Santa Monica - Sustainable City Plan

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Background: In 1994 the Santa Monica City Council adopted the Santa Monica Sustainable City Program. The Sustainable City Program was initially proposed in 1992 by the City's Task Force on the Environment to ensure that Santa Monica can continue to meet its current needs - environmental, economic and social - without compromising the ability of future generations to do the same. It is designed to help us as a community begin to think, plan and act more sustainably - to help us address the root causes of problems rather than the symptoms of those problems, and to provide criteria for evaluating the long-term rather than the short-term impacts of our decisions - in short, to help us think about the future when we are making decisions about the present.

The program includes goals and strategies for the City government and all sectors of the community, to conserve and enhance local resources, safeguard human health and the environment, maintain a healthy and diverse economy and improve the livability and quality of life for all community members in Santa Monica. To check progress toward meeting these goals, numerical indicators were developed and specific targets were set for the city to achieve by the year 2000 in four goal areas - 1) Resource Conservation, 2) Transportation, 3) Pollution Prevention and Public Health Protection and 4) Community and Economic Development.

Following eleven years of implementation the Santa Monica Sustainable City Program has achieved much success. Many of the initial targets have been met or exceeded and Santa Monica is now recognized as a worldwide role model for sustainability.

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