IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v15y2023i6p4977-d1093976.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Beyond Climate Ready? A History of Seattle Public Utilities’ Ongoing Evolution from Environmental and Climate Risk Management to Integrated Sustainability

Author

Listed:
  • Ann Grodnik-Nagle

    (Seattle Public Utilities, Seattle Municipal Tower, 700 5th Avenue, Seattle, WA 98104, USA)

  • Ashima Sukhdev

    (Seattle Public Utilities, Seattle Municipal Tower, 700 5th Avenue, Seattle, WA 98104, USA)

  • Jason Vogel

    (Climate Impacts Group (CIG), University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA)

  • Charles Herrick

    (Washington Center, New York University, Washington, DC 20016, USA)

Abstract

Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) is a municipal water supply, drainage, wastewater, and solid waste management utility in Seattle, Washington. This utility has explored the impacts of climate change and supported climate adaptation work since 1997. Faced with threats such as sea level rise, drought, wildfires, and extreme precipitation events, SPU has worked to “mainstream” climate science throughout its strategic planning, capital investments, management, operations, staffing, institutional culture, and more. This paper provides a descriptive, chronologically ordered account of how SPU’s climate-change-related work has evolved to become an aspect of a broader social and environmental sustainability orientation, aimed at resilience against climate impacts, but also towards improving greenhouse gas emissions reduction, carbon sequestration, water and waste circularity, green infrastructure, ecosystem and species stewardship, green and blue workforce development, affordability, an intergenerational perspective, and environmental justice. We frame this transition as a movement from a core focus on risk management toward a proactive and integrated mode of sustainable operations. While SPU’s journey has been enabled by a co-productive approach to climate services, we speculate on how this model can be broadened and diversified to help SPU pursue their goal of becoming a sustainable organization. It is our hope that this paper sparks reflection and discussion within the climate services community, amongst utilities, municipalities, and policy entrepreneurs that are interested in sustainability.

Suggested Citation

  • Ann Grodnik-Nagle & Ashima Sukhdev & Jason Vogel & Charles Herrick, 2023. "Beyond Climate Ready? A History of Seattle Public Utilities’ Ongoing Evolution from Environmental and Climate Risk Management to Integrated Sustainability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(6), pages 1-26, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:6:p:4977-:d:1093976
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/6/4977/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/6/4977/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Peter Newton & Denny Meyer & Stephen Glackin, 2017. "Becoming Urban: Exploring the Transformative Capacity for a Suburban-to-Urban Transition in Australia’s Low-Density Cities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(10), pages 1-22, September.
    2. Paul Shrivastava & Stuart Hart, 1995. "Creating sustainable corporations," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 4(3), pages 154-165, July.
    3. Patricia Romero-Lankao & Harriet Bulkeley & Mark Pelling & Sarah Burch & David J. Gordon & Joyeeta Gupta & Craig Johnson & Priya Kurian & Emma Lecavalier & David Simon & Laura Tozer & Gina Ziervogel &, 2018. "Urban transformative potential in a changing climate," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 8(9), pages 754-756, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Galbreath, Jeremy, 2017. "Drivers Of Environmental Sustainability In Wine Firms: The Role And Effect Of Women In Leadership," Working Papers 253851, American Association of Wine Economists.
    2. I. Callens & L. Wolters, 1998. "Factors of unsustainability: Identification, links and hierarchy," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(1), pages 32-42, February.
    3. Anselm Schneider, 2015. "Reflexivity in Sustainability Accounting and Management: Transcending the Economic Focus of Corporate Sustainability," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 127(3), pages 525-536, March.
    4. Tobias Hahn & Frank Figge & Jonatan Pinkse & Lutz Preuss, 2010. "Trade‐offs in corporate sustainability: you can't have your cake and eat it," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(4), pages 217-229, May.
    5. Trivess Moore & Andréanne Doyon, 2018. "The Uncommon Nightingale: Sustainable Housing Innovation in Australia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(10), pages 1-18, September.
    6. Ans Kolk & Anniek Mauser, 2002. "The evolution of environmental management: from stage models to performance evaluation," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 11(1), pages 14-31, January.
    7. Sarah Elena Windolph & Dorli Harms & Stefan Schaltegger, 2014. "Motivations for Corporate Sustainability Management: Contrasting Survey Results and Implementation," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 21(5), pages 272-285, September.
    8. Neil Harris, 2007. "Corporate engagement in processes for planetary sustainability: understanding corporate capacity in the non‐renewable resource extractive sector, Australia," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(8), pages 538-553, December.
    9. Peter W. Newton & Briony C. Rogers, 2020. "Transforming Built Environments: Towards Carbon Neutral and Blue-Green Cities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(11), pages 1-25, June.
    10. Charles N. Herrick & Joanna L. Pratt, 2013. "Communication and the Narrative Basis of Sustainability: Observations from the Municipal Water Sector," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 5(10), pages 1-16, October.
    11. Caby, Jérôme & Ziane, Ydriss & Lamarque, Eric, 2022. "The impact of climate change management on banks profitability," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 412-422.
    12. Simon Atkinson & Anja Schaefer & Howard Viney, 2000. "Organizational structure and effective environmental management," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(2), pages 108-120, March.
    13. Bin Huang & Ke Xing & Stephen Pullen & Lida Liao, 2020. "Exploring Carbon Neutral Potential in Urban Densification: A Precinct Perspective and Scenario Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(12), pages 1-19, June.
    14. Bernd Siebenhüner & Marlen Arnold, 2007. "Organizational learning to manage sustainable development," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(5), pages 339-353, July.
    15. Ian Rankin Kerr, 2006. "Leadership strategies for sustainable SME operation," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(1), pages 30-39, January.
    16. Aleksandra Jadach-Sepioło & Maciej Zathey, 2021. "Alternative between Revitalisation of City Centres and the Rising Costs of Extensive Land Use from a Polish Perspective," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(5), pages 1-31, May.
    17. Alan Neale, 1997. "Extending the scope of environmental management: The case of company‐assisted travel in Britain," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 6(1), pages 9-17, February.
    18. Samuel Roscoe & Nachiappan Subramanian & Romina Prifti & Lin Wu, 2020. "Stakeholder engagement in a sustainable sales and operations planning process," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(8), pages 3526-3541, December.
    19. Valentina Cillo & Antonio Messeni Petruzzelli & Lorenzo Ardito & Manlio Del Giudice, 2019. "Understanding sustainable innovation: A systematic literature review," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 26(5), pages 1012-1025, September.
    20. Akinwande, Timothy & Hui, Eddie C.M. & Dekker, Karien, 2024. "Effective affordable housing strategies for the urban poor in Nigeria," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:6:p:4977-:d:1093976. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.