Page 25 - The City of Greensboro Conditions and Trends

CITY OF GREENSBORO COMPREHENSIVE PLAN CONDITIONS & TRENDS

Sustainability & Resilience

The Trend

In 1987, the United Nations Brundtland Commission defined sustainability as “development that meets the needs of the
present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Sustainability is now a topic of
concern across the globe in both the private and public sector. Sustainability is frequently referred to as requiring a “triple
bottom line” approach, a term coined by John Elkington in 1994. The approach considers three areas: the natural
environment, social equity, and fiscal responsibility, and is often paraphrased as “planet, people, profit.” In the private
sector these concepts are sometimes known as “Corporate Social Responsibility” and include better analysis of energy
usage, product lifecycle analysis, and the social impacts of corporate actions.

Background

Planning for Sustainability

Sustainability is an important concept in planning, and in particular with comprehensive plan development. The American
Planning Association has published two reports on sustainability in comprehensive plans and identified 10 guiding principles
for sustaining places through comprehensive planning.

 Livable Built Environment: Ensure that all elements of the built environment, including land use, transportation,
housing, energy, and infrastructure, work together to provide sustainable , green places for living, working, and
recreation, with a high quality of life.
 Harmony with Nature: Ensure that the contributions of natural resources to human well-being are explicitly
recognized and valued and that maintaining their health is a primary objective.
 Resilient Economy: Ensure that the community is prepared to deal with both positive and negative changes in its
economic health and to initiate sustainable urban development and redevelopment strategies that foster green
business growth and build reliance on local assets.
 Interwoven Equity: Ensure fairness and equity in providing for the housing, services, health, safety and livelihood
needs of all citizens and groups.
 Healthy Community: Ensure that public needs are recognized and addressed through provisions for healthy foods,
physical activity, access to recreation, health care, environmental justice and safe neighborhoods.
 Responsible Regionalism: Ensure that all local proposals account for, connect with, and support the plans for
adjacent jurisdictions and the new rounding region.
 Authentic Participation: Ensure that the planning process actively involves all segments of the community in
analyzing issues, generating visions, developing plans, and monitoring outcomes.
 Accountable Implementation: Ensure that responsibilities for carrying out the plan are clearly stated, along with
metrics for evaluating progress in achieving desired outcomes.
 Consistent Content: Ensure that the plan contains a consistent set of visions, goals, policies, objectives, and actions
that are based on evidence about community conditions, major issues and impacts.
 Coordinated Characteristics: Ensure that the plan includes creative and innovative strategies and recommendations
and coordinates them internally with each other, vertically with federal and state requirements, and horizontally
with plans of adjacent jurisdictions.

DRAFT -25- March 15, 2018