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Working towards national sustainability using a regional approach

Editor's note: If you're interested in this topic or want to learn more, check out the program for our upcomingVerge Bostonevent on May 13-14.

马克·帕克·米克莱比(Mark“ Puck” Mykleby)是一名上校,他于2011年从海军陆战队退休,是新美国基金会working on what he calls a "grand strategy" for the United States. The strategy focuses on activating the public, private and civil sectors to collaborate on long-term regional investment strategies focused on smart growth, regenerative agriculture and resource productivity.

该项目集中在以下四个地区:上西部(明尼阿波利斯,明尼苏达州,威斯康星州米尔沃基),伊利湖地区(伊利湖地区(底特律,俄亥俄州密歇根州,俄亥俄州,俄亥俄州),东南部(Charleston,S.C。S.C.-Savannah,乔治亚州)和加利福尼亚(硅谷 - 萨利纳斯)。

格林比兹(Greenbiz)最近与Mykleby进行了交谈,以了解有关他的愿景的更多信息。

Greenbiz:告诉我们您如何提出在区域一级催化可持续投资的计划。这是怎么来的?

Mykleby:这一切都真正始于我被要求继续进行的大型策略的想法。我在2000年被拉出了特殊操作司令部,为穆林海军上将工作,看看大策略 - 我和一个叫海军上尉韦恩·波特(Wayne Porter)的家伙。我们的评估是,可持续性的概念应该是21世纪美国未来国家的宏伟战略当务之急。必威体育2018

下一个伟大的全球挑战是将有90亿人口的事实 - 但我们在全球中产阶级中也将拥有约30亿。他们的到来的资源消耗增加了300%。我们只是没有世界上的事情来做到这一点。因此,我们确实从那个宏伟的战略规模中研究了它。

When I retired from the Marine Corps, I was still really passionate about this idea of sustainability as grand strategic imperative. So now I’m a senior fellow at New America Foundation and am working with a guy namedPatrick Dohertyat the New America Foundation under a program called the Smart Strategy Initiative.

我们研究了迈克尔·波特(Michael Porter),梅赛德斯·德尔加托(Mercedes Delgato),斯科特·斯特恩(Scott Stern)和威利·霍(Willie Hsiao)和哈佛大学(Gary Pisano)等人的经济理论,该理论围绕工业公地和区域群体。

GreenBiz: What's the strategy behind the regional cluster plan?

Mykleby:When Patrick and I looked at this idea, this grand strategic idea of sustainability, there’s obviously a top-down macro policy component that has to happen. We have to fundamentally reframe out large organizational constructs as well as the functional frameworks that we have in our society today. And that runs anywhere from policies around agriculture and energy to things like mortgage policy and transportation policy.

And clearly right now our government is not functioning in any kind of efficacious way. And so that’s why from our top-down policy framework we’re really looking at the private sector as being the change agent for the country.

The reality is that we live in a resource-constrained environment, yet we act like we have unlimited resources. In the words of my good friend,大卫·奥尔(David Orr)- 他说:“我们必须将自己塑造成世界上有限的资源,而不是试图将世界塑造成我们无限的需求。”我们必须从根本地从纯粹的资源限制角度来看,从根本上将经济重新迁移到现实。

But you’ve also got to have a bottom-up push, because for this to work, for a grand strategy to work to the United States, we have to have an engaged citizenry. So the regional clusters work was originally what I thought we could do: get a bunch of communities doing what Patrick Doherty coined as "full-spectrum sustainability" -- looking at how do you integrate all these components that constitute a community (food, water, energy, education, transportation and the built environment).

我最初想到的是,如果您可以在全国范围内做435个社区(因为在美国有435个国会区),那么您确实可以开始改变政治演算,因为突然的所有公民都开始体验不同的事物除了每年必须花两周的时间在车上花费两个星期,或者在车辆上吃19%的饭菜,并具有从糖尿病到高血压的所有辅助健康影响。这不是一个有趣的方法,人们实际上开始从政治话语中要求这一点吗?

So at the top level, the private sector would be the macro drivers of change with citizens in their own communities being a drive for change. They wouldn't say, "This is the way you have to be." They'd offer up different choices.

Regional clusters are more digestible, and they map from the macro all the way down to the micro. It's the biggest bang for the buck in the economic sectors that we have available to us, and it grabs the attention of mayors at the very local and regional level.

图像灯泡的建筑物provided bySergey Nivenscourtesy Shutterstock.

Greenbiz:行业将如何共同努力以跳动可持续投资?

Mykleby:这个想法是您可以带来所有这些多个功能部门:食品,水,运输,能源,建筑环境,教育等,但您还可以带来不同的组织部门:私营部门,公共部门,公民部门和学术界betway必威娱乐共同开始创建新型的设计和合同,以与我们21世纪的资源约束环境相匹配。然后,您可以将融资带到桌子上,并表明从经济角度起见,它起作用。您可以找到一种正确的工具 - 从创新债券到社会影响债券再到直接私人投资的任何地方 - 您可以使这些事情有效,因为当您对这些地区经济进行系统方法时,您实际上就开始建立弹性,繁荣,开始映射到一种不同的,更好的未来模式,再次将其映射到我们的资源有限的世界中。

GreenBiz: Why focus onsmart growth, regenerative agriculture and resource productivity?

Mykleby:Those bins of demand translate directly to the top four payoffs. The top one is manufacturing. For every $1 you put in, you get $1.35. The next one, believe it or not, is agriculture; for every $1 you put in, you get $1.20. And for the third one is construction; for every $1 you put in, you get something like $0.97-$0.98. And then the fourth one is transportation; for every $1 you put in, you get like $0.95 back.

These are huge, and we can calibrate – we can now practically link macroeconomic forces with the micro reality of Joe Average American sitting on Main Street and provide the kind of economic way forward that really at the historic scale could be the foundation for a new American grand strategy.

GreenBiz: How is this working on the ground?

Mykleby:我们有四个集群。一个在加利福尼亚,这有点不同。实际上,与穆林海军上将一起工作的韦恩·波特(Wayne Porter)的想法。他仍在海军中,他在加利福尼亚介绍了这个想法。韦恩获得了博士学位现在在海军研究生学校。他们从12月13日开始 - 称为Steinbeck创新项目。基本上,他们正在寻找的是建立一个区域集群,该集群将加利福尼亚州萨利纳斯的加利福尼亚州沙拉碗与硅谷联系起来。但是,围绕的基本逻辑是您可以通过再生农业融合高科技,并使这是可行的工业共同体。因此,他们现在正在努力。因此,这是一个有趣的模型。

图像灯泡的建筑物provided bySergey Nivenscourtesy Shutterstock.

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