Towards a sustainable city: roles, behaviour and attitudes of citizens, local organisations and the authorities

On the UNCED conference in Rio the Janeiro (1992) sustainable development has been put high on the international agenda. Sustainable development policy has also consequences for policy making at the city level. Several cities have adopted the objective to become sustainable. The consumption of citizens is very relevant for the attainment of sustainability at the city level.

Ten years after Rio we can learn good lessons by analysing from a sustainable development perspective the successes and failures, the present situation and the plans for the future with regard to environmental policy and participation. This approach has been applied in the city of Groningen in a research project. Groningen is a medium-sized city (175,000 inhabitants) in the North of the Netherlands.

When investigating participation in local environmental policy three main (groups of) actors are involved: citizens, local organisations and the authorities. These actors and the interactions between and among these actors largely determine how a sustainable environmental policy is shaped. Communication, participation, expectations, attitudes and behaviour among and between these actors have been investigated by means of a survey among the population and interviews with representatives from local environmental organisations and from the authorities.

The research has resulted in the identification of a number of threats and opportunities that may be found in many cities working on sustainable development. These threats and opportunities form lessons, which enable local authorities in other cities to make more progress with less effort on their way towards sustainability.