Strategic Sustainability Solutions for Community Planning
The challenges facing today's municpal leaders and planning professionals are daunting. Communities are complex and diverse systems with multiple stakeholders, and there are often very different ideas about how to assure a balanced triple bottom line and a safe and healthy future. Without a strategic vision for a sustainable community, planning efforts can spin off into multiple green initiatives, diluting effort and effect.
The Natural Step Framework can help planning professionals embed sustainability into the planning process, resulting in vibrant, resilient communities. The process is rooted in science and applies principles of social equity and natural systems, and has been successfully applied in communities ranging from Whistler, British Columbia, to The City of Madison, Wisconsin, to Santa Monica, California.
American Planning Association President Bruce Knight has said,
"Planning's comprehensive focus is not limited to a building or a site but encompasses all scales and forms of organization of human settlements, from rural areas and small town, to cities and metropolitan regions. The challenges of sustainability and possible solutions require planners' values, skills and leadership."
The Natural Step Network and our international affiliates have been guiding the process of community transformation toward strategic sustainability for over 20 years. Communities throughout North America are using The Natural Step Framework in their comprehensive planning, zoning code development, TIF requirements and community engagements. Benefits of using the Framework in the planning process include:
- Grounded in scientific principles
- Provides an operational definition of sustainability
- Offers concrete steps that activate and drive the innovation required for success
- Universal and scalable
- Concepts non-proprietary
- Forms the basis of the APA's Sustainability Policy
Learn more about the difference strategic sustainability can make
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