Embracing sustainability: the incorporation of sustainability principles in municipal planning and policy in four mid-sized municipalities in Ontario, Canada

Abstract

The issue of planning for sustainability is becoming more established within Canadian municipal planning. As municipalities begin to align their planning policy to reflect a more sustainable approach, there is an increased interest in how sustainability is being operationalised within municipal documents. This research aims to better understand how principles of sustainability are imbedded within Ontario municipal documents, with a specific focus on the Integrated Sustainability Community Planning approach that has emerged in Canada. Drawing on a nested comparative case study of four midsized municipalities, we uncover the language and strategies employed by the municipalities as they relate to the principles of sustainability developed by Gibson [2006a. Sustainability assessment: basic components of a practical approach. Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal, 24 (3), 170-182]. The findings suggest that current policy-based approaches to sustainability are considering more socially oriented strategies focused on promoting community involvement, inclusive decision-making, equity, socio-ecological civility, long-term integrative planning, and responsibility through stewardship. However, there are potential limitations that will require future research to examine policy outcomes associated with sustainability uptake. The ICSP approach must still overcome the issues relating to lack of regulatory authority and the incorporation of policies based on popular trends rather than empirical evidence.

A Systematic Review of Urban Sustainability Assessment Literature

“…Admittedly, such a framing around guiding principles was not strong throughout the literature. Gibson [6] provided the clearest framing, and his generic criteria for sustainability assessment, though not explicitly written for the urban context, has been applied across multiple contexts and was used as an organizing theme for two other papers used in this study [33,34], and other authors articulated principles that if not precisely the same as Gibson's criteria, aligned with the intent. In these cases, such principles were coded by Gibson's terminology.…”

“…The review was restricted to articles regarding sustainability assessment in urban contexts, but articles generated by the search terms focusing on generic sustainability assessment (for instance [6]) were included as well. Though such studies do not address urban assessment specifically, they are often cited as grounding for a wide range of sustainability assessment methods and have been cited in urban sustainability assessment literature [33,34]. In total, these search methods identified 3163 records.…”

“…In fact, grounding urban sustainability assessment in foundational principles of sustainability science was not a common practice at all. Gibson [6] provided the clearest framing, and his generic criteria for sustainability assessment were applied by two other studies [33,34]. Based on the studies reviewed here, there is not a consensus for principle-based urban sustainability assessment frameworks, which creates an important research gap for future studies in this field.…”

“…Some studies framed assessments through a hierarchy of goals/objectives/indicators (for instance [56,71]), while others organized around categories/themes (for instance [35,37]). Likewise, some studies organized around guiding principles (for instance [33,34]), while others organized around the three pillars (for instance [59,75]). It is perfectly acceptable for disparate scholars to develop and apply unique frameworks, but it becomes challenging to draw conclusions across studies when the terminology they use is inconsistent with each other's.…”

Learning through evaluation – A tentative evaluative scheme for sustainability transition experiments

“…Improving governance for sustainability may involve 515 creating and maintaining a flexible decision-making framework and fostering ongoing 516 collaborative decision-making processes with actors at the municipal level. In addition, social 517 inclusion, involvement and a shared sense of ownership of collective decisions as well as 518 human-nature relations need to be ensured in all facets of everyday life through government 519 actors, business, and civil society (Stuart et al, 2014). Experiments also function as safe 520 operating spaces for socio-ecological innovations (Frantzeskaki and Tefrati, 2016) …”