MetaMAP: a graphical tool for designing initiatives to support multiple sustainability goals

Abstract

AbstractThis paper presents MetaMAP: a new graphical tool and framework for designing well-integrated sustainability initiatives, and managing synergies and trade-offs regarding the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs are highly interconnected, but many institutional structures and thinking paradigms lead us to look at them in isolation. This stifles innovation and social transformation. Most tools and frameworks, while valuable, focus on analysis, not design, and are limited to a particular discipline, sector, SDG, or geographic scale. Without holistic frameworks and collaborative tools, many sustainability practitioners may be playing chess without a board. To support a more integrated approach to achieve the SDGs, MetaMAP resembles architectural design tools which help users to synthesise knowledge, reframe complex situations, and identify stakeholders, leverage points, synergies, and trade-offs. MetaMAP applies a new meta-framework to organise concept maps developed collaboratively by interdisciplinary teams following a guided process. This framework integrates components of the natural environment, built environment, and society across multiple spatial and temporal scales. It incorporates concepts from social-ecological systems, planetary boundaries, design thinking, integral theory, ecosystem services, and ecological footprint, among others. MetaMAP was designed with input from over 170 people from diverse disciplines in five workshops, numerous case studies, and critique. This article demonstrates MetaMAP through its application to a case study in which a multidisciplinary team analysed the impacts of an Ecovillage across scales and designed synergetic initiatives. We then critique MetaMAP from four disciplinary perspectives. We envision that MetaMAP will support the design of sustainability initiatives which are more efficient, more broadly supported, and contribute to multiple SDGs simultaneously. By taking a systems view and applying design thinking, MetaMAP helps users to understand interlinkages, maximise synergies, and minimise trade-offs when designing specific SDG initiatives.