The Meeting:

The Charette will focus on four main themes:

1. Urban ecologies – anthropogenic (flows of water, energy, waste and materials) and natural (biodiversity)

2. Built environment – planning and constructed environment and Sustainable transport

3. Livable environment – the environmental component of a sustainable city

4. Economic security – the key to the development of sustainable urban ecosystems

The Charette will bring together experts, decision-makers from countries around the world and International Organizations; Universities, NGOs and private sector. A desirable outcome for the Charette would be a declaration or statement of principles on building sustainable urban ecosystems.

The Charette will be held in Melbourne, Australia, 3-5 April 2002, and is expected to have a significant influence on the three day urban environmental management segment of the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. The inaugural Charette on Building Urban Ecosystems will broadly discuss the above four themes and set the agenda for subsequent charettes.

Contextual Background:

The world’s cities take up just two percent of the Earth’s surface, yet account for roughly 78 percent of the carbon emissions from human activities, 76 percent of industrial wood use, and 60 percent of the water tapped for use by people. These figures suggest that the struggle to achieve an environmentally sustainable economy will be won or lost in the world’s urban areas. Urban systems are undermining the planet’s health and failing to provide decent living conditions for millions of people.

Rapid urbanization in the twentieth century has magnified the environmental impact of cities. In 1900, only 160 million people, one tenth of the world’s population, were urbanites. By 2006, half the world (3.2 billion people) will live in urban areas, a 20-fold increase in numbers. Because of inadequate systems and poor planning, cities are disproportionately driving global warming, deforestation, and increasing water scarcity.

As cities move into the 21st Century the need to reduce environmental impacts, control costs, risks and liabilities are of paramount importance. Society is faced with environmental and economic issues and problems that will have profound effects upon survival, quality of life and sustainable development. Furthermore, there is an increasing belief that the original approach to environmental impacts and their mitigation, characterized by centralized "command-and-control" regulation targeted at emissions and existing waste sites, is far too limited to support the achievement of sustainable cities.

The concept of sustainable development applied to the City is central. Cities have pollution sources and sinks, and people living in them utilize resources and generate waste. Cities also import resources and export pollutants, although these importing and exporting activities have limits. For example, the trucking of garbage to landfills outside of a city becomes increasingly costly, the further from the city the landfills are located. Also, the importation of fresh water to replenish a city's depleted aquifers becomes increasingly costly, the greater the distance the water must be piped.

Cities have limited carrying capacities. If the carrying capacity of a city is eroded, it becomes increasingly difficult, if not impossible, to create a sustainable environment. The infrastructure of a city influences its carrying capacity. A sustainable city must have adequate infrastructure and flexibility to support the needs of its population, particularly its poorest citizens, and the needs of the ecosystem as a whole. As in the case of the global system as a whole, sustainable cities must not use resources faster than they can be replenished or substituted for, nor generate pollution faster than it can be assimilated.

One of the guiding principles for the future will be to transform the City into a sustainable urban ecosystem so that they mimic the metabolism of nature. Rather than devouring water, food, energy, and processed goods, and then belching out the remains as pollutants, the city could align its consumption with realistic needs, produce more of its own food and energy, and put much more of its waste to use.

Draft Agenda

Day 1 (3 April 2002)

Opening Session

• Opening Remarks and Greetings

• Background & Objectives

• Presentation of “state of art” on Cities

• Keynote addresses: i) The role of Technology in building Urban ecosystems, ii) What is an urban ecosystem?

Session 1

• Case studies of Urban ecosystems (I)

• Consideration/discussion of requirements for development and implementation of principles for the building of urban ecosystems (A limited number of presentations will be made).

• Group discussions and plenary

Reception

Day 2 (4 April 2002)

Session 2

• Case studies of Urban ecosystems (II)

• Consideration/discussion of requirements for development and implementation of principles for the building of urban ecosystems (A limited number of presentations will be made).

• Group discussions and plenary

Informal Social event

Day 3 (5 April 2002)

Session 3

• Report from Independent Experts of Group discussions

• Panel discussion

Closing Session

• Conclusion and Summary

• Follow-on Action programme

• Thanks and close of Meeting

Related Document

The Ecosystems Approach to Urban Environmental Management
Operationalizing the Cities as Sustainable Ecosystems (CASE) Initiative