Tools for Developing Your Bureau's Sustainability Plan
A written Sustainability Plan provides a road map for staff and key decision-makers as they work on sustainability efforts. Creating your bureau’s plan can strengthen buy-in and ensure the continuous improvement of your bureau’s sustainability activities.
There is no single formula or approach to sustainability planning. The key is to develop a planning process and functional documents that add value to the work of your bureau. Many other cities and states have developed comprehensive sustainability plans – take a few minutes to look at the results of their efforts to get ideas about what your bureau include in your plan.
At a minimum, your bureau’s sustainability plan must include:
- A sustainability vision, mission or commitment statement.
- A summary of existing sustainability efforts (in future years, this section will become a summary of your activities/results of implementing your sustainability plan).
- A minimum of three (3) actions your bureau will do in the coming year to work toward sustainability (including the responsible party(s), measures of success and timeline for each action).
- An employee communication strategy (how will you ensure that staff are aware of your bureau's sustainability goals and plan?).
- Bureau Director approval (e.g., via signature on the document).
Below you will find examples and templates of a variety of approaches to developing a sustainability plan. You can use one of these templates for your bureaus plan, or take the bits and pieces you like from several of them and create your own.
"Planning Workshop Template"
This template is the simplified sustainability plan used in the Sustainability Planning Workshops. This template meets the minimum requirements for the bureau sustainability plans. You can also download the worksheets that are used in the workshops as well.
"Activities Assessment" Approach
In this approach, you will step back and assess all of the different activities and services your bureau undertakes. This is a typical approach done by many businesses that have an “Environmental Management System.” An Activities Assessment serves as a useful tool to help an organization understand all of the impacts associated with its activities and to then prioritize where to make changes first.
For each activity/service process your bureau does, ask yourself:
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What resources are consumed by the activity?
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What are the results or products?
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What wastes are generated?
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What are the sustainability impacts of the activity (can include positive impacts too)?
Once you have identified the impacts associated with your bureaus activities, develop a system for prioritizing the activities to determine where your bureau should focus energy and resources first.
The priority level can be based on a variety of characteristics, like:
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Scale of impact (e.g., are the impacts minor, or do they have long-term detrimental consequences?),
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Frequency of impact (e.g., does the impact happen consistently, only once in a while or only during accidents or emergencies?) level of control (e.g., how much control does your bureau have over that activity?),
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Cost (e.g., are there potential cost savings? Are there incentives, tax credits or grant funding available to assist with projects related to the activity or impacts?), and
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Connection with bureau mission (e.g., are the impacts directly related to the core mission of the bureau, like protecting water quality or community engagement?)
You may want to go with a simple categorical priority level setting system (e.g., High, Medium, Low) or a numerical ranking system where you weigh different evaluation criteria.
Review the "Activities Assessment" sustainability plan documents (below) to see what an activities and impacts assessment might look like.
"If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there." (Lewis Carroll) The concept of “backcasting” is often used as a strategic approach for working toward sustainability. Backcasting is a way of planning in which a successful outcome is imagined in the future (e.g., 100% green power by 2015), followed by the question: “what do we need to do today to reach that successful outcome?”
There are two significant benefits of the backcasting approach. First, it encourages creative problem solving, as the vision of the successful outcome does not need to be limited by the conditions that exist today. Second, it helps to create a shared vision of what success will look like...both in the end, and along the way. The trick to a successful backcasting exercise is to remember that instead of asking "Can we?", ask "How can we?"
Download the "Backcasting" sustainability plan documents (below) to see what backcasting approach might look like. You can also review how the City of Corvallis is using this backcasting approach to establish their sustainability goals and actions.
"Sustainability Indicators" Approach
Many organizations develop their sustainability plans by using sustainability indicators. An indicator is something that helps you understand where you are, which way you are going (trends) and how far you are from where you want to be. The gauges in an automobile’s dash (fuel gauge, speedometer, etc.) are classic indicators, and many organizations regularly use “dashboard indicators” to monitor key business trends and assist with decision making.
In taking a “sustainability indicators” approach, you will identify the specific things your bureau can measure to gage your level of sustainability. Consider including relevant requirements of existing citywide or bureau specific sustainability policies or programs. Remember, a good indicator alerts you to a problem before it gets too bad and can sometimes help you recognize what needs to be done to fix it. Characteristics of effective sustainability indicators:
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They are relevant and show you something that you need to know,
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They are easy to understand,
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They are reliable and you can trust what they are telling you, and
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They are based on accessible data that is available or can be gathered.
Download the "Indicators" sustainability plan documents (below) to see what a sustainability indicator approach might look like. You can also review how Whistler, B.C., and Santa Monica, CA, have used this approach to establish their sustainability goals and actions.
"Department/Programmatic Opportunities" Approach
Many bureaus, particularly large bureaus with different departments or programs, may have success with an approach that includes creating mini-sustainability plans specific to those departments or programs. This approach is especially beneficial when a bureau has traditional “office functions” mixed with “field operations” as it allows bureaus to develop goals and actions that are specific to the unique opportunities and challenges of those groups.
Often, this approach results in a sustainability plan that includes a description of the specific department or program, an evaluation of the current practices (related to sustainability), the identification of potential future opportunities to implement best practices, and a summary of key department/program goals, actions and performance measures. These mini-sustainability plans are then combined together into one larger bureau-wide plan.
Download the "Department/Program" sustainability plan documents (below) to see what a this approach might look like. You can also review how Seattle and Chicago both used a similar approach for their sustainability planning efforts. Seattle developed their plan based on programmatic focus areas, and Chicago did a combination of programs and departments.
