Pacific Cities Sustainability Initiative (PCSI)

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The Pacific Cities Sustainability Initiative (PCSI) is a collaborative forum that harnesses the expertise of Pacific Rim cities in sustainable development to facilitate collaboration and sharing of best practices among businesses, governments, academia, and the public. PCSI aims to stimulate substantial behavioral change—in the government, business, and academic sectors, as well as by the public at large.

Partners

PCSI’s founding partners are: Asia Society's Northern and Southern California Centers, the Centers for International Business and Educational Research (CIBER) at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business and the University of California at Los Angeles’ Anderson School of Management, and the Association of Pacific Rim Universities’ World Institute (AWI).

Importance of the PCSI

Global development over the next 50 years will be concentrated in Pacific Rim cities, which represent both the problem and the solution to many environmental concerns such as clean water, energy efficiency, air pollution, and security. Balancing economic growth and environmental protection requires community leaders to cooperate in crafting solutions and taking action. PCSI connects business leaders, policy-makers, academics, students, and the public in a forum for the next four years to serve the development interests of California and cities around the Pacific Rim.

Mission

PCSI aims to educate municipal decision makers as well as the general public around the Pacific Rim by fostering on-going dialogue and sharing best practices on urban sustainability. As an objective clearing-house on urban sustainability, PCSI will support municipal projects, public-private partnerships, and outreach initiatives to connect cities throughout the Pacific Rim.

What Makes the PCSI Unique

Our people and partners: PCSI actively engages and seeks new partnerships with scientists, researchers, students, business, non-profits and government leaders around the Pacific Rim. Our founding partners and advisors have strong international and interdisciplinary reputations, which uniquely positions us for multi-country and multi-sector dialogue. In addition to our strong international presence, we are one of the few initiatives that bridges northern and southern California.

* Data plus Dialogue: From a non-advocacy stance, PCSI compiles, compares and shares municipal-level sustainability data and use the numbers and the experts to tell the story of what works and what fails to produce results.

Next: Identifying five core areas of focus