Integrated Sustainable Community Plan for the Corporation of the City of Sarnia

The City of Sarnia developed an integrated sustainable community plan that aimed to complement a similar plan for the County of Lambton, within which Sarnia was the major urban community. The city and county partnership was already well established, as was cooperation with the local Aamjiwnaang First Nation. Sarnia’s plan was expected to bring together sustainability initiatives already underway in all five FCM sectors — transportation, energy, waste, water, and brownfields — so as to optimize budgets, personnel and other resources across all corporate departments. The city described this as “restringing a necklace” to capture the various precious stones into a new and integrated whole. Data and information for the plan were gathered from senior administrative staff, the community and identified stakeholders. The resulting user-friendly reference document, Prescription for Sustainable Municipal Corporate and Community Life, included metrics to quantify progress in the environmental, social, and economic aspects of sustainability (the “triple bottom line”). Outreach to the community involved the use of municipal publications, the city’s website, and consultative public meetings, workshops and seminars. Although the city had many unique features, the initiatives undertaken in this exercise were expected to apply to communities across Canada. The city was ready to extend its history of close and mutually respectful collaboration to other municipalities that might benefit from its experience.