Melbourne Principles - Application

Application

Two ICLEI organisations went on to publish a further document, "Operationalising the Melbourne Principles for Sustainable Cities", which seeks to examine case studies of cities striving for sustainability, and to learn lessons from these. The case studies include the Greater Vancouver Regional District, Waitakere City, New Zealand, Santa Monica, California. The document includes a checklist "to assess the extent to which the plan / document accounts for the elements of sustainability embodied in the Melbourne Principles."

A 2007 expert paper prepared for discussion by UNEP and UNDESA, suggests some possible strategies for cities aiming to follow the Melbourne Principles:

• Create urban environments threaded with natural habitat corridors
• Focus urban transport planning on public mass transit systems integrated with pedestrian only streets
• Ensure adequate financing for the above activities, support for needed capacity building and institutional strengthening, and the transfer of technology, knowledge and know-how. For example:
  • provide capacity building for city planning agencies to assist them in reclaiming urban spaces for parks
  • support knowledge sharing on the design, implementation and management of sustainable urban transport systems.

Some cities are already adopting the Melbourne Principles explicitly. For example, Penrith, New South Wales adopted the principles in 2003, and has used them to measure the city's progress towards sustainability.