Criteria Review: Program effectiveness

In this section of the NACES Guidelines (application for inclusion in the Environmental Success Index) Renew America establishes its Criteria Review. By answering the following questions, NACES provides people in the EarthSafe 2022 program ways to measure their own effectiveness. The italicized questions, below, are from the NACES application form with slight modifications for the EarthSafe 2022 context.

• 1. NACES: How does the EarthSafe 2022 program successfully integrate the goals of natural resource conservation, economic progress and human development--all three characteristics of environmental sustainability?

• By redefining progress and ecological economics first, and then using conservation and human development, as one example, this program takes an unusual approach to teaching, research and practice of arts, crafts and design principles. For instance, the development of a living museum of cybernetic arts, crafts and design integrates active computer art and handiwork traditions.

• 2. NACES: Does the success of the program depend on ongoing cooperation among diverse groups?

• By using multiple-year plans--five, ten or thirty-years--it is possible to form networks of creative and technical people around the world. When communication is established, we can do localized projects inexpensively and take the lead in more effective uses of creative talent for teaching, research and productivity. Engaging diverse groups means participants around the world will be involved. New controls and communications tools are, if used for a Safe Earth, critical to the EarthSafe 2022 mission. An example of a five-year in place is "Reunioneering: Pathways to 2000", managed by the Emerging Seniors Network (ESN).

• 3. NACES: What characteristics indicate the range of benefits associated with the program?

• The program uses of information technologies, such as print, radio, video and computer-aided systems for communication, which is at the core of EarthSafe 2022. Using new tools for communication among creative and technical people, they take a global perspective and can better evaluate and manage their assets and achieve the program goals.

• 4. NACES: Is it innovative in its application of existing resources or creative in developing new tools to address the problem?

• The program is most creative by setting standards that are effective on a personal level, and then working out from the individual to teams and communities. We build the road as we travel, using new tools alongside traditional ones that restore the cultural values of arts, crafts and design. We consider our EarthSafe 2022 mission as our greatest achievement since the advent of new Information Technology (IT) communication control methods for cultural sharing.

• 5. NACES: What quantifiable measures are used to determine the program's benefits?

• Successful competition against old, wasteful methods of doing things is one measure, i.e., we win wars against enemies that are methodically destroying the earth. We measure audience size, financial commitments and human resources committed to EarthSafe 2022 goals, and we count the positive uses of new technologies as victories over the negative, destructive uses to which they are being put today. An example is the creation of college classes that incorporate ecological economics, environmental artistry and redefine progress.

• 6. NACES: Does the program develop innovative ways to measure progress toward sustainability?

• The network behind EarthSafe 2022 is non-bureaucratic; it is co-operative and intelligently organized. Its measurable progress depends on the intelligent organization model applied to future search strategies and alliances, partnerships and co-ventures. Each member is asked to measure his or her personal growth by days, weeks, months and years. If they are unable to see growth, the intelligent organization is accountable. New strategies are immediately put into effect, maintaining the sustainability factor.

• 7. NACES: Can the program be replicated in other communities confronted by a similar problem?

• By using media such a videotape, radio, on-line services and digital storage-and-retrieval, the work of the organization can be replicated and localized. EarthSafe 2022 participants possess the same spirit that distinguishes the scientific mind that searches for sustainability and uses the same networks. For example, the Internet and World Wide Web will be used as effective vehicles to share methodologies among artists, crafts people, designers and creative technical people world-wide.