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Manitoba, Canada

Our Home Province

IISD boasts an international presence with offices in New York, Geneva and Ottawa, and with associates and consultants coming from more than 30 countries. Since IISD's inception, though, our headquarters have been in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

At the UN in 1988, Canada announced its intention to establish an international institute devoted to advancing sustainable development. The Province of Manitoba expressed its interest in hosting and helping to fund the institute—a move consistent with Manitoba's historical and ongoing commitment to grounding its economic and social development in a healthy environment. It was the first Canadian province to establish a multi-stakeholder Round Table on Sustainable Development, the first to pass a Sustainable Development Act and has taken a leadership role on the issue of climate change.

The Province is a founding core funder of the institute and continues to provide financial support to IISD. And Manitoba businesses, foundations and individuals have been active supporters of the institute, contributing in particular to IISD's Innovation Fund. The famed generosity of Manitobans has played a key role in keeping IISD strong and healthy. Financial support at home is an important signal to potential donors outside of Manitoba and Canada.

Today, more than 40 people work in the Winnipeg office. As an institute we demonstrate our community pride by participating in the city's Commuter Challenge; by holding a United Way campaign; by participating in blood drives; and in other ways.

We maintain active relationships with local post-secondary institutions, do business with many local suppliers and hold events in the province that include guests from across Canada and around the world.

Aside from simply working here, a significant amount of our substantive work has taken place in Manitoba. We are proud to give back to our home province by applying our expertise here.

Our current work in the province includes

• Lake Winnipeg Stewardship/Netley-Libau Wetlands Research
  IISD proposes to conduct an international survey of projects of a scale similar to that envisioned for the Netley-Libau wetlands complex.

• Manitoba's Department of Education, Citizenship and Youth
  IISD is working with the department on its activities related to the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development.

• Manitoba Water Soft Paths
  IISD, in partnership with Manitoba Water Stewardship, is undertaking a program to provide a policy framework to achieve sustainable water resources management. The project is a multi-year program in which we will analyze water use in parts of Manitoba south of, and including, the Winnipeg River and Saskatchewan River watersheds, then use a "soft paths" approach to make recommendations for future policy direction. A soft path approach focuses on demand-side management and conservation initiatives, as opposed to a hard path approach, which focuses on expanding water infrastructure.

• Adaptation as Resilience Building
  The project was based on the premise that prairie agroecosystems, or the inter-relationship between social and ecological systems in the prairie region, have been continuously adapting (successfully and unsuccessfully) to historic climate variability.

• The Pimachiowin Aki World Heritage Site Project
  IISD is helping this partnership of five First Nations and the governments of Manitoba and Ontario to establish a UNESCO World Heritage Site for a large section of boreal forest that straddles the Manitoba-Ontario border east of Lake Winnipeg.

• Development and Use of Outcome-based Measures for Government Planning and Reporting
  IISD is working with the Province of Manitoba's Treasury Board Secretariat to develop a workshop that would help build the capacity of government planners and reporters in using outcome-based measures.

• Evaluation of the Impact of the Sustainable Development Innovations Fund
  The project involves tracking the number and type of projects funded over the last four years and to measure the impact of these projects on Manitoba's sustainability.

• KyotoSmart
  IISD serves as the Secretariat for the KyotoSmart Network, of which the Province of Manitoba is a founding member.

• IISD Internships
  IISD runs a number of important internship programs for young professionals. Over the years, IISD has placed about 30 Manitoba interns in exciting international positions.

Highlights of earlier IISD work in Manitoba include

• Manitoba Sustainable Development Report (2005; 1997)
  The province's first pilot sustainable development report focusing on Manitoba's Prairie Ecozone was published in 1997 as a result of close collaboration between Manitoba Conservation and IISD. Manitoba's first full-scale sustainable development report was published in 2005.

• A Community Indicators System for Winnipeg (Business Plan) (2005)
  IISD partnered with the United Way of Winnipeg to explore how to create a community indicators system for Winnipeg that would measure and report on progress in the quality of life of its citizens. Between 2003 and 2005, dozens of Winnipeggers came to workshops and planning groups to consider the feasibility of such a system.

• Environmental Improvement Zones (EIZ): A model for engaging Winnipeg neighbourhoods in local action; Considerations for implementation in Winnipeg. (2005) (PDF - 750 kb)
  Reviews the history of environmental communications and decision-making across the neighbourhoods of Winnipeg, examines precedents in other municipalities, and provides some guidance on how the neighbourhood approach might work in Winnipeg.

• Environmental Improvement Zones (EIZ): A Guide to environmental issues in Winnipeg neighbourhoods (2005) (PDF - 910 kb)
  Identifies key environmental issues and suggests strategic activities that neighbourhoods could undertake, based on pilot exercises in the neighbourhoods of Whyte Ridge, Riverview and West Broadway.

• The Prairie Water Policy Symposium (2005)
  The Prairie Water Policy Symposium (PWPS) was hosted by IISD on September 22-23, 2005, in Winnipeg, at the forks of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers. This event brought together approximately 100 policy-makers, researchers and scientists from across the country.

• Realizing Opportunities: Emissions trading in Manitoba (2004) (PDF - 1.4 mb)
  IISD serves as the Secretariat for a Manitoba task force on emissions trading and releases a report on how the province can take advantage of economic opportunities.

• Kyoto Mechanisms and the Manitoba Business Sector (2003) and Agriculture and Carbon Management (2002)
  IISD hosted two workshops that examined the implications and opportunities associated with climate change for the agricultural and business sectors of Manitoba.

• Manitoba Climate Change Task Force (2001)
  IISD worked with the Manitoba Clean Environment Commission to support the activities of the Manitoba Climate Change Task Force. Formed in 2001, the task force examined the environmental challenges and economic opportunities for Manitoba associated with climate change.

• Manitoba and Climate Change: A Primer (2001)
  As well, IISD collaborated with the CEC to develop a booklet entitled Manitoba and Climate Change: A Primer. This booklet provides an introduction to the implications of climate change for Manitoba, and contains analysis of the science and international and Canadian responses to this environmental phenomenon.

• City of Winnipeg Quality of Life Indicators (1996) (PDF - 320 kb)
  Plan Winnipeg, a strategic plan for the City of Winnipeg, identified high quality of life as the key element in the community's vision for the future. To make this vision a reality, it was essential to identify and monitor key measurable elements of the vision.

• The Great Plains Program (1993)
  IISD's Great Plains Program began with the convening of stakeholders across the Canadian prairies to articulate their needs on sustainability issues.

• Skownan First Nation Community Values Project: Integrating Aboriginal Values into Land Use and Resource Management
  Between January 2000 and June 2001, IISD partnered with Skownan First Nation, formerly called Waterhen First Nation, to explore how Aboriginal people value the lands around them and how this information can be incorporated into Manitoba's land-use and resource management activities.

Institutional Memberships in Manitoba

• Manitoba Eco-Network
• Climate Change Connection
• Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce
• Manitoba Council for International Cooperation
• Dean's External Advisory Committee, Clayton H. Riddell Faculty of Environment, Earth, and Resources, University of Manitoba
• University of Winnipeg Global College Advisory Board

Manitoba Board Members

• James Carr, President and Chief Executive Officer, Business Council of Manitoba (Winnipeg)
• Charles Loewen, President and Chief Executive Officer, Loewen Windows (Steinbach)

Manitoba Advisory Participants

• Paul Vogt, Clerk of the Executive Council, Province of Manitoba
• Norm Brandson, Former Deputy Minister of Water Stewardship, Province of Manitoba

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