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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

What a week it was at the United Nations for our Local Futures team! We’re home from the 2026 High Level Political Forum, energized by the effort and momentum to advance the SDGs all around the world.

With less than four years to go in the SDGs mandate, there was a strong message throughout HLPF that we must focus on the implementation of the SDGs.

We are excited to be joining the Canadian delegation to the United Nations next week for the annual global SDGs check-in conference, the High Level Political Forum (HLPF). 

With time running short for the SDGs agenda (ending in 2030), it’s clear the world still has a long way to go. No country in the world is on track to achieve them and progress has been far too slow. Yet there is a lot to remain hopeful for.

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.

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