From Idea to Practice: Sustainable Development Efforts in Manitoba

With a renewed global interest in achieving a more sustainable society, the authors reflect on the history of institutionalizing sustainable development in their province, Manitoba, and consider its future. This paper outlines that province's approaches to developing and advancing sustainable development and discusses the success of these approaches in shaping, guiding, and furthering sustainable development in the province. This is achieved through examination of legislation and review of sustainable development documents as well as interviews with various participants in the process including members of the Manitoba Round Table for Environment and Economy and members of the more recent Manitoba Round Table for Sustainable Development. Reference is made to the Nova Scotia experience. The authors conclude that Manitoba's success in advancing sustainable development is predictably mixed and coalesces around roundtable actions, institutional structure, and policy development.