Sustainability is a defining concept for the mainstream environmental movement.
Pollution prevention is a core practice for modern environmental management systems.
The fusion of these two world-views would substantially change the way we solve many environmental problems. This report moves towards this fusion by introducing community sustainability activities to pollution prevention specialists, and by providing them with tools for incorporating sustainable community activities into pollution prevention practices. The report is one in a series of publications from the Critical Technologies Institute, a research center within RAND that has participated in the development of the National Environmental Technology Strategy for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. The report provides working definitions of sustainable community activities, describes the elements of a sustainable community activity, and presents examples of these activities in different communities, useful for individuals not familiar with sustainability concepts. It discusses briefly the relationship between sustainable community and pollution prevention activities, following with suggestions for using sustainable community activities to promote pollution prevention activities initiated by state and local governments.