Goal-Driven or Data-Driven? Inventory of Sustainability Indicator Initiatives in Rural Canada

Abstract

This article seeks to address knowledge gaps on sustainability indicators (SIs) in rural and natural resource-dependent communities, considering how they are used to contextualize sustainable development priorities and support local governance. We build on recent scholarship on the potentials of SIs for stimulating societal transformation, extending this inquiry into rural and resource-based communities which have been under-represented in SI research. The governance challenges facing rural Canada, as well as its geographic and socio-economic diversity, provide a unique context for examining these issues. We provide relatively uncommon synthetic findings by compiling an inventory of SI initiatives across 39 rural communities and regions of Canada. Using the Community Capital Framework, we examine grey literature and academic publications related to each initiative spanning from 1999–2019 to determine the breadth of sustainable development priorities considered. Informed by collaborative and multi-level governance frameworks, we explore how these initiatives are used to support multi-stakeholder collective action. This article finds that rural Canadian SI initiatives prioritize socio-cultural capital, with relatively fewer economic and ecological indicators, while identifying a typology of SI use and inter-related governance dynamics informing how these priorities and indicators are determined. Although some initiatives display highly collaborative and bottom-up processes, many rural Canadian SI initiatives are characterized by a data-driven approach that, when met with local capacity gaps, fails to contextualize standardized datasets to reflect rural realities. We encourage more in-depth investigation of these findings and comparison of Canadian experiences to other jurisdictions.

Territorial Dynamics Supported by a Collaborative Network of Innovation Labs: Toward an Approach to Establish a Portfolio of Indicators to Monitor and Assess their Territorial Impact

“…Collaboration is the most sustainable and complex means to set up because all resources, such as information, expertise, and physical tools are shared. Moreover, collaboration is composed of formal and informal interactions (Graça & Camarinha-Matos, 2017); it makes it possible to develop trust between actors (Lowery et al, 2020). The organizations involved in collaboration frequently carry out projects together (Memon et al, 2018).…”

Impact of Rural Tourism Development on Residents’ Satisfaction with the Local Environment, Socio-Economy and Quality of Life in Al-Ahsa Region, Saudi Arabia

“…This is important to counteract the economic problems in the rural and agricultural environment, particularly in peripheral areas that cope with low farm income, high levels of unemployment and emigration of qualified individuals [ 1 ]. Furthermore, rural regions suffer from the lack of available options that promote the local development outside agriculture, which has led decision makers to set strategic plans for the social and environmental aspects [ 2 , 3 , 4 ]. Therefore, policy changes that target rural economies via implementing novel sectors have been conceptualized by multiple governments to overcome the negative consequences on the quality of life of rural area residents [ 5 ].…”