Building a Green City on a Blue Lake: a model for building a local sustainable economy.

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The Challenges of Whole Systems Change

Despite media attention on federal efforts to transition to a green economy, the real change happening is a quiet revolution taking places among U.S. cities. More than 973 mayors have signed on to the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement. The U.S. Conference of Mayors projected that 4.2 million green jobs will be created in the coming decades (The United States Conference of Mayors and the Mayors Climate Protection Center, 2008).

Still, most of the action remains fragmented. Most initiatives are either within a specific sector or a small area of a city, resulting in the absence of systemic approaches to change. Perhaps systemic change is difficult to approach because the scale of change that is needed is so massive. But even those who do see the whole picture do not know where to start. For example, do you:

* Produce electric cars but still power those cars using electricity created through fossil fuel?

* Focus on energy efficiency of buildings without investing significantly in alternative sources of energy?

* Create alternative energy sources without having a grid and effective infrastructure set up for distribution?

* Tackle infrastructure issues without having a skilled workforce that can work in the plants that produce energy?

* Train workers not knowing if there will be guaranteed jobs?

And how will any of these plans work if consumers are not educated? Can green economic revitalization strategies effectively address embedded poverty in the inner city?

This is no chicken-and-egg conundrum. All these problems are interrelated. Neither necessarily comes before the other. All need to be addressed more or less at the same time to achieve synergies. But how do cities take on such a massive task when they often have difficulty even getting a few politicians to sit around a table and agree on minor issues?

What we are facing is in large part a process issue. Although we still have far to go in terms of creating resources--technology, funds, people--the greatest challenge that regions face is not knowing where to start.

In particular, we see a particular role for businesses willing and able to work in partnership with local governments. But the challenge is so huge that individual companies naturally feel they cannot make a difference and, as a result, most are simply waiting. At best, some companies are positioning themselves to take advantage of a green economy if it happens, but few see themselves as actively working to bring about the scope of change needed.

The opportunities we outline here started with a small group of organizations. They were vital to creating "make it happen" leadership--as shown in Exhibit 1--for the transformation of the economy (Senge et al., 2008). The case of Cleveland's "Green City on a Blue Lake" initiative provides lessons that can be applied to other cities and organizations undergoing large scale, whole systems change.

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Cleveland--Background

Although Cleveland has a population of a bit fewer than half a million, the greater Northeast Ohio area is comprised of four-million people. The surrounding areas tend to be more affluent while the city is struggling with unemployment and poverty. Unemployment has varied between 6.8 and 10.2 percent in the last year, while poverty is at 30.5 percent for the city and 41.5 percent for children (Cleveland Plain Dealer, 2009).

Cleveland is symbolic as a location for building a local, sustainable economy. It was a pillar in the early industrial revolution in America. The Rockefellers and Carnegies began their dynasties in Cleveland. Standard Oil was first headquartered there, sparking the surge of the oil industry. The city played a prominent role in the creation of the auto industry. Steel and railroad-related industries were central to the region. But most importantly, its geographic position was what made it an industrial hub. Because of its location on Lake Erie, once the Erie Canal was built, New York was connected to the Great Lakes through Cleveland. Furthermore, the Cuyahoga River, which runs south from Lake Erie through Cleveland, gave rise to factories that created a 100-mile-long industrial corridor that was crucial in the times of specialization in industry. One factory would create a part and then transport it down the river to other factories to continue assembly.

However, as industry polluted the Cuyahoga River, the river caught on fire several times. What was once the proud symbol of the city became a symbol of the ill effects of the industrial age, a burning river. Cleveland went from being one of the richest cities to one of the poorest. It is fitting that a prominent project to shepherd the green industrial revolution is located in Cleveland.

"Behind the Scenes" of the Cleveland Model

Being one of the poorest big cities in the United States, private and public sector leaders in Cleveland knew they had to do something. At the same time, the region had some of the most innovative organizations in sustainability, many of which are part of E4S, one of the largest and best organized sustainability networks (Entrepreneurs for Sustainability). With 6,000 active businesses and entrepreneurs, E4S is a building block for business collaboration. Cleveland is also one of the few cities to have a sustainability office in the mayor's office that helps to transform the public sector. In addition, the city has strengths such as access to fresh water through Lake Erie, one of the best local food economies in the United States, world-class foundations including the Cleveland Foundation-the world's largest private foundation, 26 universities, leading healthcare institutions such as the Cleveland Clinic, and many established enterprises focused on green products and services such as Eaton Corporation, Forest City Enterprises, Parker Hannifin, Timken, Key Bank, Sherwin Williams, Lubrizol, Progressive Insurance, GOJO, RPM, NorTech, and Fairmount Minerals.

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However, as with other cities, it was not clear how to go about spurring the local economy as a whole. Investment capital is very limited. Government policies offer a mix of positive and negative incentives. Inner city poverty in Cleveland is among the highest in the United States. Population and corporations increasingly are moving to surrounding areas and thus depleting the tax base of the city. At the same time, the Fowler Center for Sustainable Value, based at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, is involved in addressing complex sustainability issues in other regions around the world. Thus, Mayor Frank Jackson approached the Fowler Center to cooperate in planning the future of the city based on a sustainable economy.

Structure

A three-day Appreciative Inquiry Summit took place from August 12-14, 2009, in the Cleveland Convention Center. The Summit had three major goals: (1) design a strategic plan for the city; (2) design tangible ready-for-market initiatives and prototypes; (3) build an infrastructure, a web of relationships and social capital necessary to carry out the work. The Summit differed from typical planning or town hall meetings in that it was task-oriented. Participants could not leave the Summit without having designed specific prototypes and initiatives that could be implemented immediately following the Summit.

More than 700 people representing all major stakeholder groups took part. Elected officials, CEOs, heads of foundations and others took part fully for the three days. The mayor was there the entire time and chaired much of the meeting. Diverse stakeholders were there such as children, community representatives, shop-floor workers and engineers. In addition, representatives of the White House and other cities around the United States and Europe were present to study the process. Senior leaders from IBM, Ford, Microsoft and Wal-Mart participated.

Process

The Summit process is outlined in Exhibit 2. Details about participants, pre-Summit research, the agenda and workbook used at the Summit, outcomes, future plans as well as other information can be found on the City of Cleveland's Web site: www.city.cleveland.oh.us/CityofCleveland/ Home/Community/ThingsToDo/AISummit. For more details about the theory and functioning of the Summit process, see the Appreciative Inquiry Handbook (Cooperrider, Whitney, & Stavros, 2005).

The overall Summit process can be broken down into three phases: Pre-Summit, Summit and Post-Summit.

Pre-Summit. The first milestone was convening a meeting to design the summit that took place February 11-12, 2009. The Mayor's office together with the input of the Fowler Center and key local stakeholders invited 50 representatives of community organizations, business, government and foundations. During the Design Team meeting, the main elements of the Summit were decided upon such as date, title, objectives, who should attend, marketing strategies, research needed prior to the Summit, and plans to ensure proper post-summit momentum. The following six months, the Design Team split into task groups that focused on preparation of the Summit, such as engaging and inviting stakeholders, building a positive image about the Summit in the community, and conducting research/input into the Summit. The Fowler Center, together with the Mayor's office, prepared the agenda and facilitation of the Summit as well as the logistics.

Summit. The actual Summit took place from August 12-14, 2009, for three full days. It was a working meeting split into four segments: (1) Discovery: Identifying and agreeing on Cleveland's strengths; (2) Dream: Creating a vision for Cleveland in 2019 based on a massive scaling up of the strengths identified in the Discovery phase; (3) Design: The second half of the summit was broken up into 20 working groups that designed 28 initiatives allowing them to realize the visions created in the Dream phase--these initiatives range from more strategic issues to very tangible prototypes; (4) Deploy: A detailed action plan was created for all 28 initiatives with responsibilities, tasks and timelines.

Post-Summit. The Post-Summit process is currently taking place and can last indefinitely, with the most important milestone being another Summit one year from now, in fall 2010. During this year, all the initial stages of prototypes that were designed at the Summit are to be implemented. The PostSummit infrastructure was designed during the actual Summit and consists of social networking/collaboration technology (e.g. NING site that each of the initiative groups could use to continue work), resources that foundations committed, and a "governing" structure.

The governing structure is the most complex and consists of three different forms. The first is a self-governing structure for each of the initiatives. At the Summit, each group created its own internal self-governing structure. For those groups that need nurturing or additional hands-on support, the Mayor's office and the Fowler center are providing support. Second, there is top-down support. In order to provide guidance and support, the Mayor created an advisory group of 60 key community leaders and also converted the City Office of Sustainability into a cabinet position. Finally, there is a steering committee that is comprised of representatives of each of the initiative groups. The purpose of the steering committee is to (a) provide joint coordination among the initiatives and (b) to plan the Summit in 2010.

Success Criteria

A few key elements distinguish the methodology used from other typical change processes. These represent lessons from many past projects that we believe can be applied to any change process in a system, whether it is a city or a company.

(1) Whole System. The Summit was not top-down or bottom-up; it engaged the whole system. As opposed to other methodologies that are based on aggregations of small groups, the process actually works better as the size of the group increases. When representatives of the whole system are in one room together, breakthrough innovation can be achieved (Cooperrider et al., 2005). Just as important, many of the people who need to carry out the innovation are also in the room. Change is decided on the spot and can be carried out immediately upon closing of the Summit. A committee of leaders in the city worked for months to identify who needed to be at the Summit, because it is extremely important that certain participants are present. After this time, teams of people diligently spent time in outreach.

Numerous details went into planning the invites. For example, when a company was invited, they had to send not only a C-level executive, but also someone who could be a point person and an engineer or worker who understood the technical side of the business. The very rough breakdown of participants was 40 percent business, 40 percent nonprofit/community/academia, 20 percent other (e.g. children, foundations, media national and international participants). The large focus on business ensured that the Summit would be based on sound business logic in which building a sustainable economy could be profitable for all of the key stakeholders.

(2) Strengths-based Approach. Most methodologies are deficit-based approaches. In other words, they focus on defining the problem and then finding a way to fix it. However, as Porter (1995) posited, the greatest pitfall cities have in designing their futures is that they take a deficit-based approach in which they analyze where they would like to be and then what they need to do to get there. However, often those visions have no solid business logic based on their capacity and competitive advantage. In Cleveland, we took a strength-based approach. We searched for the best in our people, organizations and the region by seeking what gives "life" to the system (Cooperrider & Whitney, 2000).

Prior to the Summit, a well-known consulting firm, together with 50 people--some of whom were part of the Design Team, while others were recruited based on the input they could give to the research--engaged in analytical research to identify potential strengths.1 At the Summit, using the analytical research as input, participants agreed on the core strengths of the city. Such a process helped in avoiding hidden agendas (e.g., an individual or organization pushing their vision), but more importantly, it started the whole process in a place of hope and aspiration. As opposed to other processes that begin with negative emotions from analyzing what doesn't work, we analyzed what worked and how to scale it up. The energy in the room was contagious, and it was the first time many participants noted that they have ever been able to work together positively in Cleveland.

(3) Letting Go of Control. There is often a desire for command and control that actually gets in the way of success (Hock, 1999). Rather, what leads to breakthrough success is enabling multiple sectors and multiple levels to work together simultaneously (Cooperrider, Fry, & Piderit, 2007). The Mayor and his whole cabinet did their best to prepare the groundwork for the Summit; but then once they entered the Summit, they let go and allowed participants to truly design the future of the city. It took great courage, not only from the City government, but also the other sustainability organizations that had worked for years forging sustainability initiatives and their vision for the region. Many of the local sustainability experts knew what could be best for the city and could have questioned why we needed a Summit when it was clear to them what Cleveland needed to do. However, their letting go of control resulted in a shared ownership regarding the plans for the future. Prior to the Summit, there was a lot of advocacy, in which local experts tried to convince others what the city needed. The aim of the Summit was a collective platform of tangible actions.

(4) Building Social Capital. On the one hand, change efforts are doomed to failure without building social capital (Kotter, 1995). On the other hand, according to many sociologists, our country generally has experienced a long-term decline in social capital (Putnam, 2000). Cleveland was an example of fragmented clans, lack of collaboration and prevailing attitudes of negativity and skepticism toward everything in the city. But a tipping point took place during the design team meeting in February when the leading organizations began planning out the Summit. As many participants noted, it was when organizations actually came together to do something instead of just talking about doing something that the energy shifted.

Following the Design Team meeting, there were no false promises declaring victory (Kotter, 1995), just hard work. Gradually, Design Team members began engaging others until about 200 people became involved in various aspects of the Summit. It helped that most did not have a huge time-consuming role to play because the city and the Fowler Center primarily took care of logistics and planning. But there was opportunity to give input and influence. For example, many people helped with aspects of the Summit, such as providing input on stakeholders who should be invited, giving input into the pre-summit research, helping with communication, etc. All of this engagement helped build the social capital we needed.

Outcomes

The summit identified a series of upward virtuous cycles that can be established--how one good thing can lead to another. Through virtuous cycles like this, participants in the Cleveland Summit began to see how the city could become an icon for establishing green economies. Specifically, coming out of the Summit, initiatives to create a local sustainable economy by 2019 included the following:

* new metrics of success based on human flourishing rather than only GDP;

* creating a zero-waste city by 2019;

* urban communities with reduced travel and innovative transportation such as the first "solarail";

* six initiatives for local food that would result in 10,000 new farmers making up 20 percent of the $10 billion food economy, while using vacant land space in the inner city and creating jobs for the unemployed;

* advanced energy generation and distribution, including the first freshwater wind farm in the world, a 400MW combined heat & power plant, and an industrial water management collection and reuse system;

* advanced energy research and commercialization through the creation of the Laboratories for Advanced Energy Commercialization (LAEC), pronounced "lake";

* advanced manufacturing and materials through the creation of a Global Center for Sustainable Design & Manufacturing to foster industrial symbiosis between sectors;

* a communications campaign focused around directly engaging 1.6 million in Cleveland and surrounding areas in these sustainability efforts;

* green retrofitting with the goals that all buildings achieve at least a 50 percent energy reduction, 50 percent of buildings' area able to have net zero emissions, and an additional 25 percent of the buildings to be net energy producers, while all new construction is to meet LEED standards or equivalent;

* educational reform by having an integrated curriculum developed by local universities for the public school system focusing on personal mastery needed for sustainability;

* health with a focus on well-care instead of sick-care;

* creating a Regional Sustainability Fund to raise $100 million to support the initiatives; and

* a self-organizing governing structure in which the city government is more an enabler/facilitator rather than the top-down authority.

Together, the vision that was presented during the Summit has a goal to create 250,000 jobs in the long-term. In the short-term, these groups are working on creating many quick-wins necessary to keep momentum (Kotter, 1995) such as the creation of a Regional Sustainability Fund.

Perhaps the greatest contribution is an underlying thread found through all of the initiatives--a shift in consciousness. Almost every presentation at the Summit focused on some sort of shift in how we educate children, the manner in which media addresses these issues, how we interact with our family and friends, and how we change our workplace cultures.

This collaborative structure is the true foundation of the new sustainable economy in Cleveland. At the heart of every initiative is a collaborative approach to designing the new economy. Participants are open to joining initiative groups at any point, and the information is shared in an open-source manner through the Summit Web site. It is what Eisler (2005) calls a partnership economy. The Summit is creating new metrics for progress, as well as new rules and regulations that foster, rather than hinder, economic innovation. The greatest contribution of the Summit may prove to be how these outcomes are implemented through a collaborative, self-governing system.

A brief summary of the initiatives can be found on: www.city.cleveland.oh.us/Cityof Cleveland/Home/Community/ThingsToDo/ AISummit/workgroupsandoutcomes

Role of Business

The federal government commissioned the National Academy of Sciences to analyze how to build local critical infrastructure systems necessary for the sustainable future of the United States (National Research Council of the National Academies, 2009). Their comprehensive report came out with one major conclusion: The only way that we will succeed is if we have a approach in which all key stakeholders such as business, government, academia and non-profit organizations co-design the solutions. The Cleveland process can serve as a model for how stakeholders can come together to do this.

In Cleveland, it was the city government and a university that initially came together. However, starting with the design team meeting, businesses played a prominent role--small- and medium-size businesses as well as larger businesses. Respected entrepreneurs were among the strongest voices in the room. Given the central role that business leadership must play in any entrepreneurial process of economic revitalization, we think that the methods shared here can guide small groups of business leaders in other cities along a viable, collaborative path. This starts with convening a few business- and nonbusiness stakeholders to plan out a design team meeting. In the initial stages, it is not necessary to have the formal support of the entire business community via a Chamber of Commerce or similarly established groups. While connection to the business mainstream is important, it can be limiting to start with established groups who have been exclusively business-oriented in the past and not sufficiently inclusive of other sectors.

The participants at the design team meeting initially take part as individuals who contribute their experience and expertise to the work of the meeting. Only as the design team expands and you move toward more elaborated plans for a larger gathering, like the Summit, do you need the formal sponsorship of business. Our hope is that the Cleveland process can provide an example and a roadmap for how a few businesses can come together with other sectors in support of change in an entire city. As the collaborative process expands, issues that were deemed too large to tackle, such as infrastructure, can be addressed. The beauty of a collaborative process is that it is not on the shoulders of any one group to do all the work, provided that you establish clear governance and management structures.

Integrating the Five Disciplines

Cleveland, as a whole, is building a learning organization. None of us know all the solutions of how to create a local sustainable economy. That is why it is necessary to create a learning organization that can discover continually as it is co-creating.

The Summit covered what Senge (1990) termed the five learning organization principles or practices: systems thinking, team learning, shared vision, mental models and personal mastery.

* Day I--Through framing given by David Cooperrider, Peter Senge and other speakers, the participants used systems thinking to challenge their own mental models of Cleveland and industrial society more broadly. Once they challenged these unquestioned assumptions, participants interviewed each other to explore new mental models of how a sustainable society would look and what they would mean personally, both in terms of their deepest aspirations and their own counterproductive attachments and assumptions.

* Day II- Participants came together in small groups to share new mental models and work to create shared visions. Plenary work was then conducted to build a shared collective vision of the city in 2019.

* Day II and III--The rest of the Summit was focused on putting shared vision into action in working teams. David Cooperrider gave each of the action groups principles for team learning that are based on the IDEO methodology (Kelley, 2005).

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Personal mastery is arguably one area that was not covered explicitly in the Summit, but was implicit in most of the work. It is also one area where human resources managers can play the most important role. Without a shift in consciousness in individuals, none of the new systems will be implemented.

Through our organizations we can create programs in which individuals are enrolled, such as Wal-Mart's PSP--Personal Sustainability Programs (Wal-Mart, 2009). Hundreds of thousands of employees have joined PSP by committing to at least one specific personal sustainability goal. Not only is this creating a broad shift in thinking, it is also a very sound business strategy. The PSP programs have become one of the greatest motivation tools in the company. When employees are asked what they are most proud of at Wal-Mart, most cite "sustainability" as the number one thing.

EXHIBIT 3: CLEVELAND SUMMIT ROADMAP

ESTABLISHING
ORGANIZERS

* Facilitator--Case
Western
Reserve
University

* Logistics--Cleveland
Office of
Sustainability

* Champion--Mayor
of
Cleveland

COMMUNITY
ENGAGEMENT

* Buy-in from key
partners in the
community
(corporate, NGOs,
foundations)

* Agreeing to
hold steering
committee

* Deciding on
who should
attend steering
committee

FUNDING

* Securing funds
for steering
committee

* Confirming
attendance of
key foundations
at steering
committee

* Creating
fund-raising
plan

STEERING
COMMITTEE

* Identifying key
success factors
of Summit

* Deciding who
leads and
participates in
task groups

* Planning what
needs to get
done until the
Summit

PRE-SUMMIT
PLANNING

* Creating workbook
for the Summit

* Conducting pre-Summit
analytics

* Securing funding
for Summit

* Inviting stakeholders

* Organizing logistics
of Summit

* Inviting key speakers

CONVENING
SUMMIT

* Facilitation of
Summit

* Organizing
logistics

* Capturing
agreements and
plans of Summit
work-groups

* Planning next
steps

POST-SUMMIT

* Establishing
coordinating
structure

* Identifying date
for follow-up
meetings and
Summit

* Nurturing work
of groups

Implications for Change Leaders and HR Professionals

Although the roadmap in Exhibit 3 is specific to the Cleveland Summit, it can provide insight into leading large-scale strategic-change processes in general within an organization or community. As in Exhibit 3, the key elements to get the process off the ground are (1) identifying the organizers, (2) engaging a few key stakeholders, (3) finding seed funding, and (4) planning a steering committee meeting. A large Summit may seem like a daunting task, but when it's broken down into a few component steps, a few individuals and organizations can spark the entire process. For the readers of this journal, we have tried to provide insight into how you can play a catalyst role in such change processes.

There are also important lessons for HR professionals focused on job creation, career planning, recruitment, selection and retention:

* Job creation: An estimated 250,000 jobs may be created out of the work initiated through the Cleveland Summit. Not only is this a huge opportunity for new job growth, it also requires human resource leaders to adequately plan for this new type of worker who will manage and work in manufacturing and service businesses related to green technology (see U.S. Council of Mayors report, 2008). In particular, creating new jobs can allow companies to tap into inner city human resources that can be a high value-for-money workforce in terms of entrepreneurship, loyalty and dedication (Porter, 1995).

* Career planning: With the increasing age of our workforce and the continuing trend towards down-sizing, more workers can be educated to transition their careers to green economy opportunities (U.S. Council of Mayors, ibid). Many workers will not need training in a completely new set of skills. For example, advanced energy manufacturing still will need to use many of the same skills employed in current manufacturing.

* Recruitment and Selection: Unlike other sectors, where there is a higher supply of workers than there is demand, the green sector is growing so fast that there are many shortages of skilled workers. Proactive recruitment and training strategies are needed. For example, in Cleveland, companies are partnering with Cuyahoga Community College to train thousands of potential workers and to create a huge recruiting base among the students. Furthermore, studies have shown that companies that supply green jobs are more attractive to potential employees (Turban and Greening, 1997). In today's world where many people are looking for meaningful jobs, companies contributing to the environment and community can be attractive employers.

* Engagement and Retention: Workers who feel their work is meaningful tend to be more engaged, creative, loyal and stay at the company longer (Glavas & Piderit, 2010). This, too, is an important argument for businesses. Many businesses operate in industries where there have been long-term trends of declining loyalty, with all the consequent costs for recruitment and retention.

Every company in Cleveland potentially will feel the effects of the shift to a local, sustainable economy. Companies that adequately prepare for this transition will capitalize, but companies who lead in creating sustainable enterprises will profit the most. In the Cleveland Summit process, companies designed initiatives that would allow them to grow. This was not seen as a hidden agenda, but a desired one. As a result, almost every initiative area had positive benefits for the businesses involved.

However, the greatest lessons learned from the process were in how it happened. We don't think that traditional management models will work in building a green economy. We don't have time. Change needs to happen quickly, and it needs to grow exponentially. The severity of the issues we face around food, water, energy and waste and toxicity can't wait for slow, incremental change. In this environment, we need processes that engage the whole, are strengths-based and require managers to let go of control.

References

Cleveland Plain Dealer (2009). Data central: Cleveland Ohio statistics, demographics & census. Retreived December 18, 2009, from http://www.cleveland.com/datacentral/

Cooperrider, D.L., Fry, R.E., & Piderit, S.K. (2007). New designs in transformative cooperation: The growing call and converging conversation. In S.K. Piderit, R.E. Fry, & D.L. Cooperrider (Eds.), Handbook of transformative cooperation: New designs and dynamics. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Cooperrider, D.L., & Whitney, D. (2000). A positive revolution in change: Appreciative inquiry. In Cooperrider, D.L., Sorensen, Jr., P.E, Whitney, D., & Yaeger, T.E (Eds.), Appreciative Inquiry: Rethinking human organization toward a positive theory of change. Champaign, IL: Stipes Publishing.

Cooperrider, D.L., Whitney, D., & Stavros, J.M. (2005). Appreciative Inquiry handbook: The first in a series of AI workbooks for leaders of change. Brunswick, OH: Crown Custom Publishing.

Eisler, R. (2005). The economic imperative for revisioning the rules of the game: Work, values, and caring. In S.K. Piderit, R.E. Fry, & D.L. Cooperrider (Eds.), Handbook of transformative cooperation: New designs and dynamics. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Glavas, A., & Piderit, S.K. (2010). How does doing good matter: Corporate citizenship behaviors and their consequences within businesses. Forthcoming in the Journal of Corporate Citizenship.

Hock, D. (1999). Birth of the chaordic age. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.

Kelley, T. (2005). The ten faces of innovation. New York: Doubleday.

Kotter, J.P. (1995). Leading change: Why transformation efforts fail. Harvard Business Review, 73, 59-67.

National Research Council of the National Academies (2009). Sustainable critical infrastructure systems: A framework for meeting 21 century imperatives. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

Porter, M.E. (1995). The competitive advantage of the inner city. Harvard Business Review, 17, 104-115.

Putnam, R.D. (2000). Bowling alone. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Senge, EM. (1990). The fifth discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization. New York: Doubleday.

Senge, P., Smith, B., Kruschwitz, N., Laur, J., & Schley, S. (2008). The necessary revolution: How individuals and organizations are working together to create a sustainable world. New York: Doubleday.

Turban, D.B., & Greening, D.W. (1997). Corporate social performance and organizational attractiveness to prospective employees. Academy of Management Journal, 40, 658-672.

The United State Conference of Mayors and the Mayors Climate Protection Center (2008). U.S. metro economies: Current and potential green jobs in the U.S. economy. Lexington, MA: Global Insight.

Wal-Mart (2009). Global sustainability report. Retrieved from http://walmartstores.com/Sustainability/7951.aspx

(1.) The report that the group created can be found on www.city.cleveland.oh.us/CityofCleveland/Home/Community/ ThingsToDo/AISummit/Forms-Publications, and is titled, "Sustainable Cleveland 2019: Pre-Summit Briefing Paper"

Ante Glavas, Ph.D., is on the faculty in the department of management at the University of Notre Dame. He received his Ph.D. in organizational behavior from Case Western Reserve University where he was also the Executive Director of BAWB, the Center for Business as an Agent of World Benefit. Prior to academia, he was as a senior manager in Diageo, a Fortune 500 company; started an organic foods company; founded Horizon, a leadership institute in Croatia; and led a team that built CBA, the first private graduate business school in the Croatia and became its first CEO. He has received numerous awards for his work contributing to society such as the Medal of Honor from the President of Croatia.

Peter Senge, Ph.D., is a senior lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and founding chair of the SoL (Society for Organizational Learning) Council. He is the author of The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, co-author of the three related field books, Presence: An Exploration of Profound Change in People, Society, and Organizations and most recently, The Necessary Revolution: How Individuals and Organizations are Working Together to Create a Sustainable World. Senge lectures throughout the world about decentralizing the role of leadership in organizations to enhance the capacity of all people to work toward healthier human systems.

David Cooperrider, Ph.D. is the faculty director and is the Fairmount Minerals Professor of Social Entrepreneurship at the Weatherhead School of Management with a secondary appointment in International Health, the Division of General Medical Sciences, Case School of Medicine. His research interests include the theory and practice of Appreciative Inquiry (AI). Cooperrider is best-known for the AI methodology that he co-developed, as it is creating positive revolution in the leadership of change. His work is especially vital because of its ability to enable positive change in systems of very large and complex scales, for example with the U.S. Navy, Hewlett-Packard, Parker Hannifin, Mckinsey, the United Nations and Verizon.