Boroondara Sustainability Network

The Boroondara Sustainability Network (BSN) provides an opportunity for communication and active engagement for members of our community. We wish to create a network that allows you to connect with each other and together meet the challenge of climate change and a more sustainable way of life.

The Boroondara Sustainability Network's mission is to work on improving communication and outcomes on our local journey towards sustainability.

Our activities are based on the principle that citizens are partners of government, and not just passive recipients of government actions and decisions.

We strive to be a local action group and a community of interest that wants to

• assist residents who want to engage and make sense of the challenges of climate change and sustainable living
• improve confidence
• hold responsible agencies accountable address the trust deficit many of us feels towards government
• stimulate reform
• focus on results
• improve strategies
• promote greater responsiveness

The Boroondara Sustainability Network aims to be a positive and interactive social space, a network of trust and reciprocity, without a political or ideological role.

We welcome involvement at different levels of commitment, based on based on the principles of:

Collaboration:    working together by sharing resources to achieve a common goal

Coordination:     partnering between local groups to publicise local events

Cooperation:      including sharing ideas and information

Our goal is to be a/n:

Peak body: drawing together groups and individuals who are, or want to become, engaged

Lobby group: a network of like-minded residents that will exert influence on policy and decision makers to act in the interest of present constituents and future communities.

Information and issue network: a network of residents that will highlight and focus on issues which are in urgent need of being addressed

Policy group: a group that draws on its own expertise to develop policy suggestions and offers solution to the inherently slow decision making of political governance bodies and agencies

Consultation network: a network that will facilitate and encourage more rigorous and informed, evidence-based consultation with residents

Ultimately, the our aims are to become agent for more participatory democracy and community-based decision making in order to positively address community needs and empower  us to shape our own future.
 

Heinz Kreutz, 4 November 2008