Environmental quality is essential to long-term economic development and community vitality. The goals in this element include improving and protecting the environment, managing and conserving resources and preserving open space, to ensure healthy and vibrant neighborhoods. A sustainable community recognizes the needs of the present generation without comprising future generations. Sustainable communities provide a business climate where better goods and services are produced using less energy, with less waste and less pollution. Sustainable communities are livable places.
Phoenix is committed to protecting, preserving and restoring the natural environment.
A healthy environment is integral to the long-term economic interests of the City. In achieving a healthy environment, we must strive to ensure that inequitable burdens are not placed on any one geographic or socioeconomic sector of the population. A sustainable community can also strive to reduce its consumption of resources or lessen its impact on the environment. Every community has different measures of sustainability. The Environmental Element includes ten goals.