Blueprint for Sustainability

Abstract

An increasing number of transportation agencies in the United States are using sustainability as a device to frame transportation decision making and to demonstrate performance-based accountability. Despite interest in sustainability as an organizing concept for transportation decision making, the practice in which sustainability is used to frame formal policy development at state departments of transportation is still in its formative stages. This paper presents the approach that the North Carolina Department of Transportation (DOT) has taken to adopt sustainability as an agency value. Currently in the implementation phase, the department's blueprint for sustainability is not a stand-alone plan, but rather a set of principles, objectives, performance measures, and strategies that have been integrated into the overall strategic direction and policy framework of the North Carolina DOT. The process used to create this product has relied on a combination of internal and external outreach, agency introspection, and conversations with senior leadership to conceptualize sustainability in a way that resonates within the agency's culture and context. A variety of lessons, including the importance of flexibility, integration, and strategic coordination with related agency initiatives, can be derived from this process. Through the presentation and the evaluation of the process that the North Carolina DOT uses, this paper provides transportation practitioners with useful insights into how to integrate sustainability as an agency value and a decision-making framework.