What is the Whistler Centre for Sustainability?
People affiliated with the fledgling centre are loath to define it in simple terms. It's a consulting firm; it's an organization that does conferences and event planning; it's a non-profit PR vehicle promoting Whistler's environmental consciousness worldwide.
Beyond all that it's an organization that defies the understanding of many in the Whistler community. It's independent from government, and yet much of it is not. It rests in a kind of accountability limbo that leaves some people scratching their heads wondering whether it can be considered a creature of the municipality... and whether the community's investment in the centre is worth the money.
Defining the Whistler Centre for Sustainability requires a trip into its history - a history that is inseparable from Whistler's love affair with the concept of sustainability, which broadly implies the ability to endure, whether socially, environmentally or economically.
The idea for a centre first arose at the Resort Municipality of Whistler in 2002, emerging out of "Whistler. It's Our Nature," a community outreach program that was used to promote and educate Whistlerites about sustainability. Officials at the RMOW looked into a business plan, as well as the requirements of registering a non-profit society under the British Columbia Society Act.
Plans for the centre were put on hold, however, as the RMOW focused its efforts and resources on a successful bid for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.
The idea re-emerged in 2007, two years after the community had adopted Whistler2020, its long-term vision and strategy for attaining sustainability. A team of founders including Jim Godfrey, Bill Barratt, Diane Mombourquette, Ted Battiston and Mike Vance saw the centre as an avenue to implement the Whistler2020 vision and showcase the community's sustainability chops to the world.
"We didn't see (Whistler2020) as a government document, we saw it as a community document," Vance, the RMOW's general manager of policy and program development, said in an interview this week. "A centre would take over aspects of the Whistler2020 program, the task force management, the partner engagement and the monitoring and reporting, and it would move those functions into the community."
The founding members drew up a business plan and vision for the centre. They submitted it for a feasibility assessment to the auditing firm Deloitte and Touche LLP. The firm came back with a 30-page report in February 2007 that outlined the vision for the centre.
It was to be a non-profit organization, independent from government that would act as a "focal point" for Whistler2020 activities and programs, as well as a hub for "fostering innovation" in community sustainability and sustainable tourism.
It would offer its services to conferences and events, advise governments and businesses, and plan conferences and professional development programs with the aim of becoming an "internationally-recognized" centre of excellence for sustainable municipal planning, tourism and major events.
It would have its own executive director and staff reporting to a board of directors. In its first phase it would be housed in upstairs offices at municipal hall until it could develop its own facility. Two positions from the RMOW would be seconded to the centre: a full-time Whistler2020 project manager and a half-time position for the Whistler2020 monitoring program.
"Whistler needed a focus for its own sustainability work," said Tim Wake, a member of the Centre's board of directors and a former councilor who in 2007 voted for the RMOW to support the Centre financially.
"(Whistler) has positioned itself as a leader in sustainability, especially amongst resort communities, and the Whistler Centre for Sustainability gave it the focus to move that work forward.
"The second thing was that we saw an opportunity to take this work further afield, to basically continue to help Whistler but also help other communities and other organizations move towards sustainability. We thought we could also make it a self-sustaining organization eventually."
When it came to budgeting, the RMOW would provide it with seed funding of $480,000, spread over four years and ending in 2011, all of it coming out of the resort municipality transfer tax, which is supposed to go towards tourism-related initiatives.
It would also direct revenues from its "True Local" clothing line to the centre for its first three years: $45,000 for the first year, $75,000 for the second and $75,000 for the third. After those first three years the centre would be expected to survive on its own. The centre is not expected to get any more money from the municipality.
In 2009, however, it got an additional $192,499.70 from the RMOW's Policy and Program Department to administer Whistler2020. Unlike the seed funding, this is money from Whistler taxpayers.
All told, the study projected that the centre would face rising financial shortfalls in those same three years: a gulf of $104,000 between its revenues and operating expenses in its first year, $186,000 in its second year and $191,000 in its third. It would make up those shortfalls through fee-for-service contracts.
Now in its second year of operation, the centre has adjusted to new realities. It has nixed its commitment to event sustainability and providing advisory services to private businesses because it feels there are already other firms that can take care of those areas. It now focuses primarily on community sustainability.
In Whistler and surrounding areas, the Centre for Sustainability has attempted to do that by organizing the TEDxWhistler conference during the Olympic Games, which saw noted anthropologist Wade Davis speak at an event that focused on "Tourism in a Sustainable World." The conference was available over the Internet through live-streaming and on-site bloggers.
In some ways, the centre has already bucked expectations, for better and worse. In 2009 it landed a $175,000 contract to do sustainable community planning for the City of Williams Lake, with the revenues spread evenly over the centre's first two years. That alone helps the centre exceed projected revenues in those years by $49,500 and $12,500, respectively.
The contract also helps make up for revenue that the centre will not be getting through True Local. The clothing program was shelved in 2009 when revenues did not meet expectations. Vance confirmed that True Local has not brought a dollar to the centre.
Cheeying Ho, the executive director of the Whistler Centre for Sustainability, seems confident that it can survive after three years without municipal funding to fall back on.
"I'm confident we'll get enough work," she said in an interview. "Our reputation is building, we've got a bunch of projects in the pipeline. So based on what we've been doing so far, we have a great track record."
How it's actually doing financially is not clear to anyone who isn't directly affiliated with the centre.
Despite getting transfer tax revenue from the RMOW, having employees seconded to it and even carrying the municipality's logo on its website, the centre is constituted as an independent entity, accountable only to its board of directors.
The centre's budget is presented only to the board and only information directly related to work with the RMOW is subject to Freedom of Information requests. Ho says the centre will be publishing an annual report that will be available on its website at the end of each fiscal year.
The centre did present a business plan and budget to Whistler council but it was at an in camera meeting in the spring of 2009. It was closed to the public citing Section 21 of B.C.'s Freedom of Information and Privacy Act, which covers business harmful to the interests of a third party - in this case, the centre's own interests, according to Vance.
The centre is not easily sold to Whistler Councillor Ted Milner. Asked what its relationship is to the RMOW, he laughed and said, "I wish I knew!"
"It's been a bit of a bugbearer for me," he said. "I think the centre is not very sustainable because they're taking a lot of money from the RMOW and I don't see how we're going to get any payback from it."
Milner is primarily concerned that the RMOW is putting cash into the centre without any ownership stake or payback. He also seems skeptical that the RMOW will stop giving money after 2011 to an entity whose benefits he does not perceive coming to Whistler.
"I know they're trying hard to do some stuff," he said. "But I question whether they think they can build the business they think they can. We're not trying to be meanies here, but I think they could certainly do a better job on revenues versus expenses."
Ho explains the benefits to Whistler.
"We are using Whistler2020 as a model process for other communities in their sustainability planning initiatives, exporting best practices from our community as well as bringing learning back to Whistler from other communities to continue to lead in our journey to sustainability."
