Our purpose as an organization is to provide Cascadia’s community problem solvers with practical vision and innovative thinking, inspiring and empowering them to bring about a healthy, lasting prosperity.  The true significance of Sightline's work lies not in the specific advances we have encouraged, but in the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of daily acts of progress that we help empower, and the ideas that we help plant. Here are some examples of how that works.

We work hard.

In the years since its founding in 1993, Sightline Institute has:

•  Published 18 books, distributing over 150,000 paper copies and tens of thousands in free downloads.
• Created scores of other publications, including reports, fact sheets, op-eds, articles, newsletters, maps, charts, graphs and counters.
• Penned over 1,200 posts on our blog since 2004 and published Sightline Daily, our daily news service for the Northwest, every weekday morning.
• Done hundreds of speeches and briefings, consulting with Northwest leaders and participating regularly on panels and advisory boards.
  
  
  

Our work gets used by leaders, media--folks like you.

All of this output of credible, pragmatic analysis generates a steady stream of attention to our research:

• Our tally of high-quality, on-message coverage over the years shows 2,000-odd placements in reputable media outlets, reaching a staggering media audience of nearly 100 million.
• In recent surveys, some 70 percent of our audience reported that because of Sightline they are “more inspired to work for change,” and 86 percent reported that they’ve used or shared Sightline’s information with others.
• On any given day, 5,000 Cascadian citizens rely on Sightline to get informed, to be inspired, to be empowered.
  
  
  

This results in victories for Cascadia.

Here are some of the most recent ones:

• In February 2008, British Columbia announced the most comprehensive carbon tax shift seen anywhere in the world, following the recommendations of our 1998 book Tax Shift almost to the letter.
• Interest in green-collar jobs has exploded: this Sightline-coined term is suddenly on the lips of governors, members of Congress, and presidential candidates. And Washington passed a law that will kick-start workforce training for thousands of green-collar workers.
• Leaders of the Western Climate Initiative—and advocates striving to influence those leaders—are turning to Sightline for guidance as they design a greenhouse gas cap-and-trade system covering six states and two provinces.
• Our September 2007 report “Bulk Discounts for Polluters” documented the way that some of the biggest polluters in Washington State pay were getting bulk discounts. The report inspired the state legislature to fund a task force to fix this flaw.
• In November 2007, Oregon passed Measure 49, which rolled back the most ruinous provisions of the Bad Neighbor Law, Measure 37. Sightline’s maps, research, and debate framing contributed to this victory.
• As Sightline has recently advocated, in 2007, the City of Seattle, King County, and Washington State agreed to analyze the climate impacts of major transportation projects, such as highway expansion. The state of Oregon is following suit.
• In 2007, Sightline’s work on the climate impacts of building new urban highway lanes helped define Proposition 1, a ballot measure in metropolitan Seattle, as an issue of climate change, not just congestion.
• In early 2007, 1000 Friends of Oregon sent our report on Measure 37, the bad-neighbor law, to every Oregon legislator as a companion piece to a video of Oregonians’ stories about the impacts of the measure.
• Inspired by Sightline, in 2007, three talented developers created a hugely popular "walkscore" online tool where users can rate the walkability of their neighborhood.
• A 2007 Sightline post about the surprising climate impacts of keyboard-cleaning spray canisters spurred the City of Seattle to discontinue use of the canisters.
• Wal-Mart is using chapters of Stuff and Seven Wonders as a primer for their buyers on product life cycles.
• The Greater Vancouver Regional District and the City of Vancouver were inspired to pass resolutions encouraging the Insurance Corporation of BC to offer pay-as-you-drive insurance.
• Sightline helped defeat ruinous land-use ballot measures across the Northwest in 2006 and 2007; and helped defeat an earlier one in greater Portland in 2002.
• Our 2004 study of toxic flame retardants in the breast milk of Northwest women helped lead to several Northwest bans of  PBDEs, including Washington's 2007 ban, the strongest in the country.
  
• Our work on sprawl and smart growth helped inspire Seattle's center-city strategy, which will make the city’s downtown a vibrant, walkable zone modeled on Vancouver, BC (whose Eco-Density initiative we also helped inspire)
• In 2007, a pilot project to test pay-as-you-drive car insurance--a climate-economy-equity solution we have promoted for years--was launched in Washington State.
  

This is how our work together proceeds. Since 1993, Sightline has developed tools, research, and powerful narratives about solutions, offered them to Cascadians near and far, who have used them to change Cascadia for the better.