Keeping Auckland's future bright

Our long-term plan for a sustainable Auckland city

Appendices

Glossary of terms

Carbon road map - a carbon road map will identify the issues and practical solutions regarding greenhouse gas emissions from within Auckland city or Auckland region. A road map is likely to include emission reduction measures (such as energy conservation, switching to renewable energy sources and utilising green production technologies), carbon offsetting, such as planting trees to absorb excess carbon dioxide, and required or recommended involvement in emission trading schemes.

Climate change - a change in weather patterns and intensity brought about by the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere causing a general warming of the earth's lower atmosphere.

Ecological footprint - an ecological footprint is a widely used indicator of environmental sustainability and represents a theoretical measure of a city's demand for natural resources compared to the amount of land the planet needs to regenerate those resources and assimilate the waste produced.

Global warming - a gradual increase in the planet's surface temperature brought about by greenhouse gas emissions.

Greenhouse gases - those gases (including water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide) that contribute to the warming of the atmosphere by preventing reflected heat from the planet's surface escaping into space.

Green Star rating - New Zealand's first comprehensive environmental rating system for buildings.

Sustainable development - development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

Relevant policies, plans and strategies

Auckland City Council's Long-term Plan 2006-2016

The council's vision statements and strategic framework demonstrate the organisation's commitment to sustainability. The council's strategic vision is for Auckland to be the "First City of the Pacific" and to be a city that offers an unparalleled lifestyle - a clean, green, safe city that is as exciting as it is diverse.

Auckland City Council's seven core strategies

Keeping Auckland's future bright provides an overarching framework to consider sustainability across all of the council's functions. The plan will be given effect through the organisation's seven core strategies as show in the diagram below.

Growth management policies

Keeping Auckland's future bright is closely linked with both the Auckland Regional Council's and Auckland City Council's strategies for growth, which are based on a 'compact city' approach. Key features are that growth will be managed by promoting high-quality compact urban environments that are linked by public transport and focused around town centres with a variety of housing, jobs, services, business development areas, and recreational and other activities.

Urban Design Framework

Designing great places for our people: a framework for achieving high quality urban design in Auckland

Keeping Auckland's future bright sits alongside the Urban Design Framework (UDF). Both will inform all council strategies and projects over the coming years and help give effect to the city vision. UDF deals with the tangible, rather than the philosophical issues around sustainability and is deliberately action-focused.

The Mayoral Taskforce on Sustainable Development

In 2006, the Mayor of Auckland convened a taskforce to provide advice on priorities for action on sustainable development. The report, Our Auckland, Mobilising for a Sustainable Future, presented 43 actions for consideration. Five leadership areas were identified: the council as an exemplar, empowering communities, caring for the living environment, economic growth, acting as a catalyst for change.

Auckland Sustainability Framework

The region's councils have worked in partnership with central government agencies, and collaborated with Mana Whenua and the academic, business and community sectors to develop the Auckland Sustainability Framework (ASF). ASF aims to create a sustainable future for the Auckland region and is the first of its kind for Auckland. It takes a 100 plus year view and provides direction for local authorities and central government agencies to work together to meet the challenges associated with developing a truly sustainable region.

A key role of the framework will be to bring together existing and future regional strategies under a common vision. The vision will be promoted principally through a regional sustainable development forum comprising representatives from all territorial authorities and the regional council.

ASF identifies climate change, natural resource use, global economic change, population growth and demographic and social change as the sustainability challenges for the region. Eight goals have been developed to address these challenges and these goals have informed the content and direction of Keeping Auckland's future bright.

Central government policy

Sustainability principles are embedded in local government and resource management legislation in New Zealand through the Resource Management Act, which requires the sustainable management of resources, and the Local Government Act, which requires local government has regard to social, cultural, environmental and economic well-beings in the decisions it makes and the services it provides.

Recently, government introduced a range of initiatives and policies to further support these aims, including:

the introduction of the Emissions Trading Scheme announced in September 2007
the Govt3 sustainable management programme, which demonstrates its commitment to leading by example by ensuring that public agencies demonstrate good practice
a commitment for six government departments to achieve carbon neutrality by 2012. All government departments are expected to initiate plans to put them on a path to carbon neutrality.

These initiatives sit alongside existing work to promote sustainability, including: The New Zealand Energy Strategy, The New Zealand Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy, The New Zealand Transport Strategy, The New Zealand Waste Strategy, The Sustainable Land Management and Climate Change action plan.

Published May 2008