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Our sustainability plan

Bristol’s vision for its year as European Green Capital in 2015 is for the city to become one of the global leaders in sustainable urban living. As the company specifically established to manage the Bristol 2015 programme, we believe it is important to set out clearly how we plan to operate and behave in a responsible and sustainable manner.

This, our initial sustainability plan, is just a starting point. We will be developing further details during the course of 2014 in preparation for next year’s programme.

Our research and planning will involve wide consultation with local people, businesses and experts.

The starting point is our Bristol 2015 Ltd Sustainability Policy, in which we set out our vision, objectives and key management commitments.

While we will address all elements of the diverse subjects which make up sustainability, we believe we should focus the Bristol 2015 campaign on a limited number of priority themes, which we will define by consulting with relevant parties during 2014. In principle, we will highlight areas where Bristol has made significant progress and gained valuable experience, but also where further challenges and opportunities lie.

In addition to complying with all applicable legal requirements, our programme will be underpinned by key principles of ‘sustainable development’: namely, Inclusivity, Integrity, Stewardship and Transparency. In practice this means we will be adopting the following measures:

– Integrating sustainability principles into the day-to-day management of Bristol 2015 Ltd, working closely with Bristol City Council and the Bristol Green Capital Partnership, and achieving third party certification to the globally-recognised event sustainability standard ISO 20121.

– Developing partnerships with non-Governmental organisations, community groups, businesses, professional bodies and academia to help make the most of the opportunities provided by the European Green Capital year, and to use it to mobilise enthusiasm and maximise benefits.

– Providing regular reports of progress towards our overall objectives.

– Procuring goods and services sustainably with an emphasis on local suppliers, supporting the Bristol Pound, supplier diversity, fair employment and environmental attributes, as well as other social and ethical criteria as appropriate.

– Setting measurable targets and key performance indicators (KPIs) for each of our priority themes and establishing an independent study to monitor the impact of the European Green Capital programme in 2015.

– Creating a learning legacy resource (the ‘Bristol Method’) to record the benefits and learning from our programme and other green city initiatives.