The development of Transport Canada`s sustainable transportation strategy

The Government of Canada, in its mid-1995 greening of government initiative, has stated that federal departments are to integrate sustainable development principles into their policies and programs. For Transport Canada, which exercises responsibility for the transportation sector within federal jurisdiction, this means an integration of environmental concerns with the more traditional departmental mandate of transportation safety and efficiency. Each federal minister is required to prepare a sustainable development strategy within his or her departmental mandate. For Transport Canada, sustainable development combines environmental management systems and a sustainable transportation strategy. The paper defines sustainable transportation within federal jurisdiction, the evolving departmental responsibilities and trends in transportation in Canada. It articulates the department`s approach to sustainable transportation in terms of a goal and strategic objectives. Barriers are defined along with organizational opportunities. Eight strategic challenges are briefly described. The paper concludes with a description of the process used to develop the strategy and some remarks on more general application of the lessons learned.