The primary mandate of the Clarenville-Bonavista Regional Council, which served from 2005-2016, was to provide recommendations for public policy advice on critical social, economic, cultural and environmental issues that impact the sustainability of a rural region. To assist the Regional Council in its comprehension of the concept and the nature of its work, sustainability for the region has been defined using the broadly accepted Brundtland definition, conceived as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. Sustainability, according to the 2005 World Summit on Social Development, depicts the concept as an illustration using three overlapping ellipses indicating that the three pillars (i.e., social, economic, and environmental) are not mutually exclusive and can be mutually reinforcing. Sustainability includes such concepts as: equitable, viable, and bearable.
In 2005, the Regional Council developed a Vision 2020 document which illustrated a vision for the Clarenville-Bonavista-Isthmus Region as follows:
The vision of [the Clarenville-Bonavista-Isthmus region] is of a sustainable region with healthy, educated, prosperous people living in safe, inclusive communities.
In 2013-2014, the Regional Council expressed that it was interested in understanding the important elements to sustain its geographic area. The Regional Council was interested in defining the barriers to regional sustainability. The Phase 1 Final Report, reporting on community-based research done collaboratively by Regional Council and researchers at Memorial University’s Environmental Policy Institute, documented a suggested list of key factors, indicators, and measures necessary to promote the sustainability of rural regions, with examples from other jurisdictions and consideration of sustainability priorities expressed by the Regional Council.
Regional Council was also interested in assessing how those elements were applicable to other areas and the province as a whole. Consequently, the Phase 1 research project, conducted in 2013-2014, provided Regional Council with a collection of resources (such as recommended websites, guides, case study examples) for potential stakeholders in and outside the Clarenville-Bonavista-Isthmus Region who are interested in establishing similar projects elsewhere in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador.
Through a facilitated discussion in Phase 1, the Regional Council identified the following key questions for consideration as part of the scope of this research project (including Phase 2).
- What is our definition of sustainability and what outcomes would tell us we are there (or moving in the right direction)?
- What are the key factors or characteristics necessary for sustainability in regions with similarities to the Clarenville-Bonavista-Isthmus region? What barriers exist?
- How could the Regional Council best proceed with determining which of these core sustainability factors currently exist in the Clarenville-Bonavista-Isthmus Region and what are the gaps?
- Based on public input and research results, what priorities, strategies and/or policy support is necessary to assist in moving towards sustainability and sustainable assessment in the Clarenville-Bonavista-Isthmus Region?
The Phase 2 study, conducted during 2014-2015, focused on finalizing and interpreting the regional indicator framework, as well as identifying priorities, strategies, and/or policy support necessary to assist in moving towards a comprehensive sustainability assessment. Phase 2 consisted of three primary components:
- Refining the set of sustainability indicators proposed in Phase 1 and measuring the region’s current status in these indicators using a wide range of publicly available data
- Conducting a public survey with 299 residents of the region to establish a baseline for a number of social, environmental, and economic indicators
- Engaging residents of the region in developing the indicator framework through a series of public engagement sessions
The final output of this research was a set of 22 indicators with recent data used to measure their current status in the Clarenville-Bonavista Rural Secretariat Region, as well as a series of recommendations for building on the Phase 1-2 work. The set of indicators organized its regional sustainability assessment using a taxonomy based primarily in five critical factors, or regional priorities, which have subsequent indicators and specific measures (measurable data points used to assess the indicators).
Finally, Phase 3 of this project consisted of a public engagement project aimed at disseminating the findings of the Phase 2 study to community members in the region. Carried out in Winter-Spring 2016, the primary objective of Phase 3 was to create a resource that community members and decision-makers in the Clarenvile-Bonavista-Isthmus region could use to learn about the region’s progress towards sustainability in a simple and understandable “Report Card” tool. This Report Card, which took the form of a pamphlet, was designed using a co-creation process in which community members, Regional Council, and Memorial University researchers collaborated in building the document using a participatory process. This Report Card was aimed at knowledge mobilization – ensuring that the research conducted in Phase 1 and 2 was marshalled for impact on regional governance outcomes through the means of a simple and understandable decision-support tool. The second objective, taking a more long-term view, was to offer recommendations on how regional stakeholders could use the Report Card as an opportunity to initiate a broader process of stakeholder engagement aimed at generating solutions to common challenges and monitoring progress towards the region’s sustainability priorities.