The Sustainable Hanover Committee [To conctact, e-mail: sustainablehanovernh@gmail.com] The Sustainable Hanover Committee oversees and coordinates community efforts to ensure that Hanover remains a resilient eco-municipality, in which residents thrive in challenging and ever-changing economic and environmental circumstances. This committee serves as a central 'clearinghouse' that helps coordinate the various efforts of the Steering Committee working groups, the Town Department/Staff Initiatives, as well as all the work related to this topic that occurs in the context of current official and unofficial town groups.  The Sustainable Hanover Committee evolved from the Recycling Committee and remains a work in progress, like this web site. The Hanover Select Board supported the following 'charge' for the SHC: The purpose of the Sustainable Hanover Committee (SHC) is to help assure a resilient, prosperous and healthy community for present and future residents, and to assure that Hanover does its part to sustain a healthy ecosystem and social well-being throughout our region and the interdependent nations of the earth. In order to achieve this end, the SHC shall: 1. Advise the Selectmen and Town Manager on policies and practices that will contribute to sustainable prosperity and well-being for the community, and assist the Selectmen, the Town Manager, and Town departments in implementing policies and practices intended to achieve these goals. 2. Provide a clearinghouse and linkages for the several committees, commissions, institutions, and volunteer groups who are addressing the issues affecting sustainability including energy, waste management, mobility and transportation, food and agriculture, education, and land use. 3. Oversee the development and implementation of a town sustainability plan, with assistance from a steering committee of residents and Town staff. 4. Educate people who reside and work in Hanover regarding challenges to sustainable prosperity and well-being and ways to address these challenges and to enhance our long-term welfare. Sustainable Hanover Committee Members: Larry Litten (Co-chair) Lyn Swett Miller (Co-chair) Chris Soderquist (Systems Consultant) Julia Griffin (Town Manager) Brian Walsh (Selectboard Liaison) Peter Kulbacki (Hanover Public Works) Marjorie Rogalski Mary Ann Cadwallader Chris Kennedy, UK Architects The Hanover Sustainability Plan Steering Committee provides oversight for the 7 (seven) Action Groups that will spend the next year developing a Hanover Sustainability Plan. To learn more about these Action Groups, please visit each of their pages on this site: Hanover Sustainability Plan Action Groups Public Communications & Media Energy Food / Agriculture Land Use Schools / Education Transportation / Mobility Waste / Recycling Background to The Natural Step: The Town of Hanover has officially adopted The Natural Step framework for ensuring a sustainable future for Hanover and its neighbors. The Natural Step framework involves creating an action plan for the community based on four guiding principles - These principles are based on the idea that to become a sustainable society we must: 1. eliminate our contribution to the progressive buildup of substances extracted from the Earth's crust (for example, heavy metals and fossil fuels) 2. eliminate our contribution to the progressive buildup of chemicals and compounds produced by society (for example, dioxins, PCBs, and DDT ) 3. eliminate our contribution to the progressive physical degradation and destruction of nature and natural processes (for example, over harvesting forests and paving over critical wildlife habitat); and 4. eliminate our contribution to conditions that undermine people’s capacity to meet their basic human needs (for example, unsafe working conditions and not enough pay to live on). To
begin this process, Town Manager, Julia Griffin, attended a week-long
workshop in June 2008; During the summer of 2008, members of the
Hanover Select Board read a book about The Natural Step; a A Steering
Committee begin work in Fall 2008; A Community Sustainability Workshop
provided over 100 members of the community to establish Priority Action
Items for seven (7) working groups (see side panel); During the spring
and summer of 2009, those working groups will follow a protocol for
action. This protocol is called the ABCD method for planning and creating an effective vision for action - The four steps are: A: Awareness - learning a common language of sustainability B: Baseline Analysis - scoping out where we are today in terms of the particular topic (working group topics) C: Creating the Vision - where do we want the community/region to be, with regard to this topic, in 20 years, 10 years, 5 years? D: Doing the Action Plan - "Back-casting" from the vision to today - what steps do we need to take to get to where we want to be? We hope to have an Action Plan to present at Town Meeting 2010. Between now and then, we need many people representing as many perspectives as possible - Please join our conversation! Indeed, our mission is an urgent one - While our community may not face the dramatic challenges faced by poorer nations and communities in drought-ridden regions of the world, our community is part of a larger global network and will not be immune from social, environmental and economic challenges during the coming years, decades and century. To learn more about the most recent climate change reports, read this online March 12 CNN article: World faces 'irreversible' climate change, researchers warn As an antedote, check out this fun musical & video explanation of what's really going on: Climate Crisis 'Jam.' The Hanover Sustainability Plan Steering Committee, which organized the Feb 2009 Community Workshop, involved a broad spectrum of community members. They were: Hanover Sustainability Plan Steering Committee Bob Norman, Climate Protection Campaign, NH Sierra Club Chris Soderquist, Pontifex Consulting Emily Neumann, Hanover Coop Jeannie Kornfeld, Hanover High School Jeff Colt, Hanover High School Jim Nourse, Richmond Middle School Julia Griffin, Manager, Town of Hanover Larry Litten, Dartmouth College administrator (retired) Leslie Connolly, Ray Elementary School Lyn Swett Miller, Chair, Hanover Recycling Committee Marissa Knodel, student, Dartmouth College Marjorie Rogalski, Climate Protection Plan Nicole Marcoe, Richmond Middle School Stephen Shadford, Dartmouth College staff |