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Logo reading Local Futures: Communities Collaborating for the Sustainable Development Goals

Bringing universities, municipalities, and community organizations together to work collectively on the Sustainable Development Goals and create a more prosperous and sustainable future.

Assessing progress and future planning: University-Municipal teams collaborate to measure progress towards the SDGs
Collective Impact: Creating a collaborative ecosystem among community actors to build sustainable cities
Data localization: Develop context-specific indicators to measure change at the local level

News

In May, we joined delegates from across the country at the University of Calgary for Together|Ensemble, Canada's leading conference on the Sustainable Development Goals. This year's theme “Mobilizing Local Action for Global Impact” kept the conversation returning to one question: how do we localize SDG action so that what happens in our communities adds up to lasting global change?

Our understanding of sustainability performance can change dramatically when we look more widely at the thresholds of our local sustainability systems. This approach using thresholds in sustainability measurement is known as context-based sustainability. We are very pleased to be partnering with Randy Sa’d to use a CBS approach in the Local Futures project.

We are excited to be launching a new Community of Practice on Collective Impact and the Sustainable Development Goals. This community will be a space for Canadian changemakers to come together to share experiences and build skills towards creating a more collaborative Canada.

Thursday, March 12, 2026

Creating Resilient Urban Futures

In an era defined by "post-normal times", where our traditional social, political, and economic structures are strained or no longer fit for purpose, cities are finding that standard approaches to planning are no longer enough. To bridge this gap, cities are experimenting in using future foresight techniques to transform the collective imagination of diverse stakeholders into concrete, transformative actions that navigate the complexities of an uncertain future.

Wednesday, February 18, 2026

Our Upcoming In-Community Engagement

This March and April, we will be travelling to each of our five Local Futures partner communities to run workshops with community stakeholders and municipal leadership. We are excited to ground our Local Futures work in conversations in communities across the country.

Project Partners

Thank you to all our partners that contribute to making Local Futures a success. Learn more about our project partners.

Logos of all Local Futures partners