Sunderland's Sustainable Vision

The City understands that becoming sustainable will make Sunderland a better place to live, work and play. This is why the City is aiming to become the most liveable city in the UK, with a sustainable future that means it will stay that way.

To achieve this, Sunderland will be applying the following three principles in everything it does: Balanced – meaning that quality of life is not all about money, but a balance of work, play, family and fun. And we also need to balance how we improve quality of life now without harming the prospects of future generations. Smart – sustainable solutions in the short-term and long-term are likely to come from new and smart technology. Life-enhancing – looking to become a cleaner, safer and greener place to live, work study and do business, that will improves your health, lifestyle and opportunities.

This vision has been developed through a 2-year process, based on what the people of Sunderland think is important to have a good quality of life. It also looked at successes elsewhere in the world to find the ingredients that make a sustainable, liveable city, e.g. Portland, Oregon and Tampere, Finland.

"Sunderland - in a new light". Launch of Sunderland Image Strategy

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A Sustainability Strategy for Sunderland

Up until 2006, the roadmap for making Sunderland a sustainable place to live was contained in “Future City – Future Lives”, Sunderland’s Sustainable Development Strategy, a 5-year plan launched in 2001.

In 2004, the main principles of “Future City – Future Lives” was built into the Sunderland Strategy, which is the overall strategy for shaping Sunderland’s future, developed by the Sunderland Partnership. The Sunderland Strategy therefore is now the lead strategy for taking forward sustainability issues for the City.

In its next revision, due in November 2007, the Sunderland Strategy will develop sustainability issues even further, by integrating the new sustainable visions that have been adopted through the City’s new Image Strategy, and by following new guidelines on developing Sustainable Community Strategies, that are expected from central government soon.

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Sustainability Audit

To make sure Sunderland is making good its sustainability promises, a Sustainability Audit will be carried out each year. This will measure how well the City is performing on sustainability, in the six key areas of sustainability work, as recommended by the UK Government's Sustainable Development Strategy. These areas are

• Climate Change and Energy • Protecting Natural Resources • Helping People make Sustainable Choices • Sustainable Production and Consumption • Sustainable Communities and a Fairer World • Making it Happen Work is still in progress on the first Sustainability Audit, and will be posted here once complete.   UK Government’s Sustainable Development Strategy.

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Sunderland City Council’s Environmental Performance

Sunderland City Council already has many examples where it is reducing the environmental impact of its operations. Some are listed here:

• Facilities to recycle paper, furniture, printer cartridges and IT equipment are established for council building
• The Design Services team design new buildings and schools to higher and higher environmental standards, recently introducing the Building Research Establishment Environment Assessment Method (BREEAM) in new school buildings
• Increasing household recycling rates to 18% in 2005/6 means that about 20,000 tonnes less of rubbish is sent to landfill, compared to 2001.
• The council's fleet of vehicles uses the most efficient diesel engines, running on fuel that contains 5% biodiesel.

But there is always room for improvement. The Sustainability Team is beginning a long process of calculating the environmental impact of all the Council's activities. This will for the first time allow us to see the impact of past initiatives, as well as helping develop plans to further reduce the council's environmental impact, topic by topic.

The Council's carbon emissions are the first topic to be investigated, as part of a national Carbon Management Programme. Once completed, a record of the council's carbon emissions will be published here, along with the plans to continually reduce them.

In later years, records of other environmental indicators (e.g. waste produced, water use) will be added.

In the meantime, contact the Sustainability team for any information.

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