Implementing Community Climate Change Action Plans in Canada: The Relationship between Implementation Structure and Outcomes

Abstract

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.