Context-Based Sustainability: A systemic management innovation for navigating toward science- and ethics-based thresholds

Bill Baue and Randy Sa’d

Exploring a breakthrough method for applying thresholds at an organisational scale and a leading municipal sector case study

This workshop examines how context-based sustainability (CBS) can be leveraged to overcome the complexity involved in implementing science- and ethics-based thresholds to transform how well municipalities navigate toward sustainability.

The unsustainability of human activity over more than 50 years has led to a global poly-crisis made up of interconnected, runaway failures of Earth’s vital natural and society’s social systems. To assess and improve their impacts, municipalities commonly employ sustainability-focused performance management practices. International bodies that set standards for sustainability-focused performance management practices (e.g., the Global Reporting Initiative) have recognised that sustainability, by definition, can only be achieved by respecting the limits of our ecological systems and meeting the social needs most critical to human well-being (i.e., science- and ethics-based thresholds). However, they have deployed frameworks and methods that encourage incrementally improving impacts without reference or accountability to thresholds. For example, a municipality reporting it has reduced water consumption by 15%, while positive, provides little insight into the sustainability of its consumption. Unless we know the volume of water the local watershed can renewably supply each year (i.e., the context-based threshold) and what volume of that supply it would be equitable to allocate to the municipality, taking into account all other stakeholders dependent upon the same watershed, we don’t have a basis for authentically or accurately assessing the actual sustainability of the water consumed.

This equitable allocation of global thresholds across entities at lower scales, including municipalities, represents a complex challenge that is addressed by CBS. Established in 2008, CBS is an evolved performance management methodology designed to enable organisations to overcome the complexity involved in measuring and reporting impacts against science- and ethics-based thresholds in a manner consistent with how organisations assess their financial performance.

To enable municipal leaders to effectively define thresholds, REFOCUS and r3.0 have been developing and testing CBS. Over the past 18 months, REFOCUS has comprehensively applied CBS with the City of Nanaimo, making it the first municipality in the world to do so. In 2021, the City adopted the doughnut economics model as part of developing a 20-year Community Plan, with a commitment to aligning with thresholds. They attempted to define the doughnut’s global thresholds at a community scale but had an exceedingly challenging experience. For support, the City engaged REFOCUS to apply CBS, and the transformative results achieved have demonstrated applying CBS has great potential to enable municipalities to effectively transition toward thresholds.

KEYWORDS: thresholds & allocations, science-based targets, Planetary Boundaries & Social Foundations, performance management, multi-capitalism

RSD TOPIC(S): Case Studies & Practice, Economics & Organizations, Health & Well-Being