One of the issues that I have been banging on about everywhere on the campaign trail is sustainability.  This is an issue I have been passionate about for many years. When I was a diplomat at the UN it was the issue that took up most of my time, including a spell supporting Simon Upton as Chair of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development.  While I think it is a great framework for looking at how we make decisions about development it can be a little amorphous.  Getting past that was the genesis of a forum that my team organised this evening on what a sustainable Wellington would look like.   Philippa Howden-Chapman from the Centre for Sustainable Cities spoke and an interested group of residents, mainly from the Aro Valley attended.   Philippa focused on a transport as being the key to making progress in Wellington, in particular changing the way we think about how we use inner city roads, with more attention given to pedestrians and cyclists, improving affordability and reliability of public transport and focusing urban growth around transport nodes.  It was a great discussion, and I strongly believe these are the kinds of issues we are going to have to work on if Wellington is to ecome a truly sustainable city.