Linking Culture and the Environment

A. Gill and P.W. Williams 129
cal [as mavens and connectors] to the tipping . . .’ of opinion needed for widespread
action (Gladwell, 2000, p. 70).
Image
The positive promotion opportunities associated with being part of TNS’s
success story is another reason for its continuing presence in Whistler’s sustainability
planning tool kit. Many stakeholders involved with the process
claim that it has created a very positive image and market position for
Whistler (Temenos, 2007). Its perceived success has encouraged other communities
to embrace TNS. For instance, in 2007, the mountain gateway community
of Canmore, on the edge of Banff National Park adopted TNS for
its planning frame. Interestingly this type of modelling has created a selfreinforcing
synergy in which Whistler stakeholders seek to maintain the
community’s perceived success by pursuing even more sustainability initiatives
in their own community.
Conclusions
McCool and Moisey (2001, p. 10) suggest that ‘[W]hile sustainability is often
posed as a technical scientific issue, it actually represents a moral commitment
to future generations’. TNS offered Whistler stakeholders a sustainability
framework which was informed by science but shaped by a user-friendly
lexicon of common terms and principles. For the most part, the scientific
validity of the cause-and-effect relationships inferred in the TNS rationale
have, with the exception of Upham’s (2000) critique, not been critically challenged.
This was the case in Whistler. In some ways, this was surprising considering
that in a tourism context, the complexity of interactions between
environmental, social and economic relationships is so poorly understood.
However, in other ways this behaviour was understandable. Whistler needed
a ‘guiding fiction’ that would stimulate and organize a community-wide
social discourse around some complex challenges to its future. TNS provided
a relatively flexible vehicle for that discussion. To its credit, the discourse
spawned the development of a growing set of shared meanings concerning
the conditions and programmes needed to move Whistler towards a more
sustainable future. It also helped Whistler build the social capital needed to
move its sustainability agenda forward. While varying levels of enthusiasm
exist concerning specific aspects of the sustainability initiatives identified, the
community continues to build a growing pool of stakeholders who are making
personal and collective commitments towards achieving the overriding
actions which align with the resort community’s vision. As such, TNS processes
helped create many of the threshold conditions needed to move the sustainability
agenda forward in Whistler. Through refinements to its methods,
the development of learning tool kits, and the gradual collection of more
detailed evidence concerning the outcomes of its projects, TNS is also transforming
from a ‘guiding fiction’ to a practical planning tool – one that builds
on the collective experience of Whistler stakeholders and others.