Municipal and regional governments can play a key role in global society’s transition towards sustainability. However, municipal leaders often lack a sufficient overview of sustainability and thereby the capacity to coordinate efforts across sectors. Several municipal planning frameworks are available but vary greatly in terms of definitions, scope, and hands-on advice on processes. To complement and unify approaches, the framework for strategic sustainable development (FSSD) has been developed. It utilizes backcasting from operational boundary conditions for the full scope of social and ecological sustainability. This study aims to evaluate a recently developed model for long-term implementation of FSSD across sectors for more cohesive cooperation towards sustainability. This is done through participatory action research (PAR) in ten Swedish municipalities and regions. The evaluation is done to examine if the implementation model (i) lives up to its purpose to help sectors cooperate effectively by using the FSSD as a shared mental model, (ii) aid the handling of previously identified barriers to strategic sustainable development in municipalities and regions, (iii) may contain barriers of its own for appropriate use and (iv) has room for improvement. We used observations, dialogues, and surveys to capture the strengths, weaknesses, enablers, and barriers of the preliminary implementation model. While the compliance of the model varied, our findings show a general appreciation and identified the needs for the approach. From experiencing barriers for the application of the model, practitioners provided several ideas for additional support, such as assessment and alignment support of on-going work and further developed guiding material. In a second phase of the PAR project, application of the implementation model will continue, and such additional support will be developed and evaluated.

Even though large parts of a municipal administration’s work are aligned with social sustainability, this dimension has been somewhat more challenging and there seems to be a vast diversity in how it is approached. Academic literature on the systematic organization of this work is sparse. The aim of this study was to understand how Swedish municipalities organize their work with social sustainability and to find best practices. A survey among 21 municipalities and follow-up interviews with three of them were conducted. The study revealed that the organization of social sustainability work varies considerably among municipalities and that no simple patterns relating to size or existing organizational structures can be detected. Each municipality seems to be finding its own way and is more or less successful in strategically working with this area. Best practice focused on creating additional structures for collaboration across departments, with external actors, and across sectors to at least partly overcome the silo approach engrained in a municipal structure. It was also connected to the active involvement of leaders, clear mandates, and that a common vision for social sustainability was communicated. These lessons can be transferred to other municipalities and help them move towards social sustainability in a strategic way.

In a previous study we tested a model for implementation of methodological support for cross-sectoral collaboration for strategic transition toward sustainability. To make the model viable long-term, practitioners emphasized the importance to recruit and engage leaders into the process upfront, however, this was also the key missing element according to the ten municipalities and regions in the action research project. Nevertheless, if addressed sufficiently, active leadership could favor other needed support, such as capacity building and merging with ongoing work. Therefore, this study aimed to design, test and evaluate an approach to better involve leaders into strategic decision-making for sustainability early on in the collaboration processes. The approach evolved as an in-depth study in one of the municipalities. A pre-assessment based on semi-structured interviews and desktop review was compiled and presented back to municipal top management during a session that included a focus group discussion to capture the leaders' feedback on the assessment as well as advice on how to make the implementation model viable long-term. Results gave that the leaders reached a good understanding of the implementation model and how current practice in the municipality related or could be related to it. As an indicator of spurred engagement and hence, a successful result, one outcome from the session was a strategic decision to carry out a thorough sustainability analysis according to the methodology that the model is supposed to implement. This work is ongoing. In addition, support for alignment with existing management systems was asked for. An evaluation of the approach itself was positive, however, pointed at the extensive work needed for the assessment. Alternative ways, such as self-assessment or peer-assessment was discussed. Forthcoming research will test and further refine the applied approach of this study to enhance strategic decision-making for sustainability while also considering the role of academia in municipal practices for sustainability.

Policies, routines and infrastructure in municipalities and regions significantly influence people's daily behaviours and can therefore play a critical role in facilitating humanity's transitioning towards global sustainability (ICLEI, 2019; Transforming Our World, 2015). Acknowledging this, municipal and regional leaders, including elected officials, managers and other people in strategic roles, have initiated a variety of efforts (e.g., ICLEI, 2019). Even so, progress towards sustainability is too slow in relation to the urgency and magnitude of the challenge. Narrow scopes and weakly coordinated efforts, often referred to as 'work in silos', have been proposed as partial explanations to insufficient governance