Co-Creating Innovative Solutions to Foster Sustainability Justice

Co-Leads: Manuel Riemer and Randy Sa’d

Research Streams: VERiS General, FEI, European Stream

Funding: SSHRC Connection Grant, VERiS, City of Kitchener

Rationale and Objectives

Municipalities and other local authorities play a critical role in achieving the targets of the 2016 Paris Agreement and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Many have already developed comprehensive corporate and/or community climate action plans (CAP) that lay out specific steps for reducing Greenhouse Gases (GHG) across sectors. There can be unintended consequences of these climate actions prioritized by municipalities on our societal and ecological systems, however, especially within already marginalized communities. Existing inequities may actually be made worse rather than reduced. In addition, the potential for impactful co-benefits of climate action (e.g. community ownership of local regenerative energy projects) is often not being realized. Now, municipalities, their stakeholders and partners are taking steps towards addressing sustainability justice more systematically, including rethinking approaches to strategic planning and creating opportunities to develop more sustainable and equitable communities. It is our goal to support them in identifying, testing, and scaling innovative approaches and tools.

What are we doing?

VERiS and its affiliated Flourishing Enterprise Institute (FEI) have initiated a partnership designed to address equity and accessibility gaps within municipal climate action planning through collaboration among four key stakeholder groups: Municipal actors, equity-seeking groups, academics, and (social) innovators. The initial group of partners established recently received a highly ranked Connection Grant from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

For the purpose of developing a strong and diverse partnership within Canada and internally VERiS will be hosting a series of three virtual 90-minute workshops featuring keynote presentations, panel discussions, and breakout discussions this fall. Participants will have the opportunity to provide input and feedback, and engage with other partners by leveraging an online engagement platform.

The workshops seek to:

1. Exchange knowledge, identify gaps and barriers to the integration of sustainability justice into municipal climate action plans and establish how to tap into the strengths of existing organizational networks
2. Explore how innovative and more holistic management approaches and tools can be applied to change the way city planning is generally practiced, creating the potential for a more fundamental shift towards more integrated, holistic and inclusive thinking
3. Assess the potential and lay the foundation for a joint longitudinal multi-case and multi-national research program focused on exemplary case studies and innovative approaches

These workshops will identity a potential shared research focus, create a general approach for a joint research program, and generate the structure for a learning community designed to facilitate ongoing exchange, co-learning, and collaboration. Ultimately, this exchange is intended to set the foundation for the launch of a long-term applied research program led and supported by a diverse collective of committed partners.

Current and Past Partners

Municipal Actors

• Canadian Municipal Network on Crime Prevention
• Canadian Urban Sustainability Practitioners
• City of Kitchener
• City of Thunder Bay
• City of Toronto
• Clean Air Partnership
• Climate Action Waterloo Region
• District of Ucluelet
• Dufferin County
• ICLEI
• REEP Green Solutions
• Region of Peel
• Regional Municipality of Durham
• Sustainable Waterloo Region

Equity Seeking Groups

• ABC Network of Waterloo Region
• Agirre Lehendakaria Center
• Canadian Centre on Disability Studies Inc. o/a Eviance
• David Suzuki Foundation
• Future Ancestors Services Inc.
• Kinbridge Community Association
• North Bay Indigenous Friendship Centre
• Progress Toronto
• Sustainability Through an Inclusive Lens
• The Integrated Community Development Group

Academics

• Balsillie School of International Affairs
• Colgate University
• Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg
• Georgian College
• Humber College
• Macalester College, Department of Environmental Studies
• McMaster University
• OCAD University
• Ryerson University
• Tufts University
• University of Auckland, School of Psychology
• University of Groningen
• University of Toronto
• University of Waterloo
• Viessmann Centre for Research and Engagement in Sustainability
• Wilfrid Laurier University

Innovators

• Centre for Sustainable Organizations
• Co-operative Enterprises
• EIT Climate-KIC
• Flourishing Enterprise Institute
• FlourishX
• Green Beacon
• International WELL Building Institute
• Kennedy Consulting
• Local2Global Solutions
• McConnell Foundation
• r3.0 
• Shareable.net
• The Roots Collaborative
• Transformation by Design

Co-Leads: Manuel Riemer, Stephanie Whitney, and Hillary Scanlon (STIL Executive Director)

Project Manager: Alicia Bevan

Stream: VERiS General

Funding: SSHRC Partnership Engage Grant

Background Information

Disabled populations remain overlooked within academic literature on social sustainability and community-level policy and planning geared towards enhancing societal participation in sustainability initiatives. Upwards of 1.5 million Canadians are currently living with Vision Loss (VL); however, the ability of the VL population to participate in sustainability initiatives (e.g., recycling, community gardening, etc) is often hindered by poor design and other physical barriers. These roadblocks to participation represent disability discrimination and a violation of basic human rights. Reaching Canada’s sustainability goals (including achievement of international commitments) will require inclusive approaches that enable every individual (including those living with disabilities) to participate in solutions to sustainability problems. This project works to address the barriers to sustainability that exist for individuals living with VL .

What are we doing?

VERiS has partnered with Sustainability Through an Inclusive Lens (STIL) Solutions, a for-profit social enterprise. STIL was established by a visually-impaired Laurier student to help enhance the ability of individuals with disabilities to participate in sustainability initiatives through technological innovation and inclusive policy development. Working with the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) and other key organizations, STIL has developed a WasteFinder system – a series of visual and tactile indicators on the ground adjacent to waste disposal units that assist persons with VL to independently and correctly dispose of their waste.

In this project, VERiS will work with STIL on a case study of the WasteFinder system, which will be piloted at Wilfrid Laurier University. The study will employ a mixed method study design (i.e., quantitative, qualitative methods) that will be conducted pre- and post-installation to address the following objectives:

1. Assess the ability of the WasteFinder to enhance the ability of VL individuals to independently and correctly dispose of their waste and their perception of and participation in sustainability
2. Ascertain whether the installation of the WasteFinder system impacts the awareness of inclusivity and accessibility opportunities, in the context of sustainable practices, of the broader Laurier community.
   
   
   More than a mere assessment of the WasteFinder, the study will contribute to the nascent body of research knowledge on the disability, sustainability and inclusivity nexus.

Co-Leads: Randy Sa’d and Peter Jones

Research Streams: FEI, VERiS General

Rationale and Objectives

The current year, characterized by the COVID-19 crisis and continuing pressure of climate change effects, offers a rare period during which to observe and develop organizational responses to complex crisis drivers. Especially at the municipal level, which planning scholars identify as the most effective locus of climate and environmental planning (Wheeler, 2013, Measham, et al., 2013), we may have access to response strategies and can advise on better strategy in complex planning. The City of Kitchener, Ontario has partnered with the Flourishing Enterprise Institute (FEI) @ VERiS to complete an applied research study as part of addressing the challenges they currently face. Kitchener is the fastest growing city in Canada, a high-tech industry center, and recognized for its leadership in public engagement, climate action planning, storm water management, economic development, community well-being and more.

While facing the immediate task of responding to short-term impacts of the pandemic, Kitchener leaders recognize the municipal planning practices they currently employ require change to cope with the increasingly volatile and uncertain situation emerging environmentally and societally.  In recovering from COVID-19 and building resiliency in anticipation of devastating events that will predictably occur more frequently in the future, Kitchener is proactively seeking to make fundamental changes to strategic planning and senior leadership practices consistent with anticipatory governance (Quay, 2010). 

Supporting this ambition, Kitchener is the first municipality in Canada to engage with REFOCUS, a non-profit cooperative that trains leadership teams to apply their Enterprise Evolution program. Having led a similar engagement of Enterprise Evolution in 2018 with a leading European innovation cluster serving roughly 100 enterprises, the Global Centre of Expertise - Norwegian Offshore Drilling and Engineering (GCE NODE).  An elongated, experiential learning program was delivered to engage GCE NODE members, drawing on a mix of independent learning, facilitated workshops and ongoing coaching sessions to support leadership teams in developing strategic sustainability management capabilities. Kitchener will actively participate with REFOCUS by collaboratively tailoring the programming and tools to be employed for a municipal context and will co-produce the case study for knowledge mobilization from which other municipalities can learn. The FEI’s research plan proposes to assess and study through action learning during the training and transition promised during this set of interactions.

What are we doing?

The COVID-19 PEG proposal defines a research approach based on new thinking in strategic management, collaborative decision making, and complexity to assess decision mindsets, planning models, and management approaches that promise best-fit responses to emerging situational complexity.  The research addresses the need to transform municipal strategic planning for complex social and ecological climate scenarios, enabling a just recovery from COVID-19, and to develop preparedness and resilience within Kitchener to effectively adapt to a complex of future risks. An action case study, based on an action learning approach will be used with Kitchener to address the following research objectives:

1. Assess the experience of Kitchener’s senior leadership team participation in the Business Evolution learning program, for understanding mindsets and individual outcomes (Experience);
2. Explore the factors that mediate effective decision making for complex municipal sustainability and how leadership and planners are addressing those factors (Mediational Factors); and
3. Explore new planning models and assess the changes in perceived capability for leadership sense making of complex situations for future-directed strategic sustainability planning (Impact).

Lead: Bianca Dreyer

Funding: VERiS

If cities are built for people, then how well cities can meet the needs of all its residents now and into the future is an important indicator of their success. Yet, cities find themselves in an unprecedented growth-related (ecological) crisis that could “well undermine the prospects for a global civilization” (Rees, 2009, p. 300). Thus, there has been an increasing demand for urban transformation towards sustainable, healthy and just places for a growing urban population (UN 2012, UN 2015, WBGU, 2016; Skodra, 2018).

This project aims to develop an in-depth, socio-ecological understanding of the transformative potential of urban just sustainability projects in the area of affordable housing. The project is an in-depth case study focused on exploring how participatory co-production projects can address ecological and social needs. Affordable housing presents an opportunity to pursue just sustainabilities, as buildings are an important target area for climate change mitigation, given that they account for 40% of global energy use and 33% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (UNEP, 2012), and 30% of cost of housing is wrapped up in energy.

The project partner and case study subject is Critical Concrete (CC), a non-for-profit organization in Porto, Portugal, that connects communities with urban development professionals, architects, construction experts, academics, social workers and a team of multidisciplinary students in active and collaborative community-based revitalization planning. CC engaged in co-production projects of affordable housing complexes in 4 Summer Schools (2016, 17, 18, and 19) with students, local communities and content mentors. 

The study objectives are to:

1. Explore and articulate how co-production of affordable housing provides an example of transformation for urban just sustainability.
2. Assess the processes that facilitate/ impede transformation across stakeholder groups and settings. Understand the short- and long-term effect of co-production (as a social practice) on other socially and ecologically unsustainable practices for CC members (students, staff and mentors).
3. Assess how the CC program can inform future program development and knowledge mobilization activities in the area of sustainability justice and recommend improvements for CC programming.

Co-Leads: Jennifer Dobai, Manuel Riemer and Bianca Dreyer

Funding: NSERC, Wilfrid Laurier University, VERiS

Rationale and Objectives

To work towards sustainability justice a “better quality of life for all, now and into the future, in a just and equitable manner, whilst living within the limits of supporting ecosystems” (Agyeman et al., 2003, p.5) municipalities and local authorities can create climate action plans. Sustainability justice links the planning, implementation, and assessment of sustainability and climate mitigation and adaptation initiatives with considerations of equity and accessibility. While - in principal - sustainability as a concept includes clear links to social justice and most actors working in this space embrace values of equity and accessibility, in practice opportunities to create co-benefits and change systems more holistically are often missed, while in other cases it actually exacerbates existing inequalities or produces new ones. This project aims to support Waterloo Region in planning their climate action plan to ensure social justice and equity considerations are included in the plan and planning process, along with greenhouse gas emission reductions.

What are we doing?

To address sustainability justice in the context of municipal climate action planning, our team is working with ClimateActionWR, which is a collaboration between local organizations and community members focused on climate change mitigation led by Reep Green Solutions and Sustainable Waterloo Region. To ensure social justice and equity considerations are included in the upcoming Climate Action Plan for Waterloo Region we have provided evidence-based recommendations through a living literature review document, a guiding checklist and visual model of sustainability justice. The former document was created for the purpose of reviewing the literature and existing case studies to support municipal climate action planning teams who are interested in fully integrating sustainability justice (SJ) into their strategic planning. The guiding checklist is a supporting document that includes key questions for decision-makers to consider in all stages of municipal climate action planning: the overall framing (e.g., mandate, mission and value statements), process (e.g., through representation and participation), approaches and strategies to change (e.g., free installation of solar panels for low income housing), and evaluation and assessment (especially impact on equity-seeking groups). We hope the review can be used to strengthen local capacity and become a tool for advocacy to create better conditions for local actors to meaningfully address social justice and equity in their planning.

We will continue to support ClimateActionWR by providing evidence-based research and reviewing their plan documents to ensure social justice and equity is at the forefront of their plan and planning.

In addition to supporting ClimateActionWR in their climate action planning, we are conducting a study focused on understanding how the core groups involved in climate action planning in the Waterloo Region at the municipal leadership level are considering social justice and equity in their strategic planning as well as more generally how they conceptualize the idea of sustainability justice in the context of their work. The results from this study will be used to further support ClimateActionWR in their planning and inform our larger project Towards Just Transitions: A Partnership for Addressing Equity and Justice within Municipal Climate Action Planning. Specifically, the objectives of the proposed research are to determine

1. How groups perceive issues of justice and equity in climate action planning.
2. To what extent is justice and equity represented in climate action planning, if at all.
3. What are the reasons for justice and equity being or not being represented in planning?