An Environmental Plan for the New City of Toronto: How to Make It ...

is not legally binding, but is an important component of corporate and political buy-in. A
‘Charter of Sustainability’ for the City of Toronto would be similar in concept to the former
City of Toronto’s ‘Declaration o the Environment”. To further achieve corporate buy-in,
the charter should also commit staff to practice sustainability.
Recommendation: That the Environmental Plan investigate preparation of a
Charter of Sustainability for the City of Toronto.
Implementing Mechanisms
Ensuring action
The case studies reviewed are generally policy or action plans of Council, with no legal
means of enforcement. The exception is Seattle’s Comprehensive Plan, which is, in
part, implemented through regulation (Hauger, 1999). The Environmental Plan will be a
policy document of council, which will influence other policy documents and such as the
Strategic Plan and legally enforceable documents such as the Official Plan, but will not
itself be enforceable (Chan and Welsh, 1999). The review of case studies identified a
variety of mechanisms to ensure action through other processes. The City of Vancouver
requires that environmental impacts be addressed in reports to Council and the Region
of Hamilton-Wentworth requires that Regional decision-making address sustainable
community implications on all new and existing policies, programs and projects, and in
all staff reports to Standing Committees of Regional Council. Hamilton-Wentworth and
Lancashire are considering requiring that meeting environmental/sustainability objectives
be included in performance contracts for staff. Reports to Toronto City Council are
currently required to address financial impacts and could be expanded to address
environmental or sustainability impacts. Other legal mechanisms, such as a
sustainability by-law, to potentially enforce the recommendations of the Environmental
Plan are currently being investigated for the ETF (Chan and Welsh, 1999) and will be
reported on in the Environmental Plan.
Recommendation: That the Environmental Plan recommend preparation of a guide for
sustainable decision making to address sustainability implications (and ensure
consistency with recommendations of EP) for all new policies, programs and projects,
and staff reports to Council.
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