Lyon, France.

Lyon's Urban Authority.

Greater Lyons is pioneering the development of a new urban ecology management tool. It is called the Urban Environmental Chart. It begins a process of integration among the principal agents responsible for managing the key resources in the metropolitan area of Lyon. In practice, this means that water, planning, transport, energy, waste management, public involvement etc. are all being viewed in one context to achieve a holistic and strategic city-wide sustainable development model. The initiative covers a population of 1,135,000 inhabitants and represents Greater Lyons first strategic Agenda 21 Project.

The first Greater Lyons Urban Environmental Chart was produced for the period 1992-1995. The second phase covers 1995-2001. There are 103 special and operational measures that Greater Lyons is politically, financially and technically committed to incorporating within the sustainable development principles set out in the Urban Environmental Chart.

Since integration of strategic management functions is inherently complicated, the project has ten program groups or ‘fields of responsibility’, including an ‘Environment Observatory’ responsible for evaluating the whole project. The Urban Environmental Chart developed out of recognition of the traditional weakness of the single issue city land use plan, with its cumbersome, heavy, legal approach which was alienating to both public and politicians alike. The Chart provides a new management tool and a means of linking efforts across these various strategic disciplines.

Consumption and Production Patterns, Capacity Building Land Resource Management.

Production of two editions of the Urban Environmental Chart has been the major outcome of the project to date. This is a significant achievement involving the integration of the major management strategies of the principal regulatory, statutory and utility service providing agencies of the city.

Relationships between these large organizations and departments have been deepened. Discussion and awareness raising took place among the agencies, who, critically placed, have a major leadership role to fulfill in responding to the sustainability question.

The sustainable development imperative was agreed in principle and expressed collectively through the production and adoption of the Urban Environmental Chart. It is not the panacea, but it does reflect forward thinking and a unified recognition among institutions to plan and implement their activities for a more sustainable future by working in closer co-operation.

The Urban Agency for Lyon stated that the challenge of promoting sustainable development at the intra-corporate level presented the necessity to actively search for solutions, which permit both development and resource preservation. This means fostering economic development and environmental balance together with social equity development.

Clearly, such consideration requires a new way of thinking, vision and leadership. In terms of managing the land-use and resource consumption demands of a large urban area, it involves major processes, innovative new strategic partnerships, a long time frame and implementation of new large-scale developments that are permanent in their impact. At city/corporate level, altering values and attitudes only occurs through longer-term vision, consistently re-enforced by regular projects and activities that foster new patterns of behavior, which eventually become the universally adopted norms.