Sustainable Engagement with PlaceSpeak

Sustainability is a world that gets used—and misused—quite a bit.  At it’s root, however, the concept of sustainably is based on three main pillars: economy, society (or community) and environment. The PlaceSpeak platform address each of these important areas. Here’s how:

Economic Sustainability

PlaceSpeak costs considerably less than traditional consultation methods. This is particularly true when compared to the expense of often ineffective public meetings. Our online platform and built-in residential database significantly reduces the cost of not only engaging residents, but reaching them in the first place.

PlaceSpeak’s ultimate economic impact, however, will result from improving the ability of decision makers to receive authentic input from verified residents. This will enhance their evidence based decision-making capacity and lead to more informed decisions, resulting in a net benefit to the overall economy.

Social Sustainability

Successful public consultation requires  convenient, transparent and meaningful participation by residents.  Until now, there has not been an effective mechanism for tying people and their communities to place, and enabling authentic  dialogue online. By bringing together  people based on where they live in real life with where they spend an increasing amount of their time (online), PlaceSpeak is bridging this gap.

PlaceSpeak allows residents to participate in the community issues affecting them more directly and easily. They are no longer required to attend public hearings that are often held at inconvenient times or locations.  This has resulted in a wider range of participants.  No longer are public consultations dominated by the ‘usual suspects of vocal, often angry residents.  Nor the moderate middle has a chance to  provide their own views.  This provides decision makers with more balanced,—and accurate—public input, leading to outcomes that better reflect the true needs and desires of the community.

Environmental Sustainability

PlaceSpeak is a cloud-based internet platform that requires limited infrastructure. As such our operations have a negligible impact on the environment.

Moreover, by moving portions of the traditional consultation practices online, our platform reduces the ecological costs of hosting public meetings—from  the travel required to get to the site, to the printing posters and handouts, and even the heating and lighting of meeting rooms.

Additionally, PlaceSpeak can be used to host environmentally related topics. Such topics, will benefit from the impacts mentioned in the economic and social impact sections above, improving the quality of environment-based decisions and lead to a more sustainable environment.