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Forouzandeh, Peyvand

University of British Columbia

Fostering sustainability transitions is an urgent global challenge, and urban Sustainability Experimentations (SEs) have emerged as a critical approach to addressing pressing urban issues through collaboration across various sectors for accelerating urban transitions. Despite their increasing significance, academic literature on SEs in Canada remains in its early stages. In Canada, various SE models and theories have evolved organically, manifested in models such as Social Innovation Labs, Urban Living Labs, Public Sector Innovation Labs, and Demonstrations. This research addresses How Canadian urban sustainability experimentations (SEs) can become more transformative? To explore this, this research employs a multi-step qualitative case study approach, beginning with a survey of 16 organizations leading SEs across Canada. This step identifies factors contributing to SEs’ diversity, uncovering common challenges and critical elements examined in their processes and broader urban interactions. The second step focuses on two ongoing SEs related to sustainable, affordable housing in Vancouver and Calgary. Data collection included participant interviews, projects and policy document reviews, and observation of decision-making processes. Through in-depth analysis, this research explores the urban dimensions of SEs, their context-specific characteristics within the Canadian setting, and the factors and key dimensions that contribute to their transformative qualities. The evidence presented in this dissertation highlights that Canadian SEs face significant challenges, including a tendency toward short-term planning, fragmented efforts, uncertainty about long-term impacts, and various contextual and governance factors that hinder their potential to contribute to broader urban transitions. This research provides in-depth discussions, analyses, and conceptual frameworks to identify the key dynamics and dimensions essential for guiding SEs toward broader transformative effects, extending beyond their immediate scope. These factors include but are not limited to shared goal setting, incentivizing risk-taking, connections with broader urban agendas, policies, and other initiatives, cross-disciplinary knowledge co-creation, targeted knowledge dissemination, the confluence of funding programs, research leadership, integrated evaluation in decision-making processes, and attention to power dynamics. The analysis concludes that, despite challenges in navigating uncertainties and evaluating SEs during their processes and limited evidence on their long-term transformative potential, several critical elements can potentially guide practitioners, policymakers, and researchers in steering SEs toward more transformative effects.

Text

2025-04-24

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/90761

Planning

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/