Community Sustainability Assessment

The Community Sustainability Assessment (CSA)

The CSA is a subjective tool. This means that the person(s) completing it make their best judgments, and on some items - guesses, as to what is true for their community. To get the most out of this exercise, community members may meet as a group and work through the CSA together. This offers a meaningful review of the community's accomplishments and areas for improvement. Low scoring items may be selected for community focus and action to improve sustainability, providing direction for the community's future. It is expected that communities actively planning and pursuing sustainability will score high, however, there is always room for improvement - from a high to a perfect score.

To maximize the accuracy of scores, rate items based on the community's current actions NOT intentions.

Repeating the CSA periodically allows communities to monitor their progress over time.

The CSA was designed to be universal, as useful as possible to a wide variety of communities. It is to be expected that the nature of any one community will lead to low scores in some areas and high scores in others. If any items do not apply to your community, do not score them. Many of the questions in the Assessment offer an *Other* option for your answer. Please use the Comments page to tell about other ways your community achieves sustainability. Overall, scores should offer an informative picture of the community's sustainability.

Please print out:

• this page, with contact and mailing details below,
• all THREE sections of the questionnaire, and
• the Comments page, with Overall Score section.

Please feel free to pass copies of these pages to other interested communities/organisations or individuals.
Your participation is appreciated!

After filling out these pages for your community, please mail a complete copy to the office listed below.