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Creating a Framework for Integrated Resource Management in Heidelberg, Germany
STRATEGYStrengthen local government
CHALLENGE
To address unemployment, unaffordable housing, population exodus to the suburbs and shifting demographics that threaten the city's unique economic, social and environmental fabric.
ACTION
Develop a plan to integrate the management of the many and varied programs and policies for sustainable development, using environmental budgeting as the framework to control the use of natural resources.
PROFILE
City of Heidelberg, Germany
Population: 139,000
Land Area: 109 km2
Municipal Budget: US$413.9 million (466 million Euro)
CASE
The City of Heidelberg is located on the Rhine plateau in Baden-Württemberg and is a UNESCO-protected World Heritage site and tourist center. Heidelberg, apart from tourism, has a science and research-based economy. The city has long been a leader in environmental management and sustainable development and in 1994 signed the Aalborg Charter.
When the current mayor, Beate Weber, came into office in 1990, she found the existing city plan no longer fit with realities in the city. The population living in the city had increased only slightly, while the number of commuters coming in from the suburbs had risen sharply. The number of unemployed people and those looking for housing in the city had increased. It was time to engage in a new city development planning process to move the city's activities towards sustainable development.
Developed over two-and-a-half years starting in 1994, and with broad public participation, the planning process was framed by the idea of "Responsibility for the Future." Social, economic and environmental factors were to be considered. The City Development Plan was to present a strategy to take Heidelberg to the year 2010.
Expanding on the city's 1974 development scheme and incorporating the lessons learned through developing climate and transportation plans, the new City Development Plan,
sets the comprehensive and integrative scope of action for a policy which assumes responsibility for social co-existence within the City and the conservation of an environment worth living in. Its core feature is the commitment towards a sustainable city development which meets the task of the "Local Agenda 21" (Source: City Development Plan)In the end, the plan looked at objectives under seven target areas: urbanism, regional cooperation and development, employment, housing, environment, mobility, social matters, and culture. Existing commitments and plans, such as the climate protection and transportation plans, were incorporated into the broader City Development Plan, although they are still followed separately as well.
The environmental target area addresses overall improvement in the local environment and permanently protecting natural resources such as water, soil and air. This section includes a call to establish an environmental budget as such a "scheme plays a vital role for the initiation of sustainable development."
Over a full budget cycle, Heidelberg used and adapted the ecoBudget® system developed by the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI). The city subsequently introduced environmental budgeting on an ongoing basis.
Environmental budgeting is a management system for the use of natural resources that complements financial budgeting and human resource management. It applies periodic financial budgeting processes, mechanisms and routines to the management of natural resources so that city managers devote the same amount of attention and concern to these resources and to environmental quality.
As a comprehensive system of municipal environmental planning, controlling and reporting, environmental budgeting constitutes the environmental cornerstone for Integrated Resource Management (IRM). IRM relates the management of financial, human and natural resources to one another, thus building a consistent framework for effective municipal service delivery with efficient resource use.
Environmental budgeting does not attempt to express environmental effects in monetary terms. To set limits on, and follow the "spending" of natural resources, budgets are based on five to twenty resource accounts, using environmental indicators measured in physical quantities. In Heidelberg, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, water consumption and residual waste generation were some of the indicators used. For each account (indicator) a mid-term (five to ten year) target is set. Based on the state of each indicator from the reference year, annual or biennial targets are set to reach agreed mid-term targets.
At the end of the budgetary cycle, an environmental budget balance is established to inform the municipal council of the progress towards meeting the targets. Environmental budgeting as a management system ensures that objectives are not only discussed but actually adopted, that implementation is controlled and that previous experiences are considered in the next period. The application of a budget cycle similar to the financial management process ensures that the issues of the use of natural resources and environmental quality are returning to the political agenda regularly. In a transparent way, municipal decision makers determine in advance the spending framework (targets), and can be held accountable for meeting the targets or overspending (debt to nature).
In Heidelberg, a project team with representatives from various departments in the administration oversees the implementation of the environmental budget, including presenting it to the mayor and city council for approval. The environmental budget is seen as a "Meta-Environmental Management System" in that it provides a framework to review the success of various actions. The environmental budget serves to build a network of departments and their various projects, each with responsibilities to balance their respective "budget lines." Heidelberg's concept links the various single projects and policies to the environmental budget (ecoBudget) and eventually the city's Local Agenda 21 (City Development Plan).
Heidelberg has expanded on the original environmental budgeting concept, keeping a budget for the city's overall environmental consumption (municipality, citizens, businesses, etc.). They now also have special budgets for environmental consumption by "big" municipal projects (those requiring an environmental impact assessment) and municipal institutions.
RESULTS
The city recently completed the first review of the implementation of the City Development Plan. While some activities have been completed, others are long-term commitments that will continue to evolve. The city already has formulated environmental quality targets through the ecoBudget process, has presented an "undeveloped area structure concept" and an environmental plan, and has reduced CO2 emissions from municipal buildings through energy saving measures.
In the environmental target area, Heidelberg is now able to prove the success of its activities, moving to quantify statements like, "we have improved the environment." Heidelberg can now state:
- reductions in municipal CO2 emissions by 30% since 1993,
- reductions in nitrous oxides (NOx) emissions by 65% since 1986,
- reductions in drinking water consumption by 12% since 1990,
- reductions in specific residual waste by 49% since 1990.
The cross-departmental nature of the environmental budgeting procedure has served to educate municipal staff not traditionally involved in that field on environmental concerns and limits. Overall, environmental budgeting has proven to be a useful controlling instrument for successfully meeting the environmental targets set out in the City Development Plan. It will continue to support Heidelberg's overall strategy going forward.
LESSONS LEARNED
Heidelberg found that properly organizing before starting the budget process led to a more successful outcome. For example, developing cross-departmental groups, setting very clear targets linked to other initiatives (such as linking climate protection targets to the existing Heidelberg targets to reduce CO2 emissions), and setting in place systems to develop and track budgets throughout the cycle were key to getting the process started. Part of this organization is the development of a system for ongoing reporting. As with many initiatives, a transparent system is critical to success. For the environmental budget to work, a willingness to systemize policies, set priorities and debate conflicts is absolutely necessary.
Data availability proved to be a stumbling block. Heidelberg found that the selection of indicators was limited by the available data-current, comparable, and easily and economically collected data are needed. Given the time required to see effects from changes in environmental activities, the city also found the environmental budget cycle worked better over two years.
Finally, support from the municipal leadership was very important for the establishment of the City Development Plan and the implementation of the environmental budgeting component of the plan.
KEY REPLICATION FACTORS
As the foundation of a sustainable community, natural resources like air, water and land need to be managed to ensure their long-term viability. The ecoBudget model serves as a cornerstone for IRM, a system to link the management of financial, human and natural resources.
With environmental budgeting, Heidelberg has introduced a mechanism that sustains the attention of municipal decision makers on natural resources and environmental quality through periodic target-setting, controlling and reporting. Building a network within the administration to collect and analyze the necessary data from various initiatives, and to define the budget accounts and targets together with the responsible departments was important in making the mechanism work.
As part of the city's overall development plan, environmental budgeting shows the success of the cumulative and interactive effects the city's initiatives have on natural resources in both the short and long term, and link these environmental benefits to sustainable development.
CONTACT
Dr. Raino Winkler
City of Heidelberg
Fax: +49-62/21-58-18-29
Email: Umweltamt.Heidelberg@Heidelberg.de
Bielefeld, Germany
Bielefeld, a city of 325,000 in north west Germany, has been faced with excessive sprawl and increasing motorized transportation over the last few years. Local environmental budgeting was seen as a strategic aid to target setting in planning, especially related to the city's climate protection, water provision and open space activities. Environmental budgeting has been integrated into most of the departments involved. It plays an increasingly important role as Bielefeld politicians decided in early 2000 to introduce environmental budgeting into the local authority on a permanent basis, and are looking at extending the ecoBudget to include other accounts (indicators).
Nordhausen County, Germany
Nordhausen is a county of about 100,000 citizens located in central Germany. As a small county with limited financial and staff resources, Nordhausen uses the ecoBudget approach to integrate their environmental policies and programs into their Local Agenda 21 in a cost-effective manner. As Sylvia Stüven from Nordhausen has stated, the county has found that, "environmental budgeting appears as the optimal instrument for a sustainable use of natural resources on the basis of scientific, region-oriented environmental targets." Nordhausen recently approved its second environmental budget balance and environmental master budget for the next year.
