Ecobudget

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"As we can manage artificial resources - money - in term of budget, why shouldn’t we do the same with natural resources?"^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Introduction

The question above is the backbone of ecoBUDGET, an environmental management system developed for local governments developed by ICLEI. Based on the physical description of use and consumption of natural resources within the municipal territory, ecoBUDGET allows local governments to present tangible achievements of their sustainability oriented polices to the greater public. Without assigning monetary value to the environment, ecoBUDGET applies principles and routines of financial budgeting to the management of natural resources. Unlike other environmental management systems, ecoBUDGET is concerned with the management of natural resources within the municipal territory and community as a whole. ecoBUDGET establishes quantitative long term and annual targets must be ratified by the city council and so, can influence the direction of local environment policies.

[edit] History

ecoBUDGET was firstly developed in the 1990's in Germany, thorugh a three-year pilot-project, which lead the cities of Bielefeld, Dresden, Heidelberg and the county of Nordhausen to adopt it and to use it as standard resource management instrument. In 2001, ecoBUDGET was adopted by several European local authorities, namely: Bologna and Ferrara in Italy; Växjö in Sweden; Kalithea and Amaroussion in Greece; Lewes District in UK, Kaiserslautern in Germany. In 2005 and 2006 ecoBUDGET has been adopted in Asia in the cities of Guntur (India) and Tubigon (Philippines).