Environment (Faculty of)

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Now showing 1 - 11 of 11

Deep Decarbonization in Cities: Pathways, Strategies, Governance Mechanisms and Actors for Transformative Climate Action
(University of Waterloo, 2020-09-18) Linton, Samantha Hall; Clarke, Amelia Caroline
As the urgency for climate action heightens, local governments and stakeholders are developing short-term strategies and long-term pathways towards deep decarbonization at the local level. Urban areas are the largest place-based source of greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for 71%-76% of global emissions, and are projected to house 60% of the global population by 2030. Local governments have direct and indirect control of over 52% of emissions that occur within their municipalities. This study aims to qualitatively explore eight cases of best practice cities that are leading the way towards decarbonization. The eight cases are: Bridgewater (Nova Scotia, Canada), Park City (Utah, USA), Guelph (Ontario, Canada), Lahti (Finland), Vancouver (British Columbia, Canada), Oslo (Norway), Toronto (Ontario, Canada) and New York City (New York, USA). Cases were chosen based on the ambitiousness of climate action targets. Each Canadian case was paired with an international case similar in population size. The study was conducted to qualitatively explore the emerging best practice initiatives as well as highlight any patterns among the cities, depending on the population size and/or the national context. The method of qualitative investigation involved interviewing key municipal staff or plan managers on the pathways that are being implemented, the governance structures, the key actors and the tools being used for plan development and implementation. The results of this study fill theoretical gaps in the literature around the pathways that cities of different sizes are developing and the results help to provide understanding and insight on the key variables in deep decarbonization planning and implementation variables. Through identifying the key variables in the urban climate action literature, this study aimed to explore which of these were being addressed in climate action plans, and if cities were going beyond what the literature prescribed. The key research questions related to which sectors were the focus of emissions reduction pathways, what strategies were developed for plan development and implementation, how the plans were organized and governed, what key actors were involved. This study made contributions to the literature on decarbonization frameworks in six key areas by extending the literature to include new initiatives that leading cities are developing. The areas that this study contributes to are: decarbonizing the energy sector in small cities, increasing capacity of local carbon sinks, developing green economy targets and workforce development, formalizing communication structures, bottom up vertical integration tactics, and creating funding mechanisms. The findings from this study can be useful for practitioners working towards local deep decarbonization as well as transnational city networks such as C40, CNCA and ICLEI as it highlights emerging best practices.
Implementing Community Climate Change Action Plans in Canada: The Relationship between Implementation Structure and Outcomes
(University of Waterloo, 2017-04-21) Wong, Krista; Clarke, Amelia Caroline
This research in collaborative strategic management and cross-sector partnership is a study of structures and outcomes in the context of community-wide climate action plans and community-wide energy plans in Canadian cities. Specifically, implementation structures, plan outcomes, and partner outcomes were examined in four Partners for Climate Protection member municipalities: District of Saanich (British Columbia), City of Guelph (Ontario), City of North Vancouver (British Columbia), and City of London (Ontario). The study was conducted to qualitatively explore these concepts in a new context, to understand if there are relationships among them, and to see if there are new lessons learned, or if there are transferable lessons from a previous study in the context of community sustainability plans. The method of qualitative investigation involved interviewing key municipal staff about the implementation structures and both outcome types, and their respective cross-sector core implementation partner organizations regarding partner outcomes. Findings show that these community-wide plans have five implementation structures: communication systems, monitoring systems, partner engagement, partner action, and municipal oversight. Plan outcomes, where available, are positively oriented in the direction of reaching plan goals, and partner outcomes are identical to those identified in the previous study, with a new partner outcome finding – moral support. Findings show that the five implementation structures are crucial for enabling the achievement of plan outcomes, and that partnership design in general is sufficient to produce partner outcomes. The results of this study fill theoretical gaps in the literature around implementation structures for community-wide climate and energy plans; support findings from the larger study by qualitatively examining structures outside of the context of the larger study; provide information useful for the implementation of community-wide climate and energy action plans; and provide an understanding of implementation structures important for plan outcomes.
Implementing Sustainable Community Plans through Market-based Instruments
(University of Waterloo, 2015-10-09) Zhou, Ying; Clarke, Amelia Caroline
Sustainable community development has gained momentum in recent years in order to address complex environmental, social and economic problems at the local level. Municipalities and communities are also becoming interested in the implementation of sustainable community plans. These plans are sometimes called integrated community sustainability plans (ICSPs), local agenda 21s, or may be part of a municipal official/master plan. They generally include environmental goals on: transportation, water, waste, air quality & energy, climate change, food security, ecological diversity and/or land use. Although there are over 1000 of these plans in Canada and over 10,000 worldwide, it is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the gap between formulating and implementing such plans. The focus of this research is on the potential use of Market-Based Instruments (MBIs) for implementing sustainable community plans. Many researchers have investigated the importance of price signals and market-based mechanisms for sustainability. These studies have highlighted the need for Market-Based Instruments as a means for sustainability. Literature discusses the importance of a sustainable community plan for sustainable development and the benefits of Market-Based Instruments for communities. From this review, existing Market-Based Instruments were synthesized and a preliminary set of Market-Based Instruments was developed, for the creation of a Sustainability Alignment Methodology (SAM) tool. SAM tool that was developed for this research, is one which considers Market-Based Instruments under municipal jurisdiction. It might help to achieve the environmental goals in a sustainable community plan. The framework of the developed SAM was deductively tested with publicly available information from two mid-size Ontario communities - the city of Kingston and the Region of Waterloo. Further inductive findings were collected through focus groups with key municipal staff. These two communities were chosen from across Ontario based on a set of criteria. The focus groups gained information on the list of market-based instruments, the categorization of the market-based instruments and the set of scoring criteria. The preliminary version of the SAM tool found acceptance during the focus groups, with some recommendations for revision – such as the exclusion of the scoring criteria. Based on these findings, the preliminary draft of the SAM tool was revised to be more user-friendly. The revised version contains over 50 Market-Based Instruments across eight different environmental topics and identifies the municipal departments associated with these MBIs. This study makes an important contribution to sustainable community development by equipping municipal governments with a better understanding of market-based instruments and providing a useful tool for helping implement their sustainable community plans. It also contributes theoretically to our understanding of MBIs that are applicable at the local level.
Leadership Competencies for Managing and Implementing Sustainability Plans in Canada
(University of Waterloo, 2018-06-29) Chai, Ziqi; Clarke, Amelia Caroline; MacDonald, Adriane
To achieve sustainable initiatives, local authorities are implementing sustainability plans by two different approaches, implementing community-wide sustainability plans with multi-stakeholder partnerships and implementing corporate sustainability plans without multi-stakeholder partnerships. These plans, including Integrated Community Sustainability Plans and Climate Action Plans have roots in global sustainability movements shaped by United Nations initiatives, such as Agenda 21 and Local Agenda 21. Within these movements, municipal actors are both pursuing sustainability goals at the corporate level and partnering with local organizations to achieve sustainability goals at the community level. The role of leadership is recognized as central to the effective management of plan implementation. Professional managerial competencies, as well as sustainability expertise and specialized cross-sector leadership competencies, have been generally discussed as important competencies for individuals managing the formulation and implementation of sustainability plans. However, there is scant research that examines such micro-level dynamics of plan implementation and of multi-stakeholder partnership management, including the specificities of these competencies, such as what competencies are linked to them and how individuals use them to achieve results. This research explores which competencies are most needed to implement sustainability plans and/or manage partner engagement across sectors. The study identifies nine competency clusters and forty-nine competencies. The nine competency clusters include communication, project management, individual attributes, knowledge management, problem-solving, teamwork and cooperation, team leadership, engagement, and impact and influence. Early insights indicate that competencies, such as knowledge integration, communication, facilitation, and relationship-building, are key to facilitating cross-sector collaborations. Similarly, project management, teamwork and cooperation, and team leadership are key to inside sector collaborations. Improved understanding of the key competencies needed to implement sustainability plans may inform training and post-secondary curricula for educating future sustainability practitioners. Ultimately, the aim of this research is to help communities attract and develop the human resources necessary to meet their climate action, energy conservation, and other sustainable development goals.
Local Sustainability Partnerships: Understanding the Relationship Between Partnership Structural Features and Partners’ Outcomes
(University of Waterloo, 2020-04-21) Castillo Cifuentes, Valentina; Clarke, Amelia Caroline
The number of cross-sector social partnerships (CSSPs) has increased at both global and local levels. This is due to the benefits that they bring in solving complex problems such as unsustainable development, and to the organizations that partner in CSSPs. Current research has stated that partner organizations obtain positive outcomes when they join CSSPs. In this study, outcomes are understood through a Resource-based View approach. Moreover, past research has mentioned that structural features within CSSPs - such as communication systems, monitoring and reporting, partner engagement, renewal systems, among others - help partner organizations to achieve their goals. Nevertheless, there is still a gap in the literature about the relationship between the structural features and partners’ outcomes in large CSSPs. This research studies three large CSSPs: Barcelona + Sustainable in Spain (B+S), The Gwangju Council for Sustainable Development in South Korea (GCSD), and Sustainable Montreal in Canada (SM). Each of these CSSPs has more than a hundred partners from civil society, public and private sectors. Through a mixed-methods approach, this research explores the relationship between the structural features of the three large CSSPs and the value given by the partner organizations to their achieved outcomes. Secondary data from three video interviews, and three follow-up interviews with the coordinators of the CSSPs about the structural features was analyzed through qualitative content analysis. Secondary data from 186 partner organizations of the CSSPs was collected through a survey, and it was analyzed through ANOVA Test with the purpose of finding differences in the value given by the partner organizations to their achieved outcomes. With both data sets, abductive analysis was conducted in order to analyze the relationship between the structural features and the partners’ outcomes. The results from the structural features show that the CSSPs adopted similar structural features, however, there were some main differences in monitoring and reporting, partners’ engagement, and the sector composition of the partners. The results of the ANOVA Tests for the partners’ outcomes show differences in community capital outcomes achieved by the partners of Sustainable Montreal, as well as differences in the physical capital outcomes achieved in GCSD. In B+S, there were differences found in the public sector regarding the achieved outcomes on financial capital. The abductive analysis results indicate that the difference shown by the partners of Sustainable Montreal in the value of their achieved outcomes is likely due to the partners’ engagement, decision-making mechanisms, as well as their monitoring and reporting systems. The difference for GCSD is likely due to their monitoring and reporting, along with their partner’s engagement. Lastly, for B+S, the results are likely due to the composition of the partnership. In conclusion, this research offers seven structural features for large CSSPs that are implementing sustainable community plans. In terms of partners’ outcomes, there were differences found outcomes across CSSPs, especially in GCSD and SM. However, it was not possible to find differences across sectors for each CSSP, with the exception of the public sector in B+S. Lastly, in terms of the relationship, the structural features that explain why partner organizations give different values to their achieved outcomes are partners’ engagement, monitoring and reporting, decision-making, and composition of the CSSPs. Understanding the resources that partner organizations can achieve from partnering in a CSSP is crucial for engaging key partner organizations that can contribute with their resources skills to the achievement of the CSSPs’ goals.
Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships for Community Sustainability Plan Implementation: Understanding Structures and Outcomes at the Partner and Partnership Levels
(University of Waterloo, 2016-04-07) MacDonald , Adriane; Clarke, Amelia Caroline
Worldwide, the prevalence and complexity of sustainable development challenges require coordinated action from actors in the private, public, and civil society sectors. Partnerships that embody inclusivity and heterogeneity are emerging as a way forward. Such partnerships build capacity by developing and leveraging the diverse perspectives and resources of the multiple stakeholders that represent all three sectors. Multi-stakeholder partnerships are designed to address and prioritize social problems and due to the number of partners, do not have the resources to negotiate the strategic interests of individual partners. Thus, it can be problematic to define the value proposition for partners involved in multi-stakeholder partnerships. Moreover, multi-stakeholder partnerships address social problems by building and leveraging the collective capacity of the partnering stakeholders; however, there are significant issues related to accessing the necessary resources at the partnership level. This dissertation uses resource-oriented theories to examine how resources are gained at both the partner and partnership levels of analysis. At the partner level, resource-based view theory is used to, i) identify which partnership resources are valuable, rare, and costly for competitors to imitate, and ii) identify how partners can organize to capture value by creating internal implementation structures. Specifically, this study examines the relationship between individual implementation structure and four types of partner capital: physical/financial, human, organizational, and shared. At the partnership level, relational view theory is used to understand how the processes of knowledge-sharing and collaborative decision making work together as subcomponents of structures to develop partnership capital. Two separate surveys were used to collect data for this dissertation: the partner survey and the partnership survey. The partner survey collected data about partner-level implementation and outcomes. It surveyed 42 partners involved in multi-stakeholder partnerships implementing community sustainability plans across Canada. Findings from the partner survey indicate that partners prefer outcomes related to building relationships and gaining knowledge. The survey also found that partners who implement by creating internal structures for implementation, such as creating new sustainability-related positions or teams, experienced more learning and gained further knowledge, better relationships, and more cost savings than partners who did not implement in this way. The partnership survey collected data about partnership-level implementation and outcomes. It surveyed 94 local authorities leading the implementation of community sustainability plans through partnerships from around the world. Findings from the partnership survey indicate that collaborative decision making has a positive effect on communication and renewal systems, which has a positive influence on a partnership’s capacity in the areas of knowledge and learning, relationships, and adaptability. The findings in this dissertation contribute to the social partnership literature by indicating that plan implementation can occur concurrently at two levels: the partner and the partnership level. Moreover, it finds that based on partner perceptions different approaches to implementation at each level may result in varying outcomes for partners and the partnership. The overarching implication of this research is that while multi-stakeholder partnerships and local sustainable development challenges are embedded in complex social, ecological and economic systems, and are themselves complex, there may be aspects within the control of the partners that can contribute to realizing desirable outcomes.
New Revenue and Cost-Savings through Operationalizing Sustainable Community Plans within Small Municipalities in Ontario
(University of Waterloo, 2015-05-28) DeBoer, Reuben; Clarke, Amelia Caroline
This thesis explores the cost-saving potential of market-based instruments (MBIs) and other cost-savings mechanisms for small Ontario municipalities looking to operationalize their sustainable community plans. Market-based instruments are policy tools that encourage behavioral change through financial incentives or disincentives such as water pricing, anti-idling by-laws and user-pay garbage disposal (Clarke & MacDonald, 2012). Small Municipalities refer to all areas with municipal responsibilities, such as local administrations, with an urban core population of 10,000 to 100,000 inhabitants. Small municipalities are using sustainable community plans (SCPs) as a way to determine necessary areas of change. While 265 communities across Ontario are reaping the benefits of their sustainable community plans, small municipalities have been slow in operationalizing their plans due to limited financial capabilities. As a potential response to these limited financial capabilities, three research questions were developed: RQ1: Which market-based instruments or other cost-saving initiatives are related to sustainable community plan operationalization, and are generating cost-savings (and/or new revenue) in small municipalities? RQ2: What is the business case for operationalizing SCPs in small municipalities? RQ3: What are the sustainable community budgeting implications and local government policy implications of this study? Including, what new contributions does this study provide for literature? A multi-case study analysis using key informant interviews was used to research the use of market- based instruments and other cost-saving initiatives as a means of operationalizing small municipalities SCPs within five case communities: Halton Hills, Huron County, Frontenac County, King Township and Huntsville. The research was conducted in partnership with Lura Consulting; Lura is a sustainable consulting agency that specializes in formulating sustainable community plans. Face-to-face interviews with key sustainability personnel were conducted to record the usage of cost-saving or new revenue initiatives. The results of the study describe 22 of the 45 most common market-based instruments and other cost-saving initiatives that are being utilized within the case communities as a means of operationalizing SCPs. Of the total most commonly used cost-saving initiatives, 67 of the 105 initiatives have been directly or indirectly implemented within the case communities. These results further validate the inclusion of market-based instruments as a means of revenue generating or cost-savings.
The Perspectives and Roles of Multinational Enterprises in Local Sustainable Development
(University of Waterloo, 2019-08-27) Eang, Monida Laura; Clarke, Amelia Caroline
As the rate of urbanization increases, cities face mounting socio-ecological challenges. At the local level, businesses are essential for developing cities and livelihoods and providing services to local communities. Local sustainable development addresses pressing urban challenges and future opportunities by mobilizing and empowering multi-level actors for creating transformative changes for societal systems, yet there is limited research linking the private sector, multinational enterprises (MNEs) in particular, and their impact on sustainable development at the local level. MNEs bring distinct strengths to the sustainable development agenda, including: their access to capital, resources, and advanced technology; their ability to transfer resources globally; and their impact on the global economy. Together, their collective resources and assets enable MNEs to reach large-scale solutions needed to coordinate and mobilize pathways for accelerating local sustainable development. The study used a mixed methods research approach to analyze sustainability reports uploaded and registered to the Global Reporting Initiative’s Sustainability Disclosure Database and filtered reports by MNEs with explicit reference to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In total, the study analyzed 349 sustainability reports. Through discourse and frame analysis, qualitative content analysis, and bivariate analysis, reports were examined to analyze how MNEs frame local-level sustainability efforts and to identify the roles of MNEs in local sustainable development. The results show that MNEs frame their local-level efforts with sustainability through five perspectives: corporate social responsibility, corporate citizenship, partnerships, sustainable development, and environmental, social, and corporate governance. The results also identify 10 roles that MNEs can play in local sustainable development, namely through three dominant categories: enabling, facilitating, and coordinating roles. MNEs contribute to local sustainable development as an awareness raiser, community capacity builder, consultant, employee developer, financer, innovator, leverager of supply chains and procurement, partner, product and service provider, and program deliverer. In conclusion, this thesis helps organizations and practitioners leverage the engagement of MNEs by providing an understanding of how MNEs’ legitimate their own actions towards society through the self-declaration of contributions in their sustainability reports which frame their efforts on local-level sustainability. The results show that MNEs are indeed willing to participate in efforts for local sustainable development and have the capacities, resources, and willingness to contribute to local sustainable development planning.
Planning for Social Change Towards Sustainability? Investigating Local Government Strategic Sustainability Planning in Canada
(University of Waterloo, 2015-04-08) Markvart, Tanya I.; Filion, Pierre, 1952-; Gibson, Robert B., 1950-; Clarke, Amelia Caroline
This dissertation investigated the condition of local government strategic sustainability planning (SSP) in Canada as well as the contextual underpinnings of prevailing practices. It asked big questions about where we are going, how we are getting there, and what planning for social change towards sustainability should mean and entail. But one body of scholarship, alone, does not address these queries and scholars have tended to use meagre evaluative frameworks to analyse municipal government SSP initiatives. In response to these research gaps, this study developed an analytical framework that integrates ideas from five pertinent fields of study: sustainability assessment, social-ecological resilience theory, collaborative planning, the New Institutionalism, and lessons learned from experience in municipal SSP. When combined, concepts from these areas of inquiry illuminate the core concerns of SSP in any context. Notions from institutional theory help to explain why practice is the way it is. From this theoretical standpoint the research examined the community-scoping frameworks that practitioners have applied in the plan formulation phase of municipal SSP. Community scoping is a type of participatory analysis that aims to better understand baseline local conditions and provide the foundation for sustainability goals. Because community scoping requires practitioners to make choices with respect to contents and processes, it provides an opening for scholars to investigate the range of sustainability (including resilience), social change and effective practice concerns that community-scoping frameworks have tended to cover. Because community scoping requires public participation, it offers an opportunity for scholars to scrutinize the processes that have been used. Finally, because the community-scoping step must unfold within the context of a particular place, it presents a window for scholars to explore the institutional, built and ecological factors that have influenced practice. This study involved two key stages. The first stage included a Canada-wide search for local government SSP undertakings, the selection of sixty-five municipal SSP initiatives, basic qualitative data collection, and an in-depth analysis of applied community-scoping frameworks. The in-depth examination concentrated on the content and process components of the frameworks as well as the community-specific concerns that were elicited from the public. During this stage, the initially generic and integrated evaluative framework was specified for the local government context and teased apart in order to examine the content and process elements of community scoping separately. Building on the findings of this research, the second, case study stage employed concepts from institutional theory to explain the contextual underpinnings of practice. Three cases were selected, the City of Prince George SSP undertaking in British Columbia, the Town of Cochrane SSP initiative in Alberta, and the Town of Huntsville SSP effort in Ontario. Key informant interviews probed into why certain choices were made in the design of the community-scoping step. The findings of the first research stage showed that communities have committed to the concept of sustainability as an overarching idea. The predominant interpretation of the notion, however, conformed to the prevailing capitalist model of economic growth and development. None of the initiatives used sustainability criteria to structure the community-scoping step. Rather, practitioners preferred to use open-ended questions and sustainability pillars or urban planning categories. The findings revealed that open-ended questions were more effective with respect to covering a diverse range of community-specific matters; however, they tended to miss important sustainability (including resilience), social change and practical enactment concerns. The overall lack of attention that was given to place-specific inter- and intragenerational equity issues, among others, evidenced the limitations of the open-ended, pillared approach. Indeed, the findings exposed a general uncertainty with respect to how to do integrative planning. Additionally, the community-scoping frameworks were generally not clearly underpinned by an intention to shift community systems towards sustainability, and strong collaborative processes undergirded by an intention to facilitate learning and paradigm change were not the norm. The major strength of the interdisciplinary evaluative framework was that it was able to expose prevalent and atypical approaches to thinking and practice with respect to the different components of community scoping. For example, the analysis of community-specific concerns that were elicited from the public revealed a dominant vision and a minority vision for community development. The former projected a business-as-usual community development trajectory, supported by an efficiency-based model of resource maintenance and a mitigative approach to the social-ecological impacts of development. It almost completely ignored the distributive dimensions of socioeconomic systems. In contrast, the minority vision expressed a concern for the distributive dimension of socioeconomic systems; it questioned the power of corporations and our dependence on global markets and fossil fuels; it acknowledged critical thresholds and alternative states of equilibrium; and it emphasized the notions of living locally, zero waste, slowing the pace of growth, and limiting growth. On the whole, the findings of the first research stage depicted a mechanistic approach to public sector SSP. The case studies, interviews and concepts from the New Institutionalism suggested that prevailing practices may be underpinned by an actor’s sense of what is right and good for the local context as well as his or her socioeconomic interests in adhering to some well-established norms in local government SSP. Uncertainty, collective understandings, legislative frameworks, relationships of power, and taken-for-granted interpretations of the roles that municipal governments, citizens, and practitioners should play in SSP may also underpin predominant approaches. While these institutional factors contributed to the durability of prevalent practices, the Town of Huntsville case demonstrated how practitioners could acknowledge the need for change, raise the bar on practice, and introduce new planning norms. The research enriches our understanding of the conceptual basis for theory building about planning for social change towards sustainability. It also contributes to each body of research that comprised the evaluative framework. With respect to practical contributions, this study begins to portray the condition of municipal SSP in Canada relative to a representative set of generic and local-government specific SSP considerations. Opportunities for improvement were underscored, especially with respect to how and when social change and practical implementation concerns should be addressed. This study clearly evidenced the need for planning and community-scoping frameworks that cut to the heart of the institutional underpinnings of prevailing (insufficient) approaches to practice. These contributions raise further questions about how the interdisciplinary analytical framework should be applied in other SSP contexts; the planning realities that might discourage and/or encourage the approach to community scoping that I proposed in this thesis; and whether this approach would lead to greater progress towards sustainability over the long term.
Understanding the Influence of Money Variables on the Outcomes of Sustainable Community Plans
(University of Waterloo, 2018-05-23) Cai, Yushuo; Clarke, Amelia Caroline
Globally, there is a growing popularity among local governments to apply Cross-Sector Social Partnerships (CSSP) to implement Sustainable Community Plans (SCPs). The aim of this study is to understand the link between the distribution of resources and plan outcomes, and to examine the roles of five plan and structure variables (i.e., oversight by government; collaborative oversight; partner engagement mechanism; number of partners; and community-wide actions) as mediators and moderators. A quantitative method has been used to analyze the data collected from 106 communities worldwide. The main findings of this study indicate the importance of contributed resources (internal, partnership structural, community-wide) on the implementation of SCPs. The results also highlight the critical role community-wide actions play in mediating the relationships, and the significance of collaborative oversight, partner engagement mechanism, and number of partners have in mediating the relationship.
Understanding the Strategic Engagement of Partner Organizations in Large Cross-Sector Social Partnerships Implementing Community Sustainability Plans
(University of Waterloo, 2018-08-10) Ordonez Ponce, Eduardo; Clarke, Amelia Caroline
Sustainability is a grand challenge that diverse communities of interest all over the world are currently focusing on at the local and global level. At the local level, thousands of cities have decided to address their sustainability goals through local cross-sector social partnerships, while at the global scale, governments of the world have agreed on the universal aim of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. Cross-sector social partnerships have also been identified by researchers and policy makers as a way to address sustainability challenges, with partner organizations from across sectors playing a key role in the achievement of their sustainability goals. Organizations partnering for sustainability are the focus of this dissertation. Many researchers from diverse disciplines claim that organizations join partnerships for strategic reasons, and that sustainability is a strategic opportunity. Integrated literature on strategy, partnerships and sustainability, however, is sparse, and the strategic engagement of organizations in partnerships has been mostly assessed qualitatively. This dissertation draws on strategic management, cross-sector partnerships and sustainability literature to examine the strategic engagement of organizations partnering across sectors for community sustainability. Building on strategic management literature, this dissertation bases its research on three key variables: strategic goals represented as drivers for organizations to join sustainability partnerships, organizational structural features which reflect how organizations structure to implement the partnership’s collective sustainability strategy, and organizational outcomes as what organizations gain from partnering for sustainability. Drivers and outcomes are studied through the management perspective of resource-based view (RBV), that is complemented with a community capitals approach often used in the public policy literature, and structural features are examined through contingency theory drawing from management literature. The questions this dissertation aims to answer are focused on the strategic engagement of organizations in sustainability partnerships through the understanding of organizational structures, the value organizations assign to drivers and outcomes to assess resources through RBV, the implemented structural features to examine contingency theory, and the strategic relationships among these variables. This research collects data through a survey from 224 organizations partnering in large cross-sector partnerships. Each of these partnerships has an approximate minimum of one hundred partners implementing community sustainability plans; these are found in: Barcelona (Spain), Bristol (UK), Gwangju (South Korea), and Montreal (Canada). The survey reached a response rate of 26% allowing findings to be generalizable, showing good reliability, and with unbiased responses across organizations, partnerships, and types of organizations. Within this data set are responses from 71 businesses on their drivers to partner, structural features for partnering, and partner outcomes, which was complemented with qualitative content analyses to study the relationships between businesses partnering for local sustainability, and the SDGs as a proxy to global sustainability. Findings from this research show that organizations implement structures when partnering for sustainability. However, the findings further reveal that structures do not affect the relationships between goals and desired outcomes, and being highly structured is not imperative for achieving valuable outcomes. Results also show that society-oriented resources such as contributing positively to environmental challenges or collaborating with society are the most valuable drivers and outcomes for organizations; informal structural features are the most implemented for addressing sustainability partnerships (for example implementing plans and policies, or partnering with other organizations); and organizations achieve the goals that drive them to partner. No statistically significant relationships were found between drivers and structures, nor between structures and outcomes. Finally, research on businesses shows a positive relationship between business’ drivers and outcomes and the SDGs, representing an opportunity for businesses to achieve their goals and for business outcomes to contribute to global sustainability. Findings from this dissertation contribute to organizational strategic management, partnerships and sustainability literature by confirming quantitatively that sustainability partnerships are strategic for organizations. This dissertation also contributes to the strategy literature by highlighting the key roles of structures and context in the achievement of strategic goals, presenting a theoretical model that integrates different schools of thought. This research also contributes to the refinement of RBV by highlighting with empirical evidence how valuable societal resources are to organizations, and to contingency theory by confirming that informal structural features are how organizations address uncertain and complex environments such as sustainability. Another contribution from this research is to the partnerships literature by highlighting the power that large cross-sector partnerships have in the achievement of organizational goals. With respect to the business literature, this research also contributes to the understanding of businesses in the context of their engagement in local and global sustainability. From these specific contributions, two main conclusions and theoretical contributions arise. First is the relevance of large cross-sector sustainability partnerships, highlighting the contextual role they play, which together with organizational structures, lead organizations to achieve their strategic goals. And second is the value of societal resources, which can be considered strategic for organizations due to the importance that contributing to society has for organizations, and the way these resources are pursued through organizational engagement in cross-sector partnerships.

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