Municipal Process for Sustainable Development

Use the Sustainability Topics Best Practices and Cost Benefit Information to identify possible areas for improvements, increased efficiency, safety, community resilience, and cost savings. Prioritize projects to meet the municipality’s and teams purpose, goals, and vision.

Best Practices

• Use the Best Practices and Resources under the Sustainability Topics of the Guide to identify possible areas for increased efficiency and cost savings.

• Review Best Practices for input and identify possible improvements.

• Involve critical personnel and those who have responsibility for identified areas.

• Identify possible projects, improvements, or changes in policy or process.

• Prioritize a list of possible projects, improvements, or changes in policy or process considering

  • What is the easiest to do for the lowest cost?

  • What is the lowest cost for the largest benefit?

  • What generates a good return on investment?

  • What is most flexible?

  • What meets our ultimate vision the fastest?

  • What can the municipality reasonably tackle internally?

  • Are outside resources needed? If so, at what cost?

  • Visibility of the project.

Establish a baseline for high priority projects, improvements, or changes in policy or process as a starting point against which future progress can be measured.

Best Practice

• Establish a baseline year by gathering monthly or annual data for which future data can be compared. In some cases it may be appropriate to gather more than one year of baseline data for comparison.

• Use Cost Benefit information under the Sushtainability Topic area as a guide.

• Track and log data on an ongoing basis for annual review and progress against baseline data

• Identify and reconcile a process for data gaps that are not currently being tracked that should be tracked for analysis.

• Set a timeline and end date for completing initial data accumulation and for analyzing data results.

• Estimate the Return on Investment [ROI] for each project, improvement, or change in policy or process.

• Consider benchmarking changes against those considered to be best in industry.

Create a plan and establish a timeline for implementing high priority projects, improvements, or changes in policy or process. How will the gap be bridged between current conditions and future vision?

Use baseline data, Best Practices under the Sustainability Topic areas,and Sustainability Topic area Resources to determine a series of possible improvements, strategies, and investments that will build progress between current resource use and/or policy and your desired future vision of resource use and/or policy. This process is called “backcasting.”

Best Practices

• Communicate with and request input on improvements from critical personnel.

• Calculate the Return on Investment [ROI] for each improvement, strategy, and investment.

• For each priority chart out a prioritized plan to bridge the gap between where you are today and where you’d like to be by setting 1-, 3-, or 5-year targets for continuous improvement from your baseline year toward your future vision.

• Establish a timeline for implementation of each improvement, strategy, and investment.

• Communicate your plan with stakeholders.

• Incorporate your vision and strategies into your municipal strategic plan, business plan, and/or sustainability plan.

• Implement.

Before beginning implementation look ahead and plan how progress and outcomes will be tracked and communicated to staff, residents and other constituents.

In practice the process of planning and implementing is cyclical, not linear, so it is important to evaluate progress regularly and make mid-course corrections along the way.

Best Practices

• Implement an Environmental Management System [EMS] process of consistent planning, doing, evaluating and improving

  • Environmental Protection Agency EMS: Plan, Do, Check, Act

  • International Organization for Standardization [ISO] ISO 14001 standard EMS: Plan, Do, Check, Act

• Build awareness and understanding among staff, community and other stakeholders so that all are on the same page and headed in the same direction.

• Create strategic partnerships with suppliers, service providers, residents, community partners, businesses, other municipalities or organizations that share your interest, can support your efforts, or can assist with success.

• Work as a team to solicit ideas, assist with planning, and to promote and support actions that lead to success.

• Identify champions within the municipality that can promote and support success.

• Celebrate and share successes internally and throughout the community to help build ownership, pride, and acceptance.

Community and staff buy-in and commitment is fostered through continuous awareness and engagement in the process. A well planned public information strategy will promote the appropriate economic, social, and environmental benefits to the wider community setting the stage to move forward with additional projects.