As Canadian municipalities embrace sustainability, they face the common challenge of translating their high-level visions and plans into tangible progress on the ground. This “planning-implementation gap” is indicative of the need to integrate sustainability into decision-making at every level of the organization. Stratos is pleased to present its first report on strategies for transforming municipal governance and decision-making systems to support sustainability. (click on image to open)

Stratos partnered with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ Green Municipal Fund (GMF) to deliver a workshop entitled “GMF 201: How to apply systems thinking to municipal sustainability” at the Sustainable Communities Conference February 10-12th 2010 in Ottawa, Ontario. The GMF encourages applicants to demonstrate a sustainability approach in their applications to the Fund. The best approaches involve thinking of the city as a system and developing integrated solutions that provide environmental, social and economic benefits, address root causes and consider upstream and downstream impacts. The workshop was designed to increase  participants’ understanding of systems approaches and provide guidance on how to apply this knowledge to GMF applications and projects. (click on image to open)