Finding Common Ground: Integrated Climate Action for Open Smart Communities in Canada

Open North has been at the forefront of finding ways to use data and technology for the common good for over a decade. Since the organization’s founding, Open North has focused on supporting governments to embrace new ways of working with data and technology; with new processes to standardize and open data, applying emerging technologies throughout the data lifecycle. Over the past year, we have been having internal conversations about how to best respond to the needs of our government partners in tangible ways that align with our values as individuals and as an organization. A recurring question is how we apply the ideals of ‘smart’ and ‘open’ to the complex problems that public-sector staff encounter on a day-to-day basis. We see complex problems, sometimes called ‘wicked’ problems, as those that defy traditional solutions, have multiple contributing factors, require an intersectoral approach to addressing them, and whose answer must emerge from within the context within which they manifest. Recently, UN-Habitat identified four major shocks that will impact the global economy and thus shape the future of cities: climate change, extreme poverty and inequality, the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), and COVID-19.^[1] These are truly complex or wicked problems that are all inextricably linked. Given the increasing frequency of extreme climate events impacting communities across Canada, and the disproportionate impact that they have on the poorest residents within our communities, local governments are beginning to develop climate change strategies to reduce emissions, with numerous communities declaring a climate emergency.^[2] With a desire to support public servants and their communities to address the tangible problems that they are facing on a day-to-day basis, a question emerges about whether there is a role for Open North in supporting climate change mitigation and adaptation, and if so, what is that role? 

This paper is our first step in exploring how the open, smart city, data governance, and civic technology expertise that Open North possesses can support governments in their climate mitigation and adaptation efforts. The interconnectedness of climate change with public health, infrastructure, poverty, homelessness, and food security necessitates an integrated, intersectoral, and multilevel governance approach to identifying and iterating on solutions. For Open North, this means defining how local governments can use data and technology to advance integrated climate action in concert with the other ongoing challenges faced at the local level. We acknowledge the ongoing work of organizations that have been championing climate action and environmental justice for years. In line with our organizational values, as we step into the climate action space we will seek to amplify the thinking and experience of others, engage in meaningful interorganizational cooperation, and advocate for the use of contextually relevant data and technology to facilitate the collaboration required to confront such a difficult challenge. It is imperative that the open and smart city discourse more forcefully encompass climate action and that all acquisition and deployment of technology is done with climate change considerations.

One of Open North’s stated values is to pursue the common good by working to identify and remove systemic barriers to participation for people on the margins. Often, the most meaningful action an organization like Open North can take is to hold space for people to step into and take charge of the decisions that impact their lives. Healthy, just, and sustainable communities for all residents requires climate action that centers the lived experiences of systematically excluded populations. Without accurate data, these individuals and communities, and the disproportionate negative impacts that they experience as a result of climate change, are invisible. While we recognize that data and technology are not the answer to climate change, they do have a role to play, and Open North is committed to supporting local governments and environmental justice organizations in their pursuit of a healthy, just, and sustainable future.

This white paper was produced for the Community Solutions Network, a program of Future Cities Canada led by Evergreen and lead technical partner Open North and a national community of partners. It builds on Open North’s 2018 Open Smart Cities Guide.

The Community Solutions Advisory Service provides personalized data and technology-related support by sharing its knowledge, expertise, experience, and guidance with local government staff and Indigenous communities. The Community Solutions Network is supported with funding provided by Infrastructure Canada. The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect those of the Government of Canada.

Founded in 2011, Open North is Canada’s leading not-for-profit organization specializing in Open Smart Cities, public consultation, open data and open government, and data governance. Our mission is to drive research, capacity-building, and network collaboration across and within sectors to advance the responsible and effective use of data and technology in service of transparent, accountable, and inclusive communities. We support communities in reimagining how to govern with and for data and technology, as well as how to make informed decisions in the public interest. After developing tools and knowledge, we share them with the community so that all may benefit and move toward a better data and tech future.

For more information visit opennorth.ca.  

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You can cite this report as: Open North. 2022. “Finding Common Ground: Integrated Climate Action for Open Smart Communities in Canada.” Open North.

Disclaimer: If you create an adaptation of this work, please add the following disclaimer along with the attribution: This is an adaptation of an original work by Open North. The views and opinions expressed in the adaptation are the sole responsibility of the author and the adaptation is not endorsed by Open North. 

Attribution 

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This work is licensed under Creative Commons 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) with the exception of photographs and images; the logos, branding, and other trademarks of Open North and Evergreen; content or material provided by third parties; and where otherwise indicated. To review the license, visit: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. 

Authors: Matthew Claudel, Sophie Nitoslawski, Merlin Chatwin

Document layout and design: Tatev Yesayan 

The smart city has been a dominant concept since the early 2000s. It is a broad term, and generally encompasses tools (technologies and services) and protocols (norms, regulations, and interoperability frameworks) that relate to the contemporary issues of municipal operations and service delivery in a digital age.^[3] The smart city discourse centers on ways that data and technology can improve urban governance, efficiency, and quality of life for residents. There have been significant advances in the field; many cities across the globe have adopted data policies and deployed smart-city technologies, such as real-time mobility supply-demand management, or trans-regional data interoperability protocols that improve coordinated service delivery. There have also been pitfalls: incursions into individual privacy; vendor lock-in; long-term resourcing for maintenance, accessibility, and social equity; and shortfalls in community engagement, to name but a few.^[4]

There is a sectoral shift toward mitigating these harms and resisting the trend of deploying technology for its own sake, while nonetheless embracing the potential community-centered benefits of technology. Policymakers and technologists in large and small municipalities are calling for a redefinition of smart cities that foregrounds equitable value creation – a turn that has been rebranded as Open Smart Communities (OSC).^[5]

Canada has been a leader in smart cities and the shift toward incorporating civic values into a smart city approach. The federal Smart Cities Challenge (2017) provided the opportunity to involve multiple domains, sectors, and jurisdictions in exploring and implementing OSC concepts across Canadian communities. The program solicited and funded technology projects that were guided by resident engagement and had a clear mandate for social impact. Nevertheless, it continues to be challenging for municipalities to embrace OSC principles and deploy new technologies. Limited resources, lack of in-house technical capacity, and the complexity of changing standard municipal operations are only a few of the many barriers that exist. Additionally, barriers remain stubbornly high when there are no precise outcomes that justify lowering them. The field of OSC has largely focused on the what (e.g. what technologies are available or possible) and the how (e.g. the principles of using technology in the public interest), at the expense of defining a compelling and precise why. Although there are notable examples of truly impactful technology initiatives, most smart city projects are justified with vague gestures at improving urban life.

Meanwhile, the challenges of technology adoption are increasingly intertwined with a rapidly intensifying climate crisis. Municipalities contribute approximately half of the nation’s emitted greenhouse gasses. They own over 60% of the public infrastructure that is vulnerable to extreme climate events.^[6] As such, the many and varied impacts of climate change are acutely felt in Canada’s urban centres. Most importantly, climate change takes a toll on people – over 80% of the country’s population is urban, and climate change disproportionately affects the vulnerable and marginalized residents of cities. These communities have the least access to resources (such as air conditioning during a heat wave), live in risk-prone areas (such as flood zones), and – because they have been structurally underrepresented in government decision making – have the least access to government resources during extreme weather events (such as ad-hoc cooling or heating shelters).^[7] Climate change literature has begun referring to these as “frontline communities,” highlighting their precarious position as a matter of environmental justice.^[8] Cities are thus squarely in the center of climate change – and have an opportunity to take bold, just, and equitable climate action.

Municipalities cannot shoulder this work alone. For a climate action agenda to be truly transformative – including both adaptation and mitigation strategies – it must be multilateral. It requires a forceful and coherent effort across jurisdictions (levels and regions of government), sectors (public, private, philanthropic, community, and academic) and domains (transportation, housing, health, and so on). In this paper, we define coherent initiatives across multiple dimensions as integrated climate action.^[9]

There is federal support for integrated climate action. In his 2021 Mandate Letter to the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, Infrastructure and Communities, the Canadian Prime Minister issued a clear charge to “build on the foundation of the Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund and continue seeking opportunities to scale the construction of climate-resilient infrastructure across Canada, with a particular emphasis on communities most at risk,” and “to ensure a well-coordinated and strategic approach on key priorities that have significant provincial and territorial implications. This will include ensuring that the priorities of municipalities are reflected in our agenda.”^[10]

With a mandate for climate action, adequate resourcing, and strategic alignment across sectors, jurisdictions, and domains, municipalities will play a crucial role in protecting the most vulnerable populations from climate-related shocks and stressors in the short term, in addition to proactively mitigating damage to ecosystems in the longer term.

In this paper, we propose that the OSC and climate change movements can merge in productive ways. There are tremendous opportunities for a new generation of smart-city technologies that measure and reduce the environmental footprint of urban areas – from shared electric vehicle fleets to air quality sensors to greenhouse gas emissions calculators to remote imaging that supports urban forest management. So too is there potential for environmental policies that build on climate science and promote the deployment of cutting-edge technologies in a way that is equitable, responsible, and sustainable. As urban technologists prioritize environmental outcomes, and as environmentalists embrace new technologies, local policymakers can strategically leverage both to advance integrated climate action.

That is to say, the possibility of integrated climate action is deeply tied to governance in a dynamic and complex local system. Governance is the greatest challenge and it is the most fundamental means of action; it is the key. We introduce the concept of transformative capacity to discuss a region’s potential for effective climate action, as a function of good governance within local relational networks.^[11]

Through a landscape scan of small to medium-sized Canadian municipalities, we found that there are gaps in transformative capacity. Conversely, those same gaps are opportunities to strengthen transformative capacity. We outline how stakeholders across domains, jurisdictions, and sectors can interactively catalyze systemic change, using OSC governance principles and digital tools that have a renewed focus on environmental action. 

In its work with Canadian municipalities, Open North witnessed the growing emphasis on climate change, and worked with civil servants to support the development of climate action plans and the use of data toward environmental goals. For example, the town of Churchill sought support from Open North to acquire and use geospatial data for local flood risk mapping. Similarly, Open North worked with the town of Georgian Bluffs to develop a new approach to stakeholder mapping, which informed strategic foresight and a local climate action strategy.

Climate change is the single crisis that cuts across the many challenges that cities must face. It is the why.^[12] Open smart-city technologies and digital-native approaches to governance can meaningfully advance integrated climate action, when they are used according to the lessons learned over the past two decades of smart city discourse.

We see a compelling opportunity at the intersection of data-informed decision making and integrated climate action. This paper is a preliminary exploration of contemporary climate action in Canada, and a statement of Open North’s intent to contribute. It is the beginning of a journey toward engaging with the current landscape of climate actors and humbly finding ways to complement their work. This may involve creating new digital resources, or curating existing ones and supporting implementation in public administrations. It might involve one-on-one engagement with municipalities, or creating cohorts of cities that are working on similar challenges. It may involve replicable policy templates or working closely with civil servants who are building place-based knowledge and expertise. It could involve helping communities anticipate current and future needs; avoid focusing on short-term, politically motivated technology solutions; and address core issues that integrate all aspects of urban environments – from the digital to the ecological.

To these ends, we define a new agenda for Open North: to serve as an intermediary organization that complements Canada’s existing ecosystem of climate-focused organizations, with a strong focus on advancing integrated climate action by leveraging technology and OSC principles.

Municipalities cannot shoulder the cost of adapting to climate change alone. Climate change adaptation is a shared responsibility among all orders of government, and will require a long-term commitment to action.

Federation of Canadian Municipalities and Insurance Bureau of Canada, Investing in Canada’s Future.  

This section defines integrated climate action as initiatives that span sectors, jurisdictions, and domains. It gives an illustrative example (agriculture) and provides details on each dimension. It concludes by noting that the Open Smart Cities concept is similarly multidimensional. As such, Open Smart City principles and tools can become a foundation for enabling effective integrated climate action.

The negative effects of climate change are rapidly compounding and intensifying. Effective climate response will be the sum of many individual actions across all of society.^[13] These actions range from government-driven policy, investment, and regulation, to human-driven leadership and grassroots social movements, to technology-driven efficiency or monitoring and forecasting with data.

No single organization can do this work alone – it must be multidimensional. Fighting climate change is becoming a central objective across sectors, domains, and all levels of government. In this paper, we offer a new term for initiatives that bring together actors from across multiple dimensions in a complementary way: integrated climate action.

We define integrated climate action as a strategic approach to sustainability initiatives that involves multiple actors within and across sectors, jurisdictions, and domains.

(1) Sectors. Climate action depends on innovation in the public and private sectors, academic research, philanthropic investment, non-profits, and social movements.

(2) Jurisdictions. The effects of climate change do not stop at jurisdictional boundaries. Every order of government – federal, provincial, regional, Indigenous, and local – has unique resources and powers that can support climate action. Governments should also work across boundaries like adjacent counties, regions, or provinces.

(3) Domains. Fields as disparate as transportation, nature-based solutions, housing, education, and public health all contribute to climate action. Climate action can have exponential impact when it breaks down domain siloes to create mutual and reinforcing solutions across these domains. 

Example: Agriculture

The drivers of climate change are deeply interconnected across scales, levels, and domains. Solutions are equally multidimensional. One example is agriculture.^[14]

The majority of agricultural activity is performed by large, for-profit companies that have a national footprint, or regional cooperatives composed of smaller local farms. These entities operate at a wide variety of scales, and ship products nationally and internationally. From an environmental perspective, agriculture is regulated at federal, provincial, and municipal levels, though it is primarily within provincial jurisdiction.^[15]

Agriculture is typically performed in rural areas. Simple impact measurements would show intensive emissions from agriculture in these jurisdictions – while the majority of consumption happens in population centers. Harmonized and integrated measurement frameworks are necessary in order to identify and locate climate change drivers, as well as develop solutions.

The impact of agriculture is not only a result of the actions of farming companies themselves. It also depends on the equipment they use (and associated emissions standards); supply and distribution chains; the feedstocks, antibiotics, and fertilizers they use; their water management practices; and more. Important factors exist all along the equipment, supply, and distribution chain.

Any possible solution is equally interconnected, and involves many sectors. Positive change could be made in many ways: federal agricultural policy and regulations, local land use planning, industry norms and standards, sustainable technology development, data-informed scenario modelling for emergency response, consumer education campaigns, and advocacy groups. Many of these “levers of change” are interdependent. Without effective coordination, the success of one might come at the detriment of another.

But it is also true that working in concert can create exponential impact – the ongoing growth and transformation of cities and territorial dynamics are demonstrating the benefits of metropolitan, regional, and territorial approaches to climate governance. Local land use policy, paired with a provincial investment and incentive strategy and an impact measurement framework adopted by a small business association, might, together, encourage small local farming. Cross-sectoral integration can create spaces of opportunity that invite imaginative approaches.

Lufa Farms,^[16] for example, has leveraged local land use policy, cutting-edge agricultural technology, community engagement, and entrepreneurial partnerships to create a vibrant food production and delivery service – built on Montreal’s unused industrial rooftops! Small initiatives like Lufa Farms do not solve climate change, food security, or regional food provision issues with a single initiative – rather, they emerge from multidimensional collaboration, strengthen regional networks, engage diverse communities, and demonstrate the power of integrative climate action. It will be the sum of many such initiatives that will meaningfully combat climate change.

Sectoral integration

There is a robust discourse around sectoral integration – bringing together policy, industry, academia, and society (often referred to as the “quadruple helix”^[17]). These sectors each have unique constraints and strengths, which can be leveraged in a complementary way. The Open Smart City concept emphasizes the opportunities that can emerge through sectoral collaboration – for example, governments creating technology-forward economic development policy, universities producing commercializable research, industries bringing products to market, and society taking up those products that are most desirable. There have also been warnings of the dangers that exist in sectoral collaborations – such as corporate capture, economic disparities, and incursions on individual privacy. Integrated climate action can build on the bridges that have emerged between sectors, and avoid the pitfalls of early technology projects and initiatives.

Sectors

• Government
• Private industry
• Academia
• Philanthropy
• Non-profit/civil society organizations
• Social enterprise
• Social movements
• Media
• Community associations
• Residents

Crossing jurisdictions

Climate change does not conform to jurisdictional divisions. Floods do not stop at municipal boundary lines, and greenhouse gasses emitted in one area pollute the air of another. It is crucial to coordinate across these “horizontal” boundaries^[18] – for example, contiguous jurisdictions, including urban, suburban, and rural, aligning their strategic initiatives, managing their shared natural assets, and reducing their mutual risks. According to UN-Habitat, “Urban and territorial planning contributes to increased human security by strengthening environmental and socioeconomic resilience, enhancing mitigation of, and adaptation to, climate change and improving the management of natural and environmental hazards and risks.”^[19]

Data sharing and associated technologies can play an important role by facilitating, for example, emissions analysis and risk modelling. Consistent measurement protocols yield good data that is longitudinal (long term) and actionable, and should be shared across jurisdictions. Well-aligned policies across jurisdictions help to ensure that the people most affected by climate change are not forgotten.

There are also “vertical” boundaries. Different levels of government have different mandates, regulatory powers, and sources of revenue. Multilevel governance is required to harmonize policy goals, sustainability targets, regulatory approaches, investment strategies, and more. Different orders of government can also use compatible technologies and share data standards and protocols. Success on any level depends on the actions of governments at other levels; each must take on responsibility for coordinating with the others.

Jurisdictions

• Levels of government (vertical)
  • International (standards, commitments, treaties)
  • Indigenous (regulations, sustainability targets, policies, funding)
  • Federal (regulations, sustainability targets, policies, funding)
  • Provincial (regulations, policies, funding)
  • Regional (coordination)
  • Local (planning, policies, funding)
• Adjacent governments (horizontal)
  • Provincial
  • Regional
  • Local

Domains

Cities are complex, heterogeneous systems, but they are commonly thought of as distinct “domains” (like transportation, health, or education). This simplifies urban planning, policy, management, investment, and so on. The downside is that domains typically operate in silos. Each has its own experts, and collaboration within and between domain experts remains challenging. Domains have independent objectives, mandates, operating protocols, technologies and systems, and sources of funding.

Climate change cuts across all domains: each is a contributor to climate change, and each has a role to play in climate mitigation and/or adaptation. Furthermore, remarkable synergies can emerge when domains leverage complementarities to advance shared initiatives – think of health, transportation, and infrastructure agencies collaborating to promote active mobility in greenways. Some domains, like natural asset management, are well positioned to take leadership in finding these synergies, given their inherent environmental focus and transdisciplinary nature.

Technology will play an important role in advancing positive environmental outcomes within each of these domains, as well as creating links between them – from air quality sensors to electric vehicles to advanced biomass processing facilities. The concept of Open Smart Cities was carefully defined to enable continuity and adaptability across traditional domain divisions,^[20] and several initiatives operationalized these links, such as shared data protocols or technologies with multidomain outcomes.

Domains

• Buildings, real estate, and construction
• Transportation
• Land use planning
• Nature-based solutions
• Education
• Waste
• Water management
• Agriculture and resources
• Food & beverage and tourism
• Manufacturing and production

Open Smart Cities as a multidimensional space 

The Open Smart City concept is equally multidimensional. Technologies have been explored in a variety of domains (from autonomous cars to data integration frameworks), policies and regulations have been issued at all jurisdictional levels, and every sector has been implicated. Open Smart City initiatives have made significant advances to date, including open data policies, technology demonstrations, new sources of funding, and emergent collaborative dynamics between traditionally siloed departments.^[21] These advances can serve as building blocks for integrated climate action in two ways: the technologies themselves, as well as the governance, organizational, and political experience of working in a multidimensional way.

Conversely, integrated climate action can sharpen the meaning of “open smart cities” in a tangible way, giving the movement a renewed purpose and spurring it with new momentum. Challenges still exist when it comes to local public administrations investing in a “transition” to become an Open Smart Community, because the principles are high level and the potential impacts are long-term and diverse. In some cases, public officials embrace the rhetoric of OSC without subsequent action or changes to the status quo. In other cases, suggesting to a civil servant in a resource-constrained, mid-sized city that they should embrace OSC principles and technologies can feel abstract and daunting, disconnected from the realities of daily service delivery and implying an unknown but looming amount of effort and responsibility.

Climate change is an existential challenge that cities must face. Public health cannot be disentangled from climate change, just as infrastructure policy cannot ignore the technological developments and business models of vehicle providers. The stakes are high for individuals and organizations in all sectors, domains, and jurisdictions; climate change is a matter of spatial, environmental, and social justice. Climate action can reorganize actors across all dimensions to work together toward common goals. To this end, the multidimensional tools, principles, and modes of organization that are promoted for OSCs are readily at hand to support integrative work.

In short, diverse actors should take up the tools and principles of Open Smart Communities to do the work of integrated climate action.

…But it’s easy to say that they should. More challenging is to understand if they will, or why they won’t, then facilitate how they can. For this, we use the concept of “transformative capacity.” 

We must not only continue taking real climate action, we must also move faster and go further. As Canadians are increasingly experiencing across the country, climate change is an existential threat. Building a cleaner, greener future will require a sustained and collaborative effort from all of us. 

Office of the Prime Minister, “Mandate Letter to the Minister for Natural Resources.”

This section defines transformative capacity as the potential for an interconnected system (including various sectors, domains, and jurisdictions) to coherently implement climate action strategies. It outlines the key elements of transformative capacity, and notes that many are within the purview of municipalities. We then show that intermediary organizations aiming to promote climate action can use this framework in collaboration with municipalities to find critical gaps and then fill them by supporting specific missing elements.

Promoting integrated climate action

To effectively address climate change, concerted actions must be taken across sectors, jurisdictions, and levels of government. Of course, any given climate action initiative may not address every single sector, domain, or jurisdiction. Depending on the scope, it will address a few – taking up a certain amount of “space” within the cube.

The specific conditions of each city – its history, size, existing partnerships, climate action budget, and so on – will bring opportunities and constraints. These might include, for example, a recent public-private partnership that was unsuccessful, a crown corporation that runs the local energy utility, a strong relationship with the provincial government, or a land use policy that has not been revised in light of the city’s climate action plan.  

Some of these factors are within the municipality’s control, but most are not. Therefore, climate action is, above all, a challenge of effective, equitable, and exploratory governance across domains, jurisdictions, and sectors. The potential for successful integrated climate action is a function of the whole system, and how it works cohesively. We refer to this potential as the “transformative capacity” of the system (a term that is increasingly used by a number of climate change scholars).^[22]

Transformative capacity is the potential for stakeholders across domains, jurisdictions, and sectors to interact in a dynamic and complex system, with the goal of creating new opportunity pathways that can cause systemic change toward sustainability.

Example: Transformative Capacity in Two Regions

In the example above, Region A has much greater transformative capacity than Region B, and it will be much more fertile ground for integrated climate action (of course, these examples are an extreme caricature of reality; any real-world situation will be somewhere in between). The point is that the existing conditions of a region – its transformative capacity – will make integrated climate action easier in some ways and harder in others.

The idea of transformative capacity is that “a multitude of vocational and academic skills are required for the application of a transition management approach including systems thinking, creativity, theory-to-practice application skills, diplomatic skills for forging partnerships and learning alliances, and openness to learning-by-doing during experimentation.”^[23]

The magnitude and complexity of integrated climate action across multiple dimensions makes it hard for any single actor, especially a small or medium-sized local government, to know where to begin. Diagnosing the transformative capacity of the system is a good place to start.

The elements of transformative capacity

This table shows the elements of transformative capacity and lists associated with Open Smart Communities tools and principles:

Table adapted from Wolfram, “Conceptualizing Urban Transformative Capacity.” See also Shahani, Pineda-Pinto, and Frantzeskaki, “Transformative Low-carbon Urban Innovations.” 

Articulating the transformative capacity of a particular region means identifying which of these elements are missing, and which are strongly present. For example, there may be cleantech innovations emerging from a local university that are failing because they are prohibited by an archaic land use policy. In this case, the system’s strength is an empowered academic community of practice, but there are barriers to experimentation and embedding. We could imagine a test bed program for new technologies, where certain aspects of the zoning code are carefully suspended in order to examine the technology’s potential. Improving the region’s transformative capacity creates ‘windows of opportunity for integrated climate action.^[25]

The test bed example also shows that these elements work in concert. Climate action plans often focus on a single element of transformative capacity, such as local leadership, baseline data analysis, or a new technology experiment. It is crucial, however, to mobilize coherently on all fronts. Such mobilization depends on the aligned work of many different actors – it is a matter of sustained coordination. Digital tools can enable such “emerging innovative forms of governing cities…this requires an understanding of governance as a platform that facilitates an urban ecosystem.” For this reason, “inclusive and multiform governance” forms a foundation on which the other elements of transformative capacity can build.^[26]

Small municipalities have a unique set of strengths and challenges in implementing climate change mitigation strategies. These factors must be addressed in order to take full advantage of climate action opportunities and reap the economic and quality of life co-benefits that they can generate. 

Partners for Climate Protection. Small and Rural Communities Climate Action Guidebook.

This section begins with a summary of observations from the case studies (detailed information about the cases is included in the Appendix). Using the transformative capacity framework as an interpretive lens, these observations include challenges that small and medium-sized municipalities face, trends in municipal climate action, and what key resources or tools cities are missing. The section concludes with a discussion of how intermediary organizations can provide these key tools and support the development of transformative capacity, in partnership with municipalities.

Guiding Questions:

How are municipalities currently approaching the challenges of climate change?

Are there common gaps in transformative capacity?

How can intermediary organizations increase the transformative capacity of municipalities and regions, and work with them to advance integrated climate action?

To answer these questions, we reviewed a broad spectrum of action frameworks, playbooks, and policy guides for climate action, as well as academic literature. We performed a cursory landscape scan of small and mid-sized Canadian municipalities and of the intermediary organizations that support them (resources and details about the cases are included in the Appendix).

A promising foundation exists in Canada. Commitments at the federal level gesture toward integrated climate action. The A Healthy Environment and a Healthy Economy plan states that “every order of Government, every sector of the economy, every region, every community, every Canadian has a role to play in this moment of our shared history. [The federal climate plan] is not an end point. Reaching the goal will require a sustained effort for years and decades to come.”^[27]

At the local level, coalitions like the Climate Montreal Partnership are working to “mobilize economic, philanthropic, institutional and community forces to accelerate the decarbonization of the metropolis and strengthen its resilience” in six priority areas: building, mobility, business, adaptation, community-led initiatives, and finance.  

And yet local climate action is heterogeneous. It is particularly challenging for small to medium-sized municipalities to translate federal agendas into the language and frameworks of local planning, and it can be challenging to marshall resources and partnerships across jurisdictions, sectors, and domains – both gaps in transformative capacity. In short, the cases not only highlighted a need for integrated climate action, but also provided several important insights about how best to bolster local transformative capacity. The following list is not exhaustive; rather, it includes important recurring challenges that stand in the way of integrated climate action.

Resource constraints & outsourcing. Small and mid-sized municipalities have fewer staff – especially staff devoted to climate action and staff with technical capabilities (e.g. knowledge of open data management). They also have fewer resources – especially for climate action planning and execution, and for technology procurement and deployment. For both reasons, these governments depend on external consultants for vision-oriented work and technical work related to climate change.

Transformative Capacities: Embedding; Social Learning; Transformative Leadership; System Awareness & Memory

Political polarization. Some communities – particularly those that depend on greenhouse gas-intensive core industries, like manufacturing, oil and gas, or meat production – have a bias against climate change rhetoric. Communities may reject proposed climate action agendas, or choose not to align their resources and businesses with climate action initiatives.

Transformative Capacities: Embedding; Inclusive & Multiform Governance; Transformative Leadership; Empowered Communities of Practice

Misaligned climate targets. Climate action commitments at the higher levels of government are difficult to apply at the local level. There are international frameworks and multilateral agreements – such as the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Accord – and there are national decarbonization and sustainability targets.^[28] And yet it is difficult to bring those down to a local level. There are tools for accounting greenhouse gas emissions or modelling the impact of climate change, but they are not tuned to local conditions, or require an unrealistic level of technical expertise. This can make it difficult to align local action with higher levels of government, and to align local organizations toward shared goals.

Transformative Capacities: Working Across Levels; System Awareness & Memory

Technicality of measurement. It is challenging to measure climate indicators and long-term progress over time – measurement can be technically complex and requires sustained commitment over many years. Intermediary organizations like ICLEI Canada provide tools, but using them remains a challenge. As a result, cities hire consulting firms to perform technical analyses. Furthermore, there are many shortfalls in measurement and accounting methods. For example, rural meat production bears the burden of emissions while consumption happens in cities. It can be difficult to identify the “depth” of accounting along a supply and distribution chain.

Transformative Capacities: Sustainability Foresight; System Awareness & Memory; Embedding

Election cycles & short-termism. Democratic election cycles hinder long-term agendas. Inheriting a climate action plan from a prior administration confers none of the political benefit (branding) and introduces political risks (working to revise a poor plan, or working to fulfill the commitments of a rigorous one). Disclosure of poor performance, measured against a previous administration’s agenda, is a political hazard. For the same reason, it is often easier for a politician to launch a net-new program rather than change the city’s existing operations – even if the latter will have greater impact.

Transformative Capacities: Transformative Leadership; Embedding; Social Learning; System Awareness & Memory

Regional coordination. There is little regional coordination across jurisdictions (e.g. adjacent municipalities in a county). Regional planning bodies can help (e.g. metropolitan planning associations, county-level working groups), but they seldom have the budget or political power to meaningfully advance climate action work.

Transformative Capacities: Working Across Levels; Sustainability Foresight; Inclusive & Multiform Governance

Leverage. Most communities have some kind of climate plan and sustainability commitments, often through frameworks like the Partners for Climate Protection program through the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy. However, those commitments are often based on factors that are not directly within municipal control. Success depends on partnerships, multilateral agreement, and indirect influence (e.g. new norms in the real estate development sector). Most municipal governments have a broad motivation to foster industry and economic development, but this can be a perverse incentive that undermines the ambitions of climate action.

Transformative Capacities: Experimentation; Embedding; Empowered Communities of Practice

What do municipalities need in order to support integrated climate action?

Gaps in transformative capacity can be filled with specific tools, programs, and initiatives. As the International Climate Initiative reports in “Unlocking the Power of Integrated Climate Action,” “instruments are needed to operationalize the integrated approach effectively into strategic planning.”^[29] Many of these instruments will be digital, emerging from the field of smart cities. More broadly, the principles of Open Smart Communities should be applied. The following is a very preliminary list of resources (including tools and principles) that could bolster the transformative capacity of small to mid-sized Canadian communities.

1. Support, consulting, knowledge resources for municipalities to build internal capacity
2. Neutral convening spaces that enable effective regional coordination
3. Support, precedents, and templates for writing climate action policies
4. Environmental data strategies:
   1. Data collection programs (using sensors or existing data sources)
   2. Metadata that enables simplified, actionable data analysis
   3. Data collection and management standards, interoperability frameworks^[30]
5. Quantitative and qualitative scenario and risk modelling tools that support decision making and communications
6. Digital and analog tools, as well as protocols for meaningfully engaging stakeholders^[31]
7. Proactive and ethical market engagement protocols that municipalities can use to address technology providers
8. Support and strategic analysis for municipalities to align disparate initiatives and capital projects so that they support climate action initiatives

The role of intermediary organizations

Integrated climate action is not the responsibility of any single organization, but it is challenging for any single organization – particularly a small or mid-sized municipal government – to know where to begin. It is here that intermediary organizations can provide support.

Intermediary organizations are bodies that aim to facilitate a hybrid praxis of research, policy, technology, and implementation. These organizations can act as knowledge generators and brokers,^[32] social capital and network builders,^[33] program managers and administrators, and advocates.^[34] Intermediary organizations play a vital role in local climate action. They provide resources for municipalities with potentially limited capacity and expertise; manage funding and training programs; and support network creation, peer learning, and knowledge sharing across local, national, and global scales, among many others. In short, intermediary organizations build capacity while also aligning stakeholders across domains, sectors, and jurisdictions around a common vision.

On a pragmatic level, the barriers to integrated climate action manifest at the seams between sectors, jurisdictions, and domains. Intermediary organizations can institutionalize and formalize structures that promote alignment and cooperation – such as harmonized data collection and analysis methods. They can provide a neutral convening space – such as a cohort of urban climate action fellows – where disparate actors rally around shared initiatives, or overcome institutional histories that have generated mistrust. Intermediaries can provide on-the-ground support, helping civil servants to first evaluate the transformative capacity of their own complex local systems, then design integrated climate action initiatives accordingly. Finally, intermediary organizations can develop specific tools, such as greenhouse gas emissions accounting software,^[35] and make them available to municipalities.

In the Canadian context, there are many organizations that focus on climate change and environmental action, including, but not limited to, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (through programs such as Green Municipal Fund, Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy, and Low Carbon Cities Canada), The Canadian Institute for Climate Choices, ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability, Nature United, and the Canadian Environmental Law Association. Many youth-based organizations (e.g. Sunrise Movement Canada) have also emerged to support organizing and advocacy. Technology- and smart city-oriented organizations, such as Code for Canada and the Canadian Urban Institute, provide information and resources on data-driven approaches to urban governance. Community-based organizations (e.g. Beta City YEG and Civic Tech Toronto) in particular have a key role to play in bridging gaps between the public sector, business, and citizens.

There is no binding institution at the intersection of data, technology, and climate action. As the lead technical partner for the Community Solutions Network, Open North is ideally suited to advance a powerful new agenda: to jointly build transformative capacity and promote integrated climate action with Canada’s small and medium-sized municipalities.

The early years of the Open Smart Cities movement laid an important foundation for integrated climate action in three ways: First, the emergence of specific technologies, tools, and forms of expertise, primarily focused on automation, efficiency, sustainability, and data management (collection, analysis, interoperability, and openness); second, a values-led approach to contemporary issues related to technology, governance, and engagement; and third, a familiarity with multidimensional approaches to transformative projects (crossing domains, sectors, and jurisdictions).

The rapid acceleration of climate change has raised the stakes of environmental action and inaction. Today, the climate crisis binds us all together: every sector, domain, and jurisdiction. A broad and well-established landscape of advocacy groups, organizations, consultancies, and technology firms are focused on climate action – and their number is increasing.

This paper is a preliminary exploration of contemporary climate action, and it is, above all, a statement of Open North’s intent to contribute. We see an opportunity for Open North to renew its organizational focus to include sustainability issues, specifically by aligning technology, data policy, and Open Smart Community principles with the far-reaching agenda of integrated climate action. Rather than delivering answers, this paper concludes with a number of important questions:

• What are the existing strengths and gaps in the stakeholder ecosystem (intermediaries, firms, and higher orders of government) working on climate action in Canada?
• How can Open North complement the work that others are doing?
• What specific resources do municipalities and their partners need?
• Which of those resources are already available, and might Open North be capable of offering?
• How can Open North be held accountable in its climate action work?

The first step in answering these questions will be to engage with the existing landscape of actors. We hope that this paper is an open invitation to begin generative conversations. By listening, we believe that we can find collaborative pathways toward strengthening the foundations that others have built, and complementing the growing climate action movement with the specific expertise we can offer.

A partner-first approach will position Open North to collaboratively support capacity-building at the local government level, working with other actors to help cities evaluate the space of opportunity through a transformative capacity lens, and then design initiatives for integrated climate action, using new or existing resources.

The next step will be to fill the need for a neutral common ground that facilitates connections across regional networks (multisector), across governmental levels and boundaries (multijurisdiction), and across areas of focus (multidomain).

By engaging stakeholders, exploring partnerships, and convening neutral spaces, we hope to cooperatively discover specific tools and resources that municipalities lack. These might include data collection programs and data standardization frameworks, climate impact scenario modeling, or stakeholder engagement tools, among many others. We are committed to finding these needs and working to fill them.

This paper is the starting point of a meaningful journey toward building internal capacity at Open North, and an external community of practice that allows our organization to leverage open smart-city technologies in keeping with OSC principles, with a goal of promoting integrated climate action.