply put, people working together to solve our problems and challenges.

Following a welcome by the summit organizer from A&T State, an articulate citizen of the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation grounded the audience with a blessing of the summit, a reminder of ancient human presence on this very ground. Presentations taught the audience of the triple-bottom line of sustainable systems: economic, environmental and social successes in balance. Work group sessions followed to determine the top few grand challenges in the urban sustainability issues of energy, transportation, housing, food and agriculture, health and safety, and water.

Although that list isn’t complete (waste and other urban systems also need improvement), the work group process identified the big barriers and challenges to solutions with the goal of identifying research projects that will be useful for needed policy change and action.

For 1) energy, a carbon-free North Carolina with sustainable energy policy and regulations is a worthy challenge for research. Politics often stands in the way. 2) Transportation challenges were identified as accessibility, mobility, and infrastructure needs given current land use and growth management. With 3) housing as a subject, the big challenges discussed were affordability, policy needs and identifying technology solutions.

4) Food and agriculture is facing the major challenge of a changing climate, and developing resilience in food systems and access is needed. For 5) Health and Safety, the challenge of steering systems to foster a culture of health with accountability and commitment is a big research need for our communities. With 6) water, how do we implement and fund equitable, sustainable and resilient urban infrastructure systems? How do we deal with emerging contaminants? Equity and justice were identified as overarching concerns in each of these challenge areas, and our research lens must lead to solutions for that as well.

In my role as director of the NC Cooperative Extension New Hanover County center, I fully embrace a responsibility of community development and look forward to coordinating a similar summit of creative problem solvers for our community this winter here at the Arboretum. If you know of someone from the public or private sector or non-governmental organization that wants to participate with a local “think-tank” summit like this, please email me with contact information. We may not feature Truffula trees from “The Lorax” here at the Arboretum, but we certainly can engage people that do care a whole awful lot. Together, we can make it better.

 Lloyd Singleton is director of the N.C. Cooperative Extension Center for New Hanover County, located at the Arboretum, 6206 Oleander Drive. Reach him at lsingleton@nhcgov.com or 910-798-7660. The Arboretum is free and open every day for daylight hours.