How to Integrate Environmental Aspects in City Long-term Strategic Planning
Day / Time Tuesday, June 20th / 13:30 - 15:30
Event Description
The Cities Alliance is focusing on integrating environmental aspects into its approaches and activities. This event will give city practitioners, donors and the research community an opportunity to exchange views and discuss tools and best practices on incorporating environmental systemic issues into long term strategic planning of cities. How can a city achieve long-term gains and savings by factoring environmental costs and services into planning and budgeting? This event will present and discuss three topics: presentation of a paper arguing for "why" and "how" the integration of environment into strategic planning is important; examples from cities which have been environmentally successful; and an overview of available tools and methodologies.
Session Language
English
Speakers
Jeremy Harris, former Mayor Honolulu
Mayor T. Krishna Reddy of Hyderabad, India
Osman Asmal, Director of the Environmental Resource Management Department, Cape Town, South Africa
Host Organization Cities Alliance and UNEP
Host Organization Description The Cities Alliance is a global coalition of cities and their development partners. The members are United Cities and Local Governments, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, South Africa, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States of America, the ADB, UNEP, UN-HABITAT and the World Bank. The Alliance provides grants in support of: (a) City development strategies and (b) Citywide and nationwide slum upgrading plans in accordance with the Cities Without Slums action plan. Sustainable financing strategies for cities to attract long-term domestic capital for infrastructure investments form a crucial part in both focal areas. UNEP's mandate is to provide leadership and encourage partnership in caring for the environment by inspiring, informing, and enabling nations and peoples to improve their quality of life without compromising that of future generations. In the field of the urban environment, UNEP supports governments to address key urban environmental issues at the national, regional and global levels in cooperation with partners.
Website
Report
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Title of Event:
Date and time of the session:
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How to integrate environmental aspects in city long-term strategic planning Cities Alliance, UNEP, ICLEI
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Key Highlights
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2. What were the core issues identified in your event as they relate to the theme and sub-themes of WUFIII? Kilaparti Ramakrishna (Deputy Director of the Division of Policy Development and Law, UNEP) introduced the session and explained that ICLEI was conducting a global study for the Cities Alliance UNEP on best practices in urban environmental management. Jeremy Harris (Urban Expert and former Mayor of Honolulu, USA) held the key note presentation on "A new urban paradigm - environment as an economic asset". Osman Asmal ( Director of the Environmental Resource Management Department, Cape Town, South Africa) responded by explaining how his city had achieved cost savings through environmental planning and management in the area of energy and biodiversity. Monika Zimmermann (ICLEI) gave examples on innovative public-private-partnerships in the field of waste management from the Indian city of Hyderabad. Ewa Ciuk (International Membership and Knowledge Officer, ICLEI) and Pelle Persson (Senior Programme Officer, Cities Alliance), described models of sustainable urban planning including the eco-city approach, Localizing Agenda 21 and City Development Strategies. All Speakers of the session highlighted urban sustainability as the major challenge of the future. They gave evidence of how cities can benefit in multiple ways by factoring the environment into city planning and management. They promoted a new urban paradigm where the environment is seen as an asset and cities as managers of natural ecosystems. Stakeholder involvement was seen as an important factor for sustainable urban policies to succeed. |
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3. What were the main points raised by panellists and participants in relation to these different issues? What new ideas have been generated as a result of the discussion? Speakers presented a number of examples and innovative ideas that not only benefit the local and global environment, but can, at the same time, reduce municipal spending. Among these were: • Sustainable accounting: Triple bottom line, eco budgeting • Sustainable transportation models which do not depend on fossil fuels: Hybrid public buses; in Bayamo, Cuba, horse carriages were introduced for public transport due to the lack of petrol • Waste management: Introducing recycling options, co-generation power plants, refuse-derived fuel plants • Innovative Public-Private-Partnerships (contracting public services such as waste collection to local community groups) and leapfrogging technologies • Energy efficiency: Providing loans for renewable energy solutions in households, boost jobs and employment through renewable energy business (export energy to other markets) • Managing urban growth: Setting urban growth boundaries, eco-system boundaries should be city boundaries • Planning: Taking a systems approach to planning instead of taking a sectoral approach, eco-city planning, Local Agenda 21 process, and City Development Strategies were presented as possible tools for sustainable urban planning. Speakers also noted that the participatory approach needed time, but almost always paid off. For example, in Cape Town an awareness raising programme in a community of 2000 houses reduced illegal extensions of houses dramatically (only 2 illegal extensions since the programme began). The city of Calgary involved 18,000 citizens in its Imagine Calgary visioning process and succeeded in formulating a joint future perspective of the city. Speakers acknowledged that elected leaders were primarily driven by political motives and often prioritised issues that generated short-term results. Mayors therefore had to be convinced that environmental issues were an asset rather than an impediment for development. It was seen as essential that the electorate put environmental issues on the political agenda. It was also suggested to include the environment in a mayor's job description and make her/him sign a contract committing to certain sustainability targets at the beginning of the term. |
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4. What process steps have been identified in your event that could help turn ideas into operational reality? • Training: Training municipal staff, changing relevant university curricula to mainstream sustainable development • Participatory planning: Mobilizing the electorate to create political pressure, involving communities and stakeholders in planning and policy-making, approaching elected leaders at the emotional level • Sustainable urban planning: City Development Strategies need to incorporate and mainstream long term environmental sustainability in a more systemic way; the City Alliance procedure for how to do this need to be developed • Awareness raising: Facilitating city-to-city exchange of best practices, disseminating best practices through programmes such as SUSTA.Info (an initiative by the European Commission and Habitat for Humanity to disseminate global research on sustainability) and professional networks (Global Planners Network, www.globalplannersnetwork.org), using the actionable ideas from the Habitat Jam compiled by the International Centre for Sustainable Cities for WUF as well as a compendium of best practices which is being developed by the Moore foundation and US National Academy of Sciences • Governance: Devolution of power to local authorities, consolidation of power where it is fragmented (for example through the agglomeration model used in Europe and South Africa) |
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