Case Study Criteria

Two primary criteria structured the initial selection of case studies and will directly inform the case study protocol.

  1. Leadership on adaptation, mitigation, integrated adaptation/mitigation approaches, and sustainability. We chose examples of particularly innovative action that has either transformed emissions pathways and/or vulnerability or holds significant promise to do so in the future.

  2. Evidence of multi-stakeholder involvement and social learning. The scale of the cases were not limited to municipal governments, thus opening up the possibility of studying compelling action in neighbourhoods, regions and other scales. We have chosen cases where action at one scale has been taken up by, or is of direct relevance to, other scales.

Communities demonstrating best practices were sought; however, cases were also selected under the consideration of secondary criteria.  The secondary criteria was used to enhance the relevance of findings and richness of information from the cases to communities beyond the initial sample, and this criteria included;

  1. a mix of small, medium and large communities;
  2. a mix of rural and urban;
  3. communities with a long history of climate change action and emerging leaders;
  4. a mix of resource-based and diversified economies;
  5. a mix of government led and grass-roots approaches;
  6. generalizability or relevance to other communities;
  7. and, evidence of social mobilization as a component of action.

Each of the cases meet the two primary criteria and represent a diverse sample with regard to the seven secondary criteria, and cases were selected in close collaboration with an array of civil society and government actors.  The eleven cases selected for the MC3 project include;

  • City of Victoria
  • City of Vancouver
  • Prince George
  • Dawson Creek
  • T’Sou-ke First Nation
  • Eagle Island (a neighbourhood of West Vancouver)
  • City of North Vancouver
  • Campbell River
  • The Kootenay Regional Districts (focusing on the Carbon Neutral Kootenays strategy)
  • Revelstoke
  • City of Surrey

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