Sustainability 2013, 5, 1-x manuscripts; doi:10.

3390/su50x000x

sustainability
ISSN 2071-1050
www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability
Communication
The Big Picture Behind Community Sustainability
Jeanelle Miller
University of Idaho, 709 S Deakin St, Moscow, ID 83844; E-Mail: mill5465@daho.edu
Received: / Accepted: / Published:

Abstract: The environment is a common pool resource at risk of over-utilization.
Managing human infrastructure to limit the negative impacts that humans have on global
common pool resources (CPR), now and for generations to come, requires new
management methods. Many disciplines are exploring cooperative co-management of
traditional common pool resources as an alternative methodology. This paper outlines what
mechanisms make community resource management efforts successful in common pool
resource management and business management and suggests reasons for why the
framework isnt integrated more often, and in more disciplines.
Keywords: community sustainability; co-management; adaptive management; common
pool resources; distributed management

1. Community Sustainability of Common Pool Resources
What is the goal of sustainability? In this paper let us focus on one goal; to effectively manage
human infrastructure in a way that limits the negative impacts humans have on global common pool
resources (CPR) now and for generations to come. CPR have distributed beneficiaries that put the
resource at risk of over-utilization. Although CPR were previously viewed as local resources such as
fish populations, forests, or irrigation canals, as our understanding of human impacts on the
environment have grown, many public goods, such as air and water, are being managed like CPR.
After all, pumping toxins into the air or dumping chemicals in and abandoned field can affect the
usability of the air we breathe and water we drink for generations. For arguments sake, lets assume
that all environmental issues are CPR. What then can we learn from historical management of smaller
scale CPR?
Whether your goal is sustainability, business, or environmental protection, managing CPR is a
complex issue [19]. Centralized regulation of CPR does not account for local or global complexity,
OPEN ACCESS
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often leading to stagnation in the management regime and a triage scenario where one resource must
be sacrificed in order to sustain the other [19,25]. Traditional management strategies for local
resources also disempower local users and do not effectively meet stakeholder goals [20,22]. An
alternative to traditional management is cooperative management also addressed in other fields as
community management, community sustainability, community business entrepreneurship, adaptive
management, collaborative management, distributed management, collective action, and many others.
In this paper we will refer to this field of research as community management to encompass the entire
structure and refrain from confusing them with sustainability principles. There are a plethora of CPR
that have been managed cooperatively with many successes, some of which will be outlined further on
in this paper [2,12,14,18].
Community sustainability (community management embracing sustainable principles) brings
together groups of people in specific locations and empowers local authority to change institutions and
regulations in a group defined sustainable direction [2,14]. Communities that embraced community
sustainability have become innovative hubs for sustainable water, air, transportation, energy,
management, and development [5]. Perhaps the community sustainability movement got its roots from
Deep Ecology, which called for ideological, institutional, and governmental change valuing all life
equally before we harm the environment beyond repair [23]. Although Deep Ecologys negative
overtone and radical ideas incited vehement conversation, the point to be taken from the philosophy
was that; in order to change our misuse of the environment, we need to change the way we value the
environment. Community sustainabilitys altruistic and transformative nature embraces the value of
the diversity of groups working together and the innovation and comes from a shared vision, making it
ideal for large scale, interdisciplinary integration.
In this paper I will address two important questions; what makes CPR community efforts successful
in CPR management and business, and why arent these frameworks used more often. Before we look
into what makes community management successful, we will address the core definition of community
and expand it to incorporate examples of similar structures in other disciplines. Next, we will examine
what structures exist in successful community management examples. Community businesses will be
explored as an example of community management integration into economics. Finally, we will
address the barriers to global integration of community management and discuss solutions to those
barriers.
2. Community Management
2.1. Defining Community
Communities are centers for resilience, adaptation, and innovation [5]. They serve as cornerstones
of sustainable development and their interdisciplinary, multi-scale sense-making leads to improved
management and innovations in products, industry, institutions, and culture. It has been argued that
large-scale destruction of neighborhoods and rural areas, coupled by economic stagnation and
depletion, which follow post-industrialization, damages the resiliency of communities [5,15]. This
argument takes a narrow view of what a community is however. By expanding our definition of
community, we can begin to examine what community management really entails.
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In a general sense, a community is a social unit sharing similar values [9]. In most cases we think of
communities as groups of people but in network theory, communities can be described as a tight
grouping of nodes with loose links between other groups [10]. The distinction between community as a
group of individuals and a group of nodes expands the ideology of community in two important ways.
First, network theory allows the analysis of communities to go beyond human individuals. Similar
community structures can be found in websites, ideas, values, food webs, buildings and infrastructure,
and even quantum mechanics. Communities are a fundamental property of universal structures at all
scales, increasing in complexity over evolutionary time [4]. Analyzing similar communities leads us to
the second feature of network communities and that is accuracy. When describing communities of
people there is an inherent predisposition to sort by constructs, such as religious, political, or
geographical constraints, but these constructs may introduce bias into groupings. Ordering
communities by distance between links allows us to change our scales and accurately define what
makes up a community without the human social bias.
Human ordering of communities has led to a fractured, incommunicative segregation of human
capital. Our own need to belong forces us into an us versus them mentality and often we exclude
ourselves, and our perceived community, from scrutiny [24]. Our capitalist self-interest is partly to
blame for this narrow vision and lack of foresight [12]. Indeed, our need to succeed in the United
States has forced us into such hyper-individuality that we have 50% less friends than our parents
generation and only ! of us have meaningful interactions with our neighbors [3]. With an optimal
community size of about 150 individuals, it seems our communities and relationships are severely
lacking [6]. This is where our network definition of community comes in handy. On a local,
geographical scale individuals might be lacking in community as scholars have argued. Humans are
highly adaptable however and we have widened our scale to incorporate another kind of community,
the global community, connected through mass communication.
2.1.1. Local Communities
When we think of a community, we usually picture a geographically constrained group such as a
town or a city. Within that region there might be social communities that belong to churches,
universities, or businesses. This is the scale that most CPR management operates on. In the United
States, the fisheries industry has legally incorporated collaborative information from commercial
fishermen, NGOs, government scientists and other groups since 2006 [11]. The US Forest Service has
mandated that all future plans incorporate climate change as well as local ecological knowledge.
Although they are not yet transformational in their collaborative efforts, they have managed to
integrate local stakeholders as much as the national regulations will allow [8].
Some of the most stunning examples of community sustainability and distributed management are
from Scandinavia [13,14,19]. Eco-municipalities is a term used in Sweden to describe towns and cities
(some with only 300 people, some with up to 500,000) that have committed to sustainability not only
in development but in the collective management and goals decided on and carried out by the public
and governmental employees together. As of 2004, 20% of Swedens municipalities were considered
eco-municipalities. These sustainable communities have achieved goals of up to 90% reduction in
solid waste through recycling and are continually educating the public and creating intricate
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community oriented plans. Businesses in Scandinavia also incorporate distributed management by
having multiple presidents or breaking management into modular units as opposed to s traditional strict
hierarchy [22].

2.1.2. Global Communities
Networks can be defined by boarders and geographical nearness, but these are increasingly not the
defining factors in the defining a community [10]. The global community is an extremely diverse
group that isnt necessarily constrained by location. Shared interests such as a video games like World
of Warcraft can define an individuals community both in the virtual world and daily life. The global
community is also becoming increasingly connected to each other [6]. In 2000, about 6% of the global
population subscribed to internet service providers and that number is expected to increase to 66% of
the global population by 2020. However, in 2010, 78% of the world population had cell phones, 12.6%
of which could also access the internet, and this penetration is growing exponentially. Global
conversations are now commonplace. International brainstorming, product creation, and sense-making
are a daily occurrence. Social entrepreneurs solve world problems in other countries. Online
individuals fund businesses in Africa. Technical problems in remote locations can be solved
collaboratively with global internet communities. Doctors can even operate on patients in other
countries using robots. Globalization is turning our boundaries and definitions that localize
communities on their head.
2.2. Structure of Successful Community Common Pool Resource Management
Knowledge of and institutions for CPR management traditionally grow in two ways [1]. First is
over time, as familiarity grows through observation and trial and error. Second is in response to a crisis
and also through trial and error. Groups of individuals can self-organize and adapt to situations more
quickly through shared knowledge. Communal knowledge that integrates a diverse background can
take a long time to create. However, these adaptive knowledge bases increase the resilience of the
group, as they can utilize their resources more effectively, and subsequently increase the long-term
sustainability of CPR and communities. Mass communication, the internet, and global communities are
ever widening the knowledge base and shortening response times [6]. This knowledge base cannot be
utilized by most regulatory groups however and aids communities the most in its open-source
availability.
The most important factor to understanding why community management works begins with
understanding nature [1,2,14]. Nature is complex. Which means that natural systems are in a dynamic,
intricate balance whose relationships and linkages are not always apparent. Resilient systems have a
degree of adaptability where disturbances do not tip the balance into different structural regimes
[2,14]. Modularity is utilized to reduce wastes in energy and efficiency, and power laws and
mathematical patterns can describe any underlying structures and principles. Science and management
on the other hand both rely on reductionist approaches and linear relationships [9,19]. Unlike nature,
traditional centralized management systems are rigid in structure and while complicated, are not
complex.
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Restructuring our values and economic drivers to embrace environmental responsibility and make a
profit at the same time is the overarching goal of community sustainability, but the structure that
allows us to do this is the superorganism, thereby modeling the core principles of nature [12,13]
Community management is biomimicry in essence then. Superorganisms, like ant and bee colonies
(and even the human body as only 1/10 of your cells are human), exist where all individuals work for
the good of the colony (or community), however individuals are still rewarded on an uneven scale.
Community minded organisms still embrace individual competition in this manner.
Several factors that are exhibited in nature must be incorporated into the community management
structure in order for the superorganism to be successful. These cornerstone factors mirroring nature
are complexity, flexibility, resiliency, and modularity. Human knowledge grows and is more adaptable
when supplied through a dynamic social network with interdisciplinary information [9]. Management
also requires planning for risk but most risk is unknown. A large interdisciplinary knowledge base and
flexibility in planning and action allows for the social group and resource to be managed in a resilient
manner [2,5,9,14]. Self-organization and action based approaches to management allow a quick
response to crisis and diverse community knowledge reduces the time needed to gain insights and
respond increasing social-ecological resilience. Although superorganisms function as a community, the
individual tasks are broken down into modular groups and leadership still plays an inherent role. Many
community co-management efforts are self-organized, emergent, bottom-up distributions of
individuals but leadership aids in the self-organization process, conflict resolution, coordination, and
communication [9]. The community system does not arise without a culture of trust. In the business
realm, this management style is called transformational engagement. Transformational management is
characterized by collaborative efforts where stakeholders on all levels are integrated into decision-
making and have close relationships based on trust and shared control. The strength of this
management style is that the leverage point changes society by creating shared value [20,22].
Community management is also transformative, meaning all stakeholders are involved in the decision-
making, but this cannot occur without close, familial relationships, which is why interacting groups are
modular.
2.3. Structure of Community Business Models
The initial green movement was incredibly expensive to businesses with limited rewards or
incentives [7]. In the beginning, there were few regulations and being green was merely a way to
increase public opinion. However, Moores law of exponential technological development has come
through and prices of green technology are dropping as the technology is doubling in power every 18
months making sustainable development more affordable [6]. In addition to reduction in costs of
development, cost savings in operating expenses and worker retention are becoming an apparent part
of sustainable development [18]. Sustainable buildings find savings in reduced heating and cooling,
reduced energy from natural lighting and renewable energy sources, reduction in component costs with
increased use of recycling techniques, and in some cases, workers who leave for increased salaries
with alternate companies return because they are happier in a sustainable environment even with a
decrease in pay. For these businesses giving to the community at large and the community of their own
employees has greater payoff than just public opinion. Large corporations may be taxed for pollution
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to varying degrees. Large producers of CO
2
for instance may have to contest with the expense of
polluting the environment, although the blanket taxing does not always inspire the sustainable action
but merely towing the line of regulations [7].
Small-scale business is another area in which community management has shown great success.
Communities become extremely important in isolated areas and depleted economies where the single
most influential factor in business success is the community involvement and level of community
service exhibited by the business itself [2,15,16]. Community entrepreneurship is a model that puts
community wealth above personal wealth. An example is a business that promotes start-up businesses
in the local area after the closing of the mine that maintained the economy [15]. Sweden similarly
created jobs in their eco-municipalities where some towns had up to half the population unemployed.
Situations like these can lead to severe crime rates like in Cascaf, Haiti where a community waste
management program cleaned up the neighborhood both physically and by making it safer by giving
the community work and a place to gather [17]. Community driven businesses create new
opportunities, revitalizing economy and innovation [15]. These businesses also experience increased
resilience as the devotion to the community creates shared value and invested interest in helping the
business to succeed by reciprocating support [2,16,20].
Global communities are also a source for innovative community business [6]. Global brainstorming
has solved many mission-oriented research problems through incentive prizes such as those hosted by
the X-Prize Foundation. Businesses can also directly address the global community to problem solve
through the web with groups like Innocentive and IdeaConnection. Open-source software and open-
source designs are contributed to by global users creating fast, innovative products at a fraction of the
design cost. Micro-loans are also enabling entrepreneurs all over the world to begin businesses that
local and global communities are willing to support. Other groups like Kickstarter allow pledging of
funds to ideas and businesses that the global community would enjoy. Although these examples are not
actively managed by the global community, the decision to create and support them is made by a
collective.
3. Barriers to Integration
Community management has been successful in business and CPR management. The model is
scalable, adaptable, and resilient. Why then is this model not instituted in more fields? A major issue is
lack of institutions and adaptability in governance. Integration is largely an issue of values and belief
systems conflicting with or ignoring these ideas. Lastly, CPR management has revealed several unique
attributes that can cause problems even when managed by a community.
Institutions that support community management and information sharing are often not in place in
local communities for CPR management [2,14,19]. Centralized regulations blanket ecosystems and do
not address the complexity of the systems nor the local intricacies. Government organizations are
mostly in charge of regulating CPR and have rigid, reductionist structures and can only accept similar
types of information severely limiting what the officials can and cannot act upon [8]. Transformational
engagement cannot occur because decision-makers always have the final decision whether they are
regulated or not. Even if communities are involved in the planning process they may have little to no
influence over the end result [22]. This disempowerment and lack of trust affects the belief of
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communities and individuals making them feel that they cannot make a difference in the world they
live in. Governments act as regulators to current problems and are limited in their foresight. Most
regulations are a patchwork of Band-Aids to remedy past mistakes or mange current use but do not
address our childrens prospects. This shortsightedness, disempowerment of community, and lack of
trust between agencies and communities create a large communication barrier on top of the
institutional gaps.
Capitalism values the individual [14]. Our goals and profits are self-oriented. Responsibility and
altruism can even be seen as weaknesses or leisure activities of the rich and famous [3,12,19]. There is
a belief then that community-managed resources are socialist in their payouts but this is not the case as
we have seen from superorganisms in nature [13]. If our communities are formed from common
interests however, globalization of communities will spread like-minded ideas further and faster as
technology continues to be integrated into our society. These common interests may lead to greater
global awareness of community sustainability and management successes as well as the missions of
technophilantrhopists and social entrepreneurs [3,6].
A recurring issue that industries attempting to co-manage resources have found is a difficulty in
integrating information across disciplines and utilizing knowledge [11]. There is an unrelenting belief
in two cultures in human society [24]. This philosophical argument originally described two groups,
the sciences and the humanities, as communities whose differences are so great that they could not be
overcome them and the knowledge could never be integrated. CPR managers have the same issue
presently with attempts to integrate traditional or local ecological knowledge [1,9]. Utilization of many
sources of knowledge, including local knowledge, is a core component of a resilient community [2].
There are two large barriers when it comes to integrating different sources of information. The first is
the belief that non-scientific information is invalid. And the second is that this kind of us versus
them mentality creates and perpetuates distrust between community stakeholders. Common interests
and common goals cannot be achieved where trust does not exist [9]. Finding local experts and
validating information across multiple individuals and disciplines is sometimes the only way to check
information. Because systems become more resilient with more information, it is better to include the
information in the community knowledge base whether it can be scientifically validated or not. Along
the same line is the cultural aspect of information. There is no room for heritage, tradition, or
philosophy in science but is it really ethical to throw that information away? Certainly a community
without culture would be soulless indeed.
When it comes to local CPR there are several additional barriers that have become apparent in
various situations [14,19]. Harvestable resources have issues of course with sustainable supply. Who
gets what, and how much, and how often can upset stakeholders but can also be incredibly difficult to
enforce with distributed users. Similarly, community monitoring and experimentation becomes
increasingly difficult with larger scales and numbers of users because it is more difficult to track what
has already been done and where. When community management is volunteer based there is the added
last minute confusion of commitment. How many people will follow through? Even though there is
invested interest, the cost of time and effort may be more than an individual is willing to give after the
effects of improper management are not dramatically apparent.
4. Conclusions
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Transformational leadership of important community figures, can help give individuals the
empowerment and motivation they need to create emergent self-organized communities that can
influence the world around them for the common good. Long visions of the future and adjustments to
our perception of community scale will become critical factors in the way we manage CPR, business,
and sustainability.
Many disciplines are studying, and implementing, methods of community management. Businesses,
common pool resources, watersheds, cities and superorganisms all share similar structural groupings of
communities. Our definitions of these communities, our belief in insurmountable differences in
culture, arbitrary borders, and centralized regulation of complex systems put barriers on what we can
accomplish. It is becoming apparent that working towards the good of the community reciprocates
profits on communities and individuals while still promoting individual competition.
Rigid, reductionist regimes do not allow the emergence of self-organized, bottom-up decisions and
the transformative leadership that create invested interest and resilient socio-economic communities.
Legislation can help community management emerge by allowing geographically local governance,
flexibility of risk funds, allowing for adaptability in management, providing a format for information
transmission, discourse, and sense-making of multiple, even global, sources of information.
Global incorporation of community management methodologies involves changing values by
getting the community to communicate, share vision, and begin to define themselves as the human
community; the global community; the Sol system community. After all, we all live on the same pale
blue dot[21].
Acknowledgments
This paper was written in two days over the ongoing chorus of screaming baby I would like to
thank the YOU, reader, for bearing with me (if you made it this far). May you go on the change the
world!
Conflict of Interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
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