MEDIA RELEASE – April 21, 2022
United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Key focus for new Sustainable Peterborough Strategic Plan
[PETERBOROUGH, ON]: Sustainable Peterborough (SP) and Peterborough & the Kawarthas Economic Development (PKED) are pleased to announce the launch of Sustainable Peterborough’s new Strategic Plan.
Sustainable Peterborough has spent the last couple of years conducting an extensive organizational review, including a governance and plan review. This comprehensive work facilitated many insightful conversations and led to the decision that the new Sustainable Peterborough Plan should focus on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The SDG framework has become a recognized tool for advancing sustainability in the Greater Peterborough Area. Communities in Ontario and across Canada are working on localizing the SDGs. The SDGs have become a globally recognized framework for measuring progress towards sustainability. Benefits of using the SDG framework include the use of shared language and goal setting for sustainability across many communities globally and locally and access to tools to track and visualize progress towards the goals.
Utilizing the SDG framework provides an opportunity for Sustainable Peterborough to continue the vital SDG work conducted through the 2019-2021 Community Forum led by Kawartha World Issues Centre and GreenUP. It also provides an opportunity to use long-standing community connections and partnerships to build on the significant local interest in sustainability, raise awareness of the SDGs, and incorporate best practices from other communities.
The SDG framework also aligns SP’s new strategic plan and PKED’s Future Ready Regional Economic Development Strategy, which was developed through extensive community consultation. The Future Ready strategy identifies five SDGs as priorities for the region to achieve the vision of seeing Peterborough & the Kawarthas become the most sustainable and innovative community and economy in Ontario.
“On behalf of the Sustainable Peterborough Coordinating Committee, we are excited to work towards Sustainable Peterborough’s new mission of supporting, measuring, celebrating, and facilitating collective action among local governments, businesses, institutions, and organizations to annually track and measure progress towards achieving targets related to priority Sustainable Development Goals,” stated Karen Jopling and Michael Papadacos, Co-Chairs of the Sustainable Peterborough Coordinating Committee.
“In a sustainable economy, people live and do business in ways that are good for the economy, the environment, and communities. Sustainable economic development is about more than just being green; business activity reflects a commitment to sustainability, and, in turn, sustainability helps the economy thrive for future generations. The staff and board of PKED are looking forward to collaborating with Sustainable Peterborough on this new strategic plan.” said PKED’s President & CEO Rhonda Keenan.
The new Strategic Plan is available on the Sustainable Peterborough website.
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For media inquiries contact Anca Pascalau, Sustainable Peterborough Coordinator, at