Chequamegon Bay Eco-Municipalities
and the Natural Step

What is an“eco-municipality”? An eco-municipality is one that has adopted a particular set of sustainability
principles as guiding municipal policy and has committed to a bottom-up, participatory approach for implementing this. Over 70 cities and towns in Sweden – 25 per cent of all municipalities in the country - have adopted a common set of sustainability principles and have implemented these widely and systematically throughout their municipal operations and larger communities. The communities have made a resolution to follow the Natural Step Sustainability Principles:

• eliminate our contribution to the progressive buildup of substances extracted
  from the Earth's crust
• eliminate our contribution to the progressive buildup of chemicals and compounds produced by society
• eliminate our contribution to the progressive physical
  degradation and destruction of nature and natural processes
• eliminate our contribution to conditions that undermine people’s capacity to meet their basic human needs.[4]

The concept originated in Sweden in 1983 with the founding of the first eco-municipality, Övertorneå. That pilot project in a northern rural town of 5,000 was such a success that it sparked what today has become a national movement. In 2005, the Wisconsin communities of Ashland, Washburn, and Madison became the first eco-municipalities in the United States when their city councils each voted to adopt the Natural Step Principles. Washburn, WI received an award from Wisconsin’s governor for taking this path-breaking step. Ashland and Washburn, together with Bayfield, WI and the neighboring Bad River and Red Cliff tribal nations, are part of this eco-region initiative .

Learn more about the Natural Step below...