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

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Note membership here or in introduction The Environmental Plan is being undertaken by the Environmental Task Force Although the former municipalities championed a number of innovative programs which supported the city in moving towards sustainable development (such as the Healthy City Office, the Better Buildings Partnership) and had official plans which had solid environmental policies, none had an overarching (department cross cutting) framework to guide environmental or sustainable decision-making and there was no environmental accountability politically or within the corporate structure. The Environmental Plan will provide this overarching policy framework/context, and make recommendations for a new political and administrative governance structure to ensure environmental accountability. Implementation of the Environmental Plan will require a shared corporate commitment from a number of different departments within in the City. Historically many plans, unless based in legislation, manage to be operationalized outside of the initiating department (Salsberg, 1998). Two exceptions are noted in this trend: Hamilton- Wentworth, where “at least the over-arching visions of Vision 2020 is accepted across the organization” and Goteborg, Sweden where wide-spread acceptance also seems to have been achieved (Salsberg, 1998, pg. 39). Given the sheer size of the structure of the new city government, which, by default, requires a degree of separation in order to function (Salsberg, 1998), shared ownership and integrated decision making may particularly difficult in the amalgamated City of Toronto. Special attention should be given to ensuring cross department ownership of the visions, objectives and strategies of the Environmental Plan to ensure effective implementation. Sustainability Planning In the course of its work to date, the Environmental Task Force has embraced 'sustainability' as the direction of its own work and has recommended that the sustainability be used as the "overriding theme" for the City's Corporate Strategic Plan and as an integrating concept for all planning activities in the City (ETF staff, 1999). The ETF has also been successful in recommending, and having council adopt, sustainability as a key component of the conceptual framework for the new Official Plan. 5
The United Nations defines sustainability as: “improving the quality of human life within the carrying capacity of supporting ecosystems”. Sustainable development is based on the concept that a healthy environment, social equity and a healthy economy are linked. As illustrated in figure 1, the 3 independent spheres are in reality interdependent and combine in the definition of sustainability. Figure 1 The Evolution Towards a New Framework for Decision-Making Equity Environment Economy Their interdependency demonstrates the need for integrative decision – making. Decisions about environmental protection cannot be made in isolation from decisions about the economy or nor decisions about budget in isolation from decisions about social welfare (Salsberg, 1998). This is illustrated in figure 2. Figure 2 6
Page 1 and 2: An Environmental Plan for the New C
Page 3 and 4: Executive Summary The new Environme
Page 5: address implications for applicatio
Page 9 and 10: the principles of the Natural Step
Page 11 and 12: to engage people in a discussion of
Page 13 and 14: commitment to “follow the princip
Page 15 and 16: Political commitment is everything
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Page 19 and 20: 2.4.3 Implementation The Comprehens
Page 21 and 22: 2.5.2 Process: Plan Development The
Page 23 and 24: 2.5.4 Key elements of Success Poli
Page 25 and 26: how developing/implementing long te
Page 27 and 28: The Environmental Policy is to appl
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Page 31 and 32: towards sustainability. As actions
Page 33 and 34: is not legally binding, but is an i
Page 35 and 36: 4 CONCLUSIONS 34
Page 37 and 38: 17. Ravetz, Joe, City-Region 2020:
Page 39 and 40: Appendix 1 Interview Questions 1. W

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