Sustainability toolkit helps cities develop a sustainability plan
12/9/2009
As more cities, towns and counties across the United States consider how to become more sustainable, the effort to develop a plan to accomplish this can seem daunting. To assist jurisdictions in their efforts ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability USA has released a new Sustainability Planning Toolkit. The toolkit for the first time establishes best practices to develop a local sustainability plan that covers environmental, economic and social initiatives under one holistic vision. The toolkit, which was developed for ICLEI’s 600 U.S. local government members, is based on the planning model pioneered by New York City for its PlaNYC sustainability plan.
“This toolkit draws from the most recent best practices in the United States to help cities and counties take their sustainability planning efforts to the next level,” said Jeb Brugmann, ICLEI Global’s founder and current executive director of ICLEI USA. “With a sustainability plan to guide their actions, cities like New York, Minneapolis, Santa Monica and many others have shown that they can more effectively combat climate change, green their buildings, update infrastructure, invigorate their local economies, and improve public health and quality of life for their community members.”
To reach their chosen sustainability goals, local governments can follow ICLEI’s Five Milestones for Sustainability process, which is the foundation of the toolkit:
Milestone One: Conduct a sustainability assessment
Milestone Two: Establish sustainability goals
Milestone Three: Develop a local sustainability plan
Milestone Four: Implement policies and measures
Milestone Five: Evaluate progress and report results
Inside the toolkit, government employees will find guidance on how to structure their planning process, what types of strategies and measures to include in their plan, step-by-step guidelines to achieve each of the Five Milestones, best-practice examples, checklists, templates and guidelines for organizing a team to develop the plan.
The toolkit is the first of two major sustainability resources offered by ICLEI USA. The STAR Community Index, to be launched in 2011, is a national, consensus-based framework for gauging the sustainability and livability of U.S. communities. STAR will build on the Five Milestones by providing a comprehensive set of goals and measures that standardize how to plan and manage for sustainability at the local level. A soft launch of the set of municipal goals that will comprise this new framework is set for early 2010.