Alternatives Assessment: A Powerful Tool that Focuses on Solutions
The Lowell Center’s Sustainability Action Summer Institute is an opportunity to learn about concepts, tools, and techniques that can lead us to the kind of world we want — a world in which we can meet our material needs globally without endangering the environment, human health, or the well-being of all people.
The training this summer will focus on how the relatively new and highly promising methodology of alternatives assessment can be used to analyze and compare products and processes that affect human health or the environment. We invite you to join us to learn about how alternatives assessment can play a role in leading us to the kind of world we want – a world in which we can meet our material needs globally without endangering the environment, human health, or the well-being of all people.
An alternatives assessment approach offers several direct benefits for protecting health and the environment.
- Focusing on solutions rather than problems. Defining problems without looking for solutions stifles creativity and diminishes the role of science.
- Improving performance while reducing risks. Competition will increase for cleaner, safer products when designers know that environmental and health attributes will be critically examined.
- Stimulating innovation and prevention. Effective assessment of multiple attributes will drive a continuous cycle of improvements.
What We’ll Do
The training will be led and facilitated by experts and strategic thinkers from the Lowell Center and its partnering organizations. The discussions will be stimulating and practical, providing an opportunity to step back from daily work to share knowledge and think about how alternatives assessment tools fit in a larger framework for guiding actions towards sustainability. There will be real-world case studies and practical exercises. A significant amount of time will be devoted to hands-on practice in performing six steps of alternatives assessment.
What You Can Learn
Methodologies for conducting alternatives assessments.
We will walk through the alternatives assessment process step by step. You will have hands-on practice with methods, tools, and information sources.
How alternatives assessment promotes innovation and improvement.
In contrast to risk assessment, alternatives assessment focuses on choices and opportunities. You will become familiar with how it is being used for selecting chemicals, designing products, and promoting innovative policies around the world.
How science can be used and misused in the alternatives assessment process.
Taking action to improve health and environmental outcomes often involves significant uncertainties. The training will increase your understanding of how alternatives assessment can help account for these uncertainties as well as how the lack of scientific certainty can be manipulated to delay beneficial actions.
Who Should Attend?
The Summer Institute is for people who seek to advance more sustainable forms of production and consumption. It is designed for environment, health, and sustainability advocates in government, non-government organizations, corporations, private foundations, labor unions, health care institutions, and universities. The 2 1/2-day Summer Institute assumes participants have a working knowledge of sustainability issues.
