Implementing sustainable cities

Welcome to this Henry Stewart Talk on Implementing Sustainable Cities. My name is Sylvie Albert, I'm a professor of strategy and leadership at the University of Winnipeg, and a researcher on smart, intelligent, and sustainable cities.

I had the privilege to work with several cities and governments on community economic development, as well as national and international think tanks and boards, including the Intelligent Community Forum in New York, The Global Forum on Shaping the Future in Europe, The Smart Cities Challenge from the Canadian government, and the Information and Communication Technology Council in Canada. This fed my interest in finding new collaborative ways to develop cities as efficient and effective bodies in an increasingly digital and global world.

Implementing Sustainable Cities is my fifth book, providing guidance to cities on leadership, collaboration, innovation, measurement, and execution with the help of several international experts and cities who share their experience. In this book, my colleagues Dr. Manish Pandey, an Economics Professor at the University of Winnipeg, and Jeremy Millard, a researcher and senior analyst in Denmark, who has written extensively on sustainability, have joined me to provide several chapters as co-editors. The book is a collection of works that report on international cities involved in multiple projects on sustainable development. Many of these are reported on the United Nations voluntary local review platform as an opportunity to share knowledge gained. In the book, cities are sharing additional details on how their projects are being planned and executed. There are chapters written by cities directly, reporting on their local sustainability goals and how these projects are chosen, governed, and resourced. There are also chapters that provide best practices in implementing the UN sustainable development goals with support examples. The authors hope that their experience will help other cities interested in developing or expanding upon a sustainability strategy.