Governance Policy & Planning
Background Study for Annapolis Valley Municipal Integrated Sustainability Plans
In the summer of 2007, Jacques Whitford was engaged by four Nova Scotia municipalities within the Annapolis Valley region – Digby, Annapolis, Kings and West Hants – to create the building blocks of integrated community sustainability plans (ICSPs) within this region.
The rural municipalities and towns within the Annapolis Valley share many common geophysical, environmental, economic and social characteristics and they are using this opportunity to study how to manage sustainability issues in a regional context.
Jacques Whitford is currently completing a background study to determine the specific key components required to create an ICSP for this region – including Federal gas tax funding and broader community sustainability issues. This research will be comprehensive and will include consultation with stakeholders. The ICSPs are scheduled to be completed by 2009.
National Capacity Building Consultations
In 2006/07 Jacques Whitford worked with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) Knowledge Management Unit on a large scale consultation project which engaged more than 200 municipalities across Canada in discussions on capacity building for sustainable development. The project involved a variety of consultation methods including online surveys, phone interviews, and regional interactive workshops.
The Jacques Whitford team came forward with recommended content and rationale for choices of questions and survey frameworks, which was then adjusted based on input from the client at every step of design. The surveys were implemented, a response database was created, and information was analyzed through rigorous quantitative statistical methods.
The face-to-face workshops provided an opportunity to add a depth of understanding to a number of issues that emerged from surveys and interviews. Evaluations from the workshops were extremely positive, and several participants commented that this was their most interactive and engaging consultation experience to date.
By the end of the project Jacques Whitford had reviewed 200 external sources of information targeted at Canadian municipalities. We determined what information was available to build municipal capacity and identified gaps.
Our work provided FCM with a strategic plan for use in the development of future programming.
Environmental Scan and Gap Analysis of Sustainability Resources
In 2006/07 on behalf of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM), Jacques Whitford undertook a study to research, document and evaluate the resources currently available to Canadian municipalities on sustainability. Six campaign areas were examined: planning, water, waste, brownfields, transportation and energy.
The project involved online research, interviews and meeting with various service providers (NGOs, consultants, associations, universities, research institutes etc.) to identify and obtain these resources for review. All resources were then compiled in an online database and reviewed in detail.
Each identified resource was evaluated against an agreed upon set of criteria and received a relative score and a campaign rank, to position its strength in relation to other available resources.
The report to FCM included identification of the top resources in each campaign area and recommendations for what FCM can do to fill the gaps in information. The results of this project will inform FCM’s future plans for creating new resources to meet the existing sustainable development needs of municipalities and decreasing the overlap between FCM’s efforts and those of other service providers.
Strathcona Environmental Sustainability Framework
Since the beginning of 2008, Jacques Whitford has been facilitating the development of Strathcona County’s environmental sustainability framework.
This will allow the County to enhance the quality of life in their resource rich region. Strathcona has demonstrated leadership in Alberta by putting forth a definition of sustainability with four guiding principles for sustainable development, and publishing over 10 distinct sustainability frameworks and programs to target positive change in their community.
Jacques Whitford will take a three-phase approach. Phase One will include an intensive state of the environment assessment, including identifying appropriate environmental indicators and creating a green map of current biophysical and ecological resources. Phase Two will provide a detailed community consultation plan that will engage the public on key issues and set a community vision statement. Phase Three will culminate with the development of a science-based, measurable, and publically supported framework, which will guide future development in Strathcona County.
Community Sustainability Planning Workshops
Since 2005, Jacques Whitford has partnered with a number of municipalities to deliver a series of highly successful workshops on community sustainability planning. Aimed at senior municipal staff in planning, environmental management, and finance, as well as municipal council members and other senior decision makers, the workshops deliver on the following objectives:
- familiarize participants with the concepts underpinning sustainable communities;
- review the opportunities for funding under the Federal Gas Tax program and the Green Municipal Funds;
- understand financial resource, tools and frameworks available;
- discuss how leading municipalities are developing sustainability plans; and listen to case studies on practical sustainable solutions put in place by municipalities.
Taking place in urban, suburban and rural communities and attracting a range of participants from various parts of the country, the workshops are customized to the specific needs of the co-host. In discussion with partner organizations, workshops can be primarily focused on presentations, or centre on shared brain-storming and group discussion. In all workshops an overview of municipal sustainability is provided, and examples of success stories in the theory and practice of sustainability are shared.