Participatory Planning and Development

EMPOWERING PEOPLE TO PLAN FOR THEIR FUTURE

Communities prosper through the sound use of their resources, or their natural, economic, and social capital. Together with their stakeholders, they therefore need to develop long-term plans that protect the natural environment while leveraging and building upon this capital to support the growth of strong and resilient communities. In our eyes, this defines sustainable economic development.

EEM’s participatory planning approach:

  • Is based on long-term engagement with community stakeholders, which goes beyond consultation to a genuine involvement throughout the planning process;
  • Is founded on multi-stakeholder partnership methodology and delivered by consultants who are accredited partnering professionals and experienced collaborative process facilitators;
  • Is supported by our suite of services in sustainable development (e.g. biodiversity, green building, environmental site assessment, greenhouse gas management) to deliver integrated solutions for long-term planning that align community, economic and environmental priorities.

Services

Community and regional sustainability planning

EEM helps communities develop and deliver a participatory process for developing or reviewing community sustainability plans and regional land use plans that balance environmental protection, economic development and community growth and well-being. Our experience and our well-developed suite of tools support the participatory planning process in the areas of:

  • Socio-economic analysis
  • Stakeholder and resource mapping
  • Issues and opportunity identification and community risk assessment
  • Sustainable planning charrettes
  • Stakeholder engagement and communication strategies

In addition, our sustainable development expertise can help communities develop strategies that tackle key aspects of long-term community sustainability, including:

  • Green building
  • Biodiversity conservation
  • Ecosystem services
  • Land use management planning
  • Public involvement
  • Community investment

Sustainable tourism master planning

Today’s tourists are conscious of the impacts their vacation choices have on the communities they visit. Destinations themselves have been hampered by poor records of environmental protection, ineffectively managed community growth and antagonistic community relations, which has impacted the long-term viability of their product and added significant risk for investors.

A participatory planning process in tourism master planning involves key local community and regional stakeholders from the earliest stages of visioning to the development of multi-stakeholder partnerships tasked with sustainable implementation of the development plans.

Results from EEM projects demonstrate enhanced competitiveness through green marketing and promotion, synergies and cost savings from local workforce and supply chain development, and increased destination attractiveness from the development of local and regional tourist assets. Investments are safeguarded through innovative solutions to environmental protection, ecosystem services, community relations, cultural heritage preservation, and social development.

Blending in EEM’s sustainability expertise can help these participatory master plans also integrate leading technologies and methods to deliver cost effective sustainable solutions to tourism project development, including:

  • Emerging, cost-effective technologies for energy, water and waste management;
  • Use of effective green building design strategies to minimize energy consumption and reduce long-term costs of operation;
  • Solutions to leverage natural site features and ecosystem services, such as drainage, water treatment and erosion control;
  • Identification of critical conservation areas prior to development.

Case Studies

  • Proinversion – community engagement and capacity building

    EEM worked with resort developer Proinversion to develop sustainable tourism master plans for 2 resort projects in the Dominican Republic.

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  • Community plan for housing and homelessness

    EEM was retained to provide its participatory planning and community development expertise to facilitate the collaborative development of a Labrador West community plan for housing and homelessness.

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