Sustainability-Enhancing Initiatives in the Ontario Greenbelt: Evaluation of Three Exemplary Cases

Abstract

The overwhelmingly complex challenge of intensifying environmental issues and rising social inequities at all scales, community to global, and the lack of impactful policy and action, contributes to the negative narrative of the environmental and sustainability field. The severity of the crisis deserves to be critically analyzed; however, the negative narrative does little to encourage genuine engagement and motivation for progress. Therefore, the objective of this master’s research paper (MRP) is to explore stories of positive, creative sustainability initiatives to illuminate examples of sustainability success and how lessons from these stories can inform sustainability practice. This MRP examines three case studies, selected through developed criteria, and explored through a constructed conceptual framework informed by core sustainability concepts in the literature to account for complexity, interconnectivity, and depth. The Ontario Greenbelt, the focal system, provides a specific region that is sustainability-minded due to the protection of land, associated agricultural landscape, and structural support from sustainability organizations, including the Greenbelt Foundation. Three case studies – the Greenbelt Farmers Market Network, the Alderville Black Oak Savanna and the Shared Path Consultation Initiative – were selected through application of explicit sustainability-based criteria and examined through a conceptual framework lens informed by core sustainability concepts in the literature. Each one is centered on a different dimension of sustainability. Together they reflect the complexity of the Greenbelt as a social-ecological system. The reporting uses a storytelling approach, informed through peer reviewed and grey literature, available documentation about initiative activities and interviews with organizers of the initiatives. Each case study provides consistent insights into practices that enhance sustainability, including understanding and appreciating complexity and interconnectivity, supporting community capacity, networking, and forming respectful relationships, and ensuring equity. Unique lessons from each initiative were also observed, providing further insight into sustainability thinking and practices given the social-ecological context of the respective initiative. These stories illustrate the value of focusing on how sustainability is actively being enhanced within communities and the importance of support systems like Greenbelt to encouraging sustainability. Implications on the broader literature includes applications of the framework in examining project in other social-ecological contexts, applying practices in other communities or larger scales, and encouraging research focused on positive pathways to progress towards greater sustainability