APRIL 10, 2025 11:00 – 12:30 ET

We were delighted to host our Context-Based Sustainability (CBS) Community of Practice meeting as our April C4FE, with r3.0 and the University of Guelph. The session brought together practitioners, researchers, and newcomers interested in learning about CBS applications across different scales and contexts.

The meeting featured several key updates, beginning with Jon Beale‘s overview of the Local Futures project, a three-year initiative funded by the Canadian federal government. This exciting project is establishing five municipal-university partnerships across Canada to localize Sustainable Development Goals through collective impact approaches and CBS methodologies.

Bill Baue shared developments on the Bioregional Caring Capacities initiative, highlighting recent sessions that explored how CBS can bridge municipal and regional assessment approaches. Participants were particularly interested in the upcoming Devon Donut project presentation and future university-led studies examining bioregional applications in Cascadia.

Bill Baue shared developments on the Bioregional Caring Capacities initiative, highlighting recent sessions that explored how CBS can bridge municipal and regional assessment approaches. Participants were particularly interested in the upcoming Devon Donut project presentation and future university-led studies examining bioregional applications in Cascadia.

If you weren’t able to join us for this insightful session, we’ll be continuing these conversations at future meetings and at the R3.0 conference in September where Daniela will present the complete research findings.

Thank you to everyone who participated and contributed to these important discussions about advancing context-based approaches to sustainability! If you were unable to make it to the C4FE event don’t worry! We’ve captured the key takeaways from the sessions for you below.

Event Summary

AI-generated meeting summary

Summary (By Morgan Bath)

In addition to updates and discussions from Jon and Bill, a significant portion of our meeting was dedicated to Daniela Senkl‘s presentation on preliminary findings from the SSHRC-funded study comparing municipalities that have attempted to navigate toward thresholds by adopting the Donut Economics model and Nanaimo, the first city internationally to adopt the CBS method. The ten interviews completed to date have revealed Doughnut cities commonly facilitate performative community engagement practices that don’t align with pursuing thresholds. It also appears they lack an understanding of what is necessary to authentically define a threshold and some struggle to distinguish between political targets and science-based thresholds.

Rich conversations emerged around applying carrying capacity concepts to both environmental and social dimensions of sustainability, with participants exploring how the CBS framework inherently includes both components through its systemic approach. Randy provided valuable insights on the strategic role of stakeholder engagement in CBS implementation, emphasizing the importance of connecting with senior leadership on risk management and complexity navigation.

The meeting concluded with thoughtful reflections on bridging different approaches to sustainability, including CBS quantification methods and cultural/regenerative perspectives. Participants discussing the value in collaborative approaches rather than seeing these methodologies in opposition.

Resources from the Community Chat
Lawn, P. A. (2001). Scale, prices, and biophysical assessments. Ecological Economics, 38(3), 369–382. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0921-8009(01)00172-0
Useful and approachable overview of CBS: https://www.sustainableorganizations.org/Best%20Practices%20in%20CBS.pdf
McElroy, M. W. (2008). Social footprints: Measuring the social sustainability performance of organizations. ThomasNet/Center for Sustainable Innovation. ISBN 978-0-615-24274-3 
‘Mind blowing’: Grizzly bear DNA maps onto Indigenous language families | Science | AAAS
Johnston, L. J. (2022). Architects of abundance: Indigenous regenerative food and land management systems and the excavation of hidden history (Publication No. 29325639) [Doctoral dissertation, University of Alaska Fairbanks]. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global.