EarthCAT: A New Approach to Community Development

The Earth Charter Community Action Tool is your guide to developing and implementing a community sustainability plan. Using EarthCAT, you will be able to learn from the experiences of other communities as you set goals and targets, develop strategies to achieve them, and select indicators for monitoring your progress towards a more sustainable future.

Each community is different. The natural and human resources, the needs and aspirations of citizens, and the social and political systems of every community create unique challenges that require unique solutions. The Earth Charter Action Tool (EarthCAT) is designed to provide communities with a framework that permits them to identify their own priorities and approaches as they work towards a sustainable future.

EarthCAT is a software tool developed for use by communities interested in developing sustainability programs. and is available for use free of charge. We believe EarthCAT will provide value to communities in three major ways:

• Provide a clear methodology that provides clear steps to take in defining goals and targets, developing strategies, and measuring progress.
  
• Shares experiences-EarthCAT presents the best material submitted by other communities and make it available.
  
• Is an easy-to-use tool that provides practical instruction and theoretical background for every step. EarthCAT facilitates the overall process of developing a community's plan to storing every year's data to track progress using indicators.
  

EarthCAT Workbook and Framework for Community Development

The EarthCAT workbook (PDF) presents the EarthCAT approach for sustainable community development. EarthCAT stands for Earth Charter Community Action Tool, consisting of both this workbook and its companion software. They are designed to give community leaders real tools to enable you to make sustainable development and peace a reality where you live and work. As you work your way through this book to develop a sustainability plan for your own community, you may also wish to avail yourself of the EarthCAT online software system. This web-based program is a management tool that into which communities can enter the information, ideas, data, and strategies they develop. It then helps them organize it, track results, and report to the community. EarthCAT online also allows communities to share their strategies and results with each other.

Below is the framework employed by EarthCAT in the workbook "Taking Action for Sustainability: The EarthCAT Guide to Community Development"

Download full workbook "Taking Action for Sustainability: The EarthCAT Guide to Community Development"

Taking Action for Sustainability Workbook (Full Version revised 7/18/05)

Download workbook by chapters:

• Title Pages Table of Contents and Introduction
• Chapter 1: Laying the Foundation for Change
• Chapter 2: Building a Common Vision
• Chapter 3: Establishing Goals
• Chapter 4: Understanding Trends and Setting Targets
• Chapter 5: Planning Strategies for Taking Action
• Chapter 6: Indicators of Community Performance
• Chapter 7: The Community Action Plan
• Chapter 8: Tracking and Reporting Progress
• Chapter 9: Revise, Refine, and Start Again
• Chapter 10: Leadership for Change and Innovation
• Appendexes and Resources

What you can do with EarthCAT

Right now, the EarthCAT web site enables you to:

1. Conduct a web based visioning process where you enter the visioning questions you want people to answer, and then the general public can use the EarthCAT site to answer the questions. The data that is collected is then compiled by the site, and you can search it by keyword.

2. Track each step of the planning process, and create a database of the conclusions from each step on line, so a broad group of stakeholders can always easily access the information about the project.

3. Host an on-line dialogue, using the Open Forum tool you see as part of each section. This works like a threaded dialogue, where people can post comments and others can post replies on the web page.

4. Share documents with your stakeholder group using the File Manager tool that is part of each section. This enables you to use the web site to share important information with a broad group of people, to solicit comments, or make them aware of what has happened in the project so far.

5. Manage your electronic mailing list for the project and send messages to your stakeholders. You do this through the Foundation section of the web site, which enables you to enter the names and contact information for the groups in your community who are involved, and then send messages to them inviting them to join the project. As a community leader, you can also send messages to your core team, your stakeholders, to other community leaders, and to all the participants in EarthCAT.

6. We have a global database of goals, strategies, and targets that other communities have used in their sustainability planning processes. You can search the site to get new ideas for your community. The Search feature is at the bottom of each section, and the database is organized by section (vision, goals, targets, strategies), by country, and by category - Social Well-Being, Good Governance, Human Economic Security, Human Services and Infrastructure, and Natural Environment. As you finalize the elements of your plan, the information from your community will be added to this searchable database, so other communities can learn from you.

7. The site allows you to keep the information that is still in draft form only available to your stakeholders - you choose when to make the materials and conclusions public. Once you post the information to the public part of the site, then it is possible for anyone who uses the web to see it, but until then it is only available to the people who you have approved as stakeholders.
   

Contact Us

Please don't hesitate to contact us if you need more information or assistance.

All the best,

Gwendolyn Hallsmith, Executive Director