Sustainable Development and Credit River Township

                                                                                                            By: Al Aspengren

You’ve likely heard the term sustainable development, but may not know what exactly it means or how it might work in Credit River Township. Sustainable development was defined by the Bruntland Commission in the 1990s in Europe as, “meeting the needs of the present while allowing future generations to meet their needs.”

In parts of Haiti, a developing country, residents are cutting down entire forests of trees and using the wood for cooking and heating. In many areas, new trees are not being planted. This practice is not sustainable and illustrates what happens when one generation uses up a natural resource without leaving anything for future generations.

Easter Island is another example of an unsustainable lifestyle. Here, it is theorized that residents cut down all of the trees to use for boat making, cooking, and heating. Residents left nothing for future generations to use and, eventually, the entire population left the island.

Locally, we have seen examples of unsustainable practices when wells go dry during drought conditions because water resources are not shared equally.

Growth in Credit River Township is inevitable. As a township, if we pay attention to our use of natural resources as we grow, we can preserve the quality of life we enjoy for generations to come. By encouraging our local government to work together with builders to apply smart growth principles, we can advocate for sustainable development throughout our township. Smart growth includes such ideas as clustered housing, varied transportation choices, walkable communities, and mixed-use development.

For individuals in our township, this means keeping sustainability in mind when making everyday choices. Some of the choices residents may elect to make include using energy star rated appliances, heating homes with high efficiency furnaces or geo-thermal systems, installing solar shingles, using soakers instead of sprinkler systems, installing low-flow shower heads and toilets, and using energy efficient compact fluorescent light bulbs. There are many other examples of how residents can participate in making our community more sustainable.

If we want to have a truly sustainable community, we need to enlist the cooperation of not only residents, but also building developers, banks, local government, and local energy firms. Working together, we can secure the quality of life we all enjoy today for generations to come.