Sorel-Tracy is the only industrial city in Québec to have engaged itself in the process of an Local Agenda 21.

The Agenda 21 is a strategic community plan that includes social, environmental and economic concerns in socio-economic and land use planning.

The Local Agenda 21 goals

1. Improve citizens’ quality of life and their overall satisfaction towards to the municipal administration (lively, healthy and fair environment);
2. Improve the City’s image and attractiveness with tools to help solve its new social, environmental, legal, administrative and economic challenges (i.e. the capacity to be competitive);
3. Optimize the City resources by maximizing investments and spending on the short, middle and long terms (good financial management of assets, continuous quality improvement);
4. In collaboration with other municipalities, trigger opportunities to promote industrial ecology as a development tool to the businesses and industries operating on their territories;
5. Support economic development strategy while reducing its impact on ecosystems and humans.

In order for the City to reach its goals, the first step of the LA21 process is both to assess the actual situation (diagnostic), to adopt a long-term intervention reference frame (15-20 years) but also a short-term action plan (3-4 years). This has been done between February 2005 and November 2006 for the City of Sorel-Tracy.

These are the Phase 1-3 in the LA21 process, as seen in the illustration. Click here to see the complete illustration

The first three phases are easier to accomplish. The real challenge comes with when concrete actions are to be done with fast-pace changes all over. For any organization to include social, environmental and economic aspects, an approach must be developed to progressively but radically change usual organizational practices, in-house culture and structures, both from within the organization and its stakeholders.

A Local Agenda 21 Action plan: the example of Sorel-Tracy

Local Agenda 21 - Action Plan

In order to build up a more functioning model to reach the sustainable goals set by the City, a diagnostic of the state of the LA21 has been obtained through analysis of the data from interviews with all partners; following that diagnostic, two innovative models have been created: the first one is based on long-term goals for each sustainable development pillar but also as a whole, while the other one is a simple and inclusive governance model. These two models have been proposed and adopted at the First Partners’ Forum, May 26th, 2008.   

Sorel-Tracy’s Agenda 21 based on local and global long-term goals Click here to see the complete illustration

This model has been created so that both the City and its partners can use it, internally and externally. The global vision is attached to its three specific visions to optimize individual, collective and organizations actions in the Local Agenda 21:

The global vision: An innovative community born from water, earth and fire

Proud of its heritage, its culture and its people, the City of Sorel-Tracy wishes to develop itself by remembering its past while aiming also to reduce its common ecological footprint. Innovation processes that include the potential and strength of both Nature and the population will be used to realize this holistic vision.

Environmental long-term goal: Zéro CO2 in 2020

This long-term goal is an invitation to enterprises, organizations and individuals to modify their practices in order to decrease the commnity’s overall ecological footprint. Innovative solutions will be needed in order to sharply reduce the CO2 emissions, which are partly responsible for climate changes that have an impact on the planet.

Social long-term goal: Healthy neighbourhoods

This long-term goal has been set up to insure that all of the City sectors (residential, industrial, commercial, green spaces and such) are planned in order to allow for continuous improvement of public health. This can include concerns for safety, air and water quality, access to nature, public transport, etc.

Economic long-term goal: Sustainable socio-economic growth

This long-term goal is to promote and support the diversity of potential from the community, whether in a broader offer of economic models (industries, commerce, institutions, social economy, volunteer work, etc.), by encouraging business of any size or by supporting the milieu in order to have a broader offer of products and services. This vision includes that both men and women, native or immigrants can take a full part in the socio-economic growth of their community by sharing their expertise, experiences, capacities, dreams and structuring projects.

Sustainability-building tools:

In order to reach these goals together, tools are needed. Many of those are already available: training and competence building, in-dept studies and marketing for the Local Agenda 21.

Partners in sustainability:

At the heart of the project, you have the human aspects. Three main action groups have been identified:

-Citizens’ participation
-Partners’ actions and initiatives
-City’s coordination

The Technocentre is now preparing a Chart where social, environmental and economic data will be entered, in order for the LA21 plan to be monitored, evaluated and promoted. The overall objective is to be able to trigger individual and collective changers in order to be more sustainable but also to promote the good practices, so that everybody can work with the same global vision in mind.

Many training sessions with board members, employees and individual sessions will be needed to obtain a consensus between partners that will lead to cohesion.

The structure of governance is an innovation system: Click here too see the complete illustration

- The Forum
Held every six months, the Forum is a full day of work where partners’ directors and presidents meet to have an update on the Local Agenda 21 and to discuss the next steps of the process. The Forum can also include enterprises and private and public organizations that would wish to get involved in the Local Agenda 21. Decisions are taken by the partners who have signed the Local Agenda21 Declaration.

- The steering committee
Meeting every 5-6 weeks, the steering committee members represent the City but also business and organizations from the three main pillars of sustainable development: business and economy, environment and social issues. The steering committee is responsible for preparing and holding and follow-up of the Forum sessions. It is also working on the Sustainable Development Chart, which includes choosing the most pertinent indicators and will be responsible for the follow-up of the indicators, in collaboration with the Technocentre. Other people can be participate in the steering committee; it’s the case for individuals and group representants who work on sustainable building tools.

- The three expert committees
The members of those committee meet to share their experiences, methods and knowledge from some strategic (multi-organizational) or tactic (specific to the organization) projects, in order to build a wider expertise in all three pillars of sustainable development so that concrete sustainable goals can be reached. These three committees then relate to the steering committee in order to include all of the three sectors or sustainable development into the overall objective.

- Citizens’ participation
Citizens’ participation is tantamount to participative democracy and sustainable development practices : it must be taken into account at all governance levels and can be included in an active or indirect way.

- The Technocentre
The Technocentre is the consultant firm that technically support the Local Agenda 21, both for the Forum sessions , the steering committee and the expert committees but does not have the mandate to do projects, whether strategic or tactic. Nonetheless, the Technocentre can offer or participate in the creation of sustainability-building tools and methods.

- The City of Sorel-Tracy
The City of Sorel-Tracy coordinates its Local Agenda 21 so members of the town council or municipal employees can be members of the steering committee and the Forum sessions; the municipal employees can also participate in the expert committees.

Next steps

Following the first Partners’ Forum for Sorel-Tracy’s Local Agenda 21, the Technocentre will offer training sessions, starting fall 2008 while meetings sessions will also be organized to define the most pertinent evaluation indicators for the LA21. The inclusion of citizens’ participation will also be discussed and analyzed in order for them to fully play their role in the LA21. Those subjects will be at the core of the next Forum session that will be held at the end of 2008.