All are not created equal: assessing local governments’ strategic approaches towards sustainability

ABSTRACT

While local governments often implement equivalent numbers of sustainability programmes, they likely utilize different strategies to design them. We posit that some local governments pursue more of an exploration strategy, by experimenting with a broad range of sustainability issues and policy instruments to address them, while others pursue a more exploitation strategy, by focusing on a limited range of sustainability issues and policy instruments. We assess these distinctions across 70 local governments and offer evidence that governments indeed vary in their sustainability strategies. Such variations have important implications for local governments’ ability to improve their sustainability conditions over time.

KEYWORDS:

• Sustainability strategy
• sustainability programmes
• programme design
• local government
• sustainability issues
• policy instruments

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.​

Notes

1. Examples include density incentives, incentives for other than density for LEED-certified commercials, incentives for other than density for LEED-certified single-family residential facilities, incentives for water conservation, incentives for public employees for taking mass transit to work, carpool, walk, or bike, incentives for sustainable development, and financial support/incentives for affordable housing.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Hyunjung Ji

Hyunjung Ji is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at University of Alabama. Her research focuses on institutional design of nonregulatory environmental programmes in both public and private organizations and its relationship with policy outcomes.

Nicole Darnall

Nicole Darnall is a Professor of Management and Public Policy in the School of Public Affairs and the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University (ASU). She is also ASU Associate Director of the Centre for Organization Research and Design. Her research examines the extent to which nonregulatory incentives encourage organizations and individuals to operate more sustainability.