Framework
The Sustainability of the community and the region is important to the three Councils of Outer Eastern Melbourne. Each Council has developed a Vision for the future:
| Knox 2020 | Maroondah 2025 | Yarra Ranges Vision 2020 |
| Knox City Council and the community: a partnership in progress, creating safe, healthy and caring communities with unique character, committed to protecting the environment and the economic sustainability for future generations. | Our Vision is that Maroondah will be a vibrant city. It will have an active community, a strong local economy and a diverse cultural life in a prosperous and sustainable environment. | Yarra Ranges will be a vibrant and dynamic Shire based on strong local communities living in a place of great natural beauty. Our world class Shire will be sustained by a strong local economy and a rich social fabric that is consistent with and supports its environmental values. |
Together these visions create a picture of a sustainable region. Each council is committed to working with to develop a community-wide understanding of what is needed to achieve sustainability and to ensure that our actions today do not limit the range of economic and environmental options open to future generations.
In consultation with the community, a number of indicators have been developed under the following seven major themes to help us monitor our progress.
- An active, healthy community
- A culturally rich community
- A learning community
- An accessible community
- A community that protects and enhances the environment
- A prosperous community
- A well-designed and built community
Whilst these indicators report to the community they are also a focus for improvement. We acknowledge the need to reduce our ‘ecological footprint”, resource usage and waste production. Ultimately indicators have to shift emphasis from money and consumption to factors that relate to the quality of our lives (socially, economically and ecologically). These indices point to the purpose of economic and regional development – to build better lives.
This website has been developed to demonstrate current regional performance, trends and the targets towards which we should be aiming. Information on actions that Council, agencies and individuals are taking to improve indicator performance are provided to galvanize action.
How were the indicators selected?
There are many potential measures of community sustainability. The challenge for this project was to select the set of indicators that would be most meaningful to the community of Outer Eastern Melbourne.
To do this, a pool of measures was collected from those used elsewhere and from those identified by community interest groups and experts. The following flow chart demonstrates how the indicator pool was filtered down from over 200 indicators to our final suite of 30. Indicators continue to evolve as better data comes to hand.
Questions on the filter tool were used by the proejct team and sector experts to ensure that the best indicators were chosen.
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