It’s Easy to be Green! Eco-Municipalities: Here to Stay

By Tony LaColla, Public Participation Coordinator

Sustainability, green building, and now eco-municipalities are new buzz words in the field of planning and community development.  Sustainability is commonly defined as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.  Green building is defined as the practice of increasing the efficiency with which buildings and their sites use energy, water, and materials, and reducing building impacts on human health and the environment, through better siting, design, construction, operation, and maintenance.  Using the concepts of sustainability and green building as a base, municipalities are now creating eco-municipalities.

Sarah James, co-author of American Planning Associations Planning for Sustainability Policy Guide, and Torbjörn Lahti, founder of the Swedish eco-municipality movement define an eco-municipality as a community who has adopted a set of sustainability principles to guide municipal policy toward a sustainable community.   Basically, an eco-municipality aspires to develop an ecologically, economically, and socially healthy community for the long term, using sustainability as a guide.  An eco-municipality can be the driving force for involving citizens at a grass roots level to make basic changes which will benefit the entire community.   

Since the eco-municipality concept originated in 1983, 25 per cent of all municipalities in Sweden have adopted a common set of sustainability principles and have implemented these throughout their municipal operations and larger communities. As of today nearly a dozen municipalities in the United States have joined the movement and several more are traveling down this path to become an eco-municipality. Additional eco-municipalities are emerging in the European Union, Argentina, Canada, Japan, Estonia, and New Zealand.

What separates the eco-municipality model from a green building model is that it uses a systems approach that involves widespread community awareness-raising and integrated municipal involvement.  The eco-municipality approach also uses a common language to identify what sustainability means, such as the four APA sustainability objectives.  

The American Planning Association has pledged to support the emerging eco-municipality movement and other communities who adopt the APA sustainability objectives.  In August the Hillsborough County City-County Planning Commission will be presented with a resolution which would encourage each of the four local jurisdictions to adopt the APA sustainability objectives.

The American Planning Association’s sustainability objectives outlined in the 2000 "Policy Guide on Planning for Sustainability” include:

1. Reduce dependence upon fossil fuels, underground metals, and minerals.
2. Reduce dependence upon synthetic chemicals and other unnatural substances.
3. Reduce encroachment upon nature.
4. Meet human needs fairly & efficiently.

Eco-municipalities in the US

• In 2005, the Wisconsin communities of Ashland, Washburn, and Madison became the first eco-municipalities in the United States when their city councils each voted to adopt either the APA sustainability objectives or the original Swedish sustainability framework on which these are based.  Widespread community sustainability education and strategizing is occurring, with local officials leading and fully backing the initiative. The City Council and Mayor of Duluth, MN, passed a resolution adopting the APA sustainability objectives as official city policy in June, 2006 with Johnson Creek, WI and Douglas County, WI following with their own official eco-municipality resolutions.
• On the East Coast, Lawrence Township, New Jersey, a suburb of Trenton and New York City as well as the New England city of Portsmouth, New Hampshire have joined the movement. These emerging eco-municipalities and others such as Vandergrift, PA have formed the North American Eco-municipality Network.
• Vandergrift, a Fredrick Law-Olmstead designed former steel mill community of 5,600 residents northeast of Pittsburgh, began revitalizing its downtown business corridor in 2004, and has moved forward with its own eco-municipal initiative.  Eco-municipal parking lots with permeable pavement have been constructed and the town welcome sign is now solar-powered.  
• Santa Monica, CA, a city of nearly 105,000 residents has established goals and indicators on everything from air quality to citizen participation; its extensive programs include purchasing less or nontoxic products to clean public spaces and becoming a “net zero energy user."

In eco-municipalities, community recycling rates have increased drastically, in some cases as high as 90 per cent of all solid waste is now recycled. Some municipalities have reduced fossil fuel use by 40 percent or more in five years.  Depressed communities have used this process to bring about economic and social revitalization in an ecological way. New democratic processes include involving more citizens in municipal and civic affairs in a real way. The current eco-municipalities demonstrate that the model can work in almost any community regardless of size, geography, or circumstances.

Echoing other influential city planning movements over the past century such as the Garden City Movement, City Beautiful Movement, City Functional Movement, and Neo-traditional Movement; a City Sustainable Movement seems to be taking hold which has the ability to influence design standards and comprehensive planning.  The eco-municipality concept could be a large piece of this overall movement toward sustainability. While the concepts and objectives presented here are becoming more of a reality there is still some distance to go in achieving eco-friendly communities that can truly be considered sustainable and green.  Eco-municipalities are a good start.