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Sustainable Lands Strategy Facilitation

21 July 2021
Sustainable Lands Strategy Facilitation

Client: Snohomish County, Sustainable Lands Strategy

Case Study: The Snohomish County Sustainable Lands Strategy (SLS), established in 2010, is addressing the conflict between the dual mandates of preserving farmland and protecting fish throughout Snohomish County. The SLS process sets the table to develop understanding, relationships, and strategies that create and achieve a shared vision and beneficial outcomes for the three watersheds in Snohomish County. Peak facilitates the Executive Committee and coordinates with the leads of the Stillaguamish and Lower Skykomish Integration Teams and facilitator. Peak also facilitates the Communications Group with outreach and community engagement. This project is in exact alignment with professionals at Peak who have spent much of our working careers in restoring native fish populations, promoting healthy ecosystems, and enabling sustainable communities.

Impact: Peak is assisting the Sustainable Lands Strategy (SLS) in accomplishing its mission. Rather than being at odds with each other, our facilitation helps fish, farm, and flood management advocates make more progress by working together. The key is to weave local cultures together and find ways to sustain and benefit them in a changing future. Since Peak commenced work with Snohomish County, the group has made excellent progress. As a result, SLS is tackling key organizational, policy, and technical issues, agreeing upon a work plan, engaging in monthly communication and coordination, and acting on priorities. Our coordination and facilitation keeps people talking and projects moving forward and promotes creativity and collaboration as well.

Testimonial: “Kudos to Peak for their facilitation role in guiding the SLS and IT work over the last year or more. We are seeing some good momentum, not without conflict (that is to be expected), but great to see the IT/SLS framework start to take shape and a robust work plan to direct this work. Thank you all for your efforts to advance integrated floodplain management and collaboration in these watersheds.” Jessica Hammill, Project Specialist IV, Snohomish County Public Works

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How ready is your organization for climate change and sustainability? Get your questions answered. Peak can help you move to a strategy-driven roadmap.

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Searching for ways to improve how you capture value through waste prevention and reduction, recovery, and reuse?

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Environmental impact analysis

Measure, track, and analyze your business’s water consumption, energy use, carbon emissions, waste streams, and other key metrics. 

Use this information to identify opportunities that will increase efficiency, cut emissions, lower costs and save money, and improve your impact. 

 

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Sustainability

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and more! 

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  • Climate Hazard Analysis
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  • Final report

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Mitigation and adaptation strategy research

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Community and stakeholder engagement

Climate Change

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We bring best practices and experience to help you confidently navigate lower carbon priorities, policy, and actions. Several approaches can be taken to reduce the carbon footprint and GHG emissions in our communities. Peak Affiliates are experts in their field and provide the following expertise:

  • Evaluate options, costs, and best fit actions for your municipality
  • Complete technical evaluations and conduct a thorough review of legal and policy considerations
  • Integrate knowledge of successful case studies and examples from within Washington State, regionally, or nationwide
  • Apply ways to maximize ways to invest in local renewables
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  • Identify potential partners, roadblocks, and processes to capitalize on existing and new funding options
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Climate Change

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Climate Change

Greenhouse gas inventories

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Climate Change

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Identify, develop, and prioritize policy language to incorporate into plans and departmental goals.

Climate Change

Community and stakeholder engagement

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Climate Change

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Climate Change

BMPs for watersheds, shorelines, and habitat

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Engagement

Facilitation and decision-making processes

Facilitated processes make time for relationships and trust to grow. Facilitation allows all voices to be represented, decorum to be maintained, and solutions to be vetted.

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You’ll see how neutral party facilitated processes free you up to participate fully and continue the conversation even when priorities diverge or issues are tough.

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community engagement

Engagement

Strategic planning processes

Sort through the clutter and find the best route with a well-designed strategy for success. Pay attention to the details while managing the bigger picture and competing priorities.

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Engage effectively in creating a roadmap that enables the next steps. Engage in facilitation that builds relationships, fosters commitment, and creates a vision for the future.

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Engagement

Public meetings, charrettes, and open houses

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We also build agendas, create surveys, conduct focus groups and interviews, as well as take the notes and summarize key takeaways from your event.

When done well, you’ll be able to build a stronger community with meaningful engagement.

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Engagement

Asset Based Community Development

It makes a lot of sense to identify and build upon assets already existing in any given community.

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Starting with a community’s common interest and history can launch a more resilient community response to change, disruption, or a crisis.

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Small group of people providing input to a scribe

Engagement

Community Based Social Marketing

To address environmental challenges, it’s crucial to seek the adoption of sustainable behaviors. Community-Based Social Marketing (CBSM) offers a powerful approach to driving meaningful change and engaging individuals and communities in a collaborative effort toward a desired goal. CBSM transcends traditional social marketing by focusing directly on communities. It’s a participatory approach that fosters ownership and empowers individuals to become agents of positive change.

Our process goes beyond information dissemination by actively involving community members in understanding and overcoming barriers to sustainable practices. We bring to you the tools of the trade such as surveys, focus groups, interviews, case studies, literature reviews, and questionnaires. We can use powerful survey software offered through Qualtrics or offer very simple surveys. We also offer services that will help your organization develop a strategic messaging campaign and graphic design material based on input received during the process.

The CBSM Process

  1. Understand the Community: The process begins by deeply understanding the target community’s needs, values, and current behaviors related to the issue. This involves research, focus groups, and community outreach.

  2. Identify Barriers and Benefits: Specific roadblocks hindering sustainable behavior are identified by interacting with community members. This collaborative approach ensures solutions directly address community needs and communicates the benefits of adopting the behavior.

  3. Develop Effective Interventions: Utilizing proven social marketing tools and strategies, tailored interventions are designed to address the identified barriers and leverage the perceived benefits. Examples include community workshops, social norm campaigns, and incentive programs.

  4. Implement and Evaluate: The interventions are implemented in partnership with community stakeholders, building local ownership and promoting long-term sustainability. Continuous evaluation ensures effectiveness and allows for adjustments based on community feedback.

Benefits of CBSM

  • Sustainable Behavior Change: Addressing barriers and fostering intrinsic motivation promotes lasting behavior change within communities.
  • Community Ownership: Active participation fosters a sense of ownership and responsibility for achieving sustainability goals.
  • Culturally Relevant Solutions: Tailored interventions ensure they resonate with the community’s specific values and norms.
  • Cost-Effective Approach: Leveraging community resources and partnerships maximizes impact while minimizing costs.
  • Scalability and Replication: Successful CBSM initiatives can be adapted and replicated in other communities, fostering widespread change

By empowering communities to become active participants in solving environmental and social challenges, CBSM offers an effective too for change.

Additional Resources:

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community engagement

Engagement

Task forces, work groups, committees, and commissions

Build community support when addressing issues related to community assets such as watersheds, broadband, water quality, parks, natural resource protection, energy, and restoration efforts.

Engage with a neutral partner that can serve as a facilitator for strategic discussions that reflect an inclusive approach to decision-making about what’s important to your stakeholders.

Set the table for productive internal and external community conversations that engage and build trust and credibility.

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Engagement

Science communication, public speaking, and education

The ability to clearly communicate the relevance and impact of science is more important than ever.

It enhances rather than clouds decision making and, when done well, can remove confusion and controversy.

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Ecosystems

Regulatory compliance analysis and program support

Knowing your responsibilities and staying ahead of changing regulatory requirements allows your operations to move forward with consistency and predictability.

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Ecosystems

Engineering design review

Be proactive and get ahead of both documentation and system design to ensure your projects meet requirements and go as planned.

Examine, adjust, and prioritize plans on an ongoing basis.

Peak has expertise in value engineering and design review, which will likely save time, money, and keep projects rolling forward smoothly.

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Ecosystems

Stormwater system inspections

Maintenance of stormwater infrastructure is a regulatory mandate and is essential to maintaining water quality.

Landowners, businesses, and homeowner and condo associations (HOA and CA) get the expertise they need with qualified stormwater inspections.

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We can complete reserve studies on stormwater infrastructure and conduct stormwater education for HOAs.

You can count on our specialized expertise in stormwater inspections to provide baseline information that guides stormwater facility plans, maintenance, and budgets.

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Ecosystems

Technical field services

It can be hard to get qualified, objective, and reliable technical, science, and field expertise. Our team is here to help you.

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  • Stormwater inspections: Our services include compliance reporting, safety and trespass analysis, maintenance evaluation and cost estimation, sediment sampling and disposal analysis, vegetation management plans, and habitat impact evaluation
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  • Aquatic surveys: Protect, restore, and manage fish populations with sound science and data collection, and inform fish conservation and management practices in aquatic ecosystems.
  • HIP (Homeowner Incentive Program): Lake Whatcom landowners can get help planning projects that protect the lake, reduce phosphorus, and enhance property values.
  • GIS mapping: Visualize, analyze, and interpret spatial data. See and understand patterns, recognize relationships, and make better, more-informed decisions. ​

Move confidently forward with Peak’s help and areas of expertise.

 

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Ecosystems

Landscape architecture and GIS

Plan, design, manage, and nurture built and natural environments.

Today, communities are increasingly concerned about the environment and sustainably designed buildings and open spaces.

Bring to life projects informed by mapping and landscape architecture to strengthen communities by enhancing the spaces we inhabit.

Interested?