Antarctic Cities. Volume 2, Urban Sustainability Profiles

The sustainability profiles of the participating cities were developed by the Antarctic Cities project based on the premise that the cities needed to map and understand their own sustainability in order to understand their capabilities for custodianship. They needed to understand their own strengths and weaknesses "” ecologically, economically, politically and culturally "” in order to reach out to Antarctica without a false sense of what was possible and without romanticizing what custodianship entails. Put in more general terms, care beyond one's borders is strengthened by a culture, politics and economy of local care. The profiles are one means of providing an evidence-based understanding of where that care is best directed. In order to map the sustainability of the Antarctic cities in a way that allowed qualitative comparison across these urban regions "” municipalities that collect data in relatively incommensurable ways and along quite different variables "” we needed a method that could variably integrate data and statistics into a qualitative assessment framework. Hence, we chose the Circles of Sustainability approach.1 The Circles approach offers such an integrated method for practically responding to complex issues of sustainability, resilience, adaptation, and liveability. It is used to guide the cities through the difficult process of responding to complex or seemingly intractable problems and challenges associated with building long-term sustainability. The approach builds upon the strengths of a research program developed in association with Metropolis, the UN Global Compact Cities Programme, World Vision and a number of other key international organizations. It was developed through practical engagement in cities around the world including Berlin, Melbourne, Milwaukee, New Delhi, Porto Alegre, San Francisco, and Valletta, to name a few.2 The Circles of Sustainability profile process is intended as a way of developing an interpretative description of the sustainability of an urban region and its immediate hinterland. Here sustainability is understood in relation to local, national, and global processes: ecological, economic, political and cultural. The Circles of Sustainability process is considered part of the more general Circles of Social Life assessment process, which includes considerations of vitality, productivity, relationality and sustainability (including resilience and adaptation).3 This meant that the other elements of the work "” the Connectivity Index and the Principles of Antarctic Engagement "” could be developed using the same matrix of variables. The sustainability profile template is intended as way of developing a more comprehensive understanding of an 'urban region'"”in this case, Hobart. By responding to the questions in the Urban Profile Question it is possible to generate a clear and simple graphic representation of the sustainability profile of that region. Examples are shown in Figure 1 (next page) for representative cities around the world. The Urban Profile process works on the basis of a four-domain model. Each domain is divided into seven perspectives (as set out in Table 1 below), and seven questions are asked about each perspective (see the questionnaire that follows in this document).