Organizer: Jenna Lamphere
Format: Online, Morning
Abstract:
The COVID-19 pandemic presents new opportunities to advance sustainability scholarship, innovation, collaboration and action to promote a green recovery. As a diverse group of scholars, practitioners and policymakers, we are developing a platform to accelerate a green recovery and transition towards sustainability. In this session, we present our ‘Sustainability Action Platform’ (SAP), an open-source and dynamic global online data management tool, which allows local government, communities and businesses to exchange ideas and experience with innovative actions aimed at advancing the SDGs locally (http://www.sustainabilityactionplatform.org). Through the application of cutting-edge digital technology, the SAP collates and synthesizes user-generated content into a searchable platform. The SAP also offers a self-assessment tool that allows users to measure their performance against local to global targets across varied indicators. As an integrative system, the SAP aligns local strategies and the SDGs through a systemic change approach. The local focus acknowledges that, despite the importance of global accords such as the Paris Agreement and UN 2030 Agenda, the most productive solutions to the climate crisis are occurring at the local level. The SAP advances sustainability by providing a much-needed mechanism for the global exchange of local innovations. It also generates a wealth of data on sustainability actions around the world, which are valuable for scientific analyses and the generation of improved empirically-based system change models. The SAP’s integration of scholarship and praxis is innovative, advancing both scientific understanding and local decision-making in climate governance. Additionally, it can be used to complement existing SDG frameworks, while also enabling local-level customization of indicators, sustainability initiatives and cultural learning. This session will explore how the SAP can advance knowledge management systems for climate governance and accelerate sustainability transitions, particularly how such a system can be designed and co-created with actors in the Global South to mitigate knowledge and power disparities.
Themes: Integrated Action for the SDGs