PODCASTS

Sharing | Contributing | Transforming

EcoPlan continues to add pertinent and professional insights via our new Podcast resource.
Please contact us to discuss how we can help.

 

Structured Decision Support — Anatomy of Good Planning

This podcast discusses EcoPlan’s approach to planning that incorporates Structured Decision Support as detailed in: “Structured Decision Support — Anatomy of Good Planning (Trousdale, 2025)

This paper advocates for a modernized planning approach by integrating rational analysis (head), emotional intelligence (heart), and intuitive judgment (gut) through an adaptation of Structured Decision Support (SDS). It traces the evolution of planning practices, highlighting the increasing importance of participatory processes and the need to incorporate diverse human factors beyond pure logic. The paper argues that traditional planning methods, often rooted in purely rational models, can be enhanced by explicitly considering values, emotions, and experience. By outlining challenges in adopting this integrated “head-heart-gut” framework and presenting case studies, Trousdale demonstrates the potential of SDS, supported by various tools and techniques, to create more inclusive, transparent, and effective planning outcomes across different contexts like water management, transportation, Indigenous planning, and urban development.

Strategic Planning for Local  Economic Development

This podcast summarized three guidebooks where EcoPlan was the primary author. This suggests a consistent approach and philosophy towards local economic development (LED) and a  complementary approach to supporting LED practitioners.

The guidebooks are:

  1. Promoting Local Economic Development Through Strategic Planning (with the United
    Nations)
  2. A Toolkit for LED Practitioners (with the United Nations)
  3. Strategic Planning Toolkit for Local Economic Development in British Columbia (with the Province of BC)

 

These sources provide guidance and tools for local economic development (LED). They are practical toolkits for local economic development (LED) practitioners, offering specific tools and guidance for various stages of LED initiatives.

Valuing Cultural Benefits: Structured Decision Support for Environmental Injuries

This podcast summarizes three papers that describe EcoPlan International’s approach to compensation for social, cultural and environmental loss.

  • Compensating Aboriginal Cultural Losses: An Alternative Approach to Assessing Environmental Damages (McDaniels and Trousdale – 2005)
  • Resource Compensation and Negotiation Support in an Aboriginal Context: Using Community-Based Multi-Attribute Analysis to Evaluate Non-Market Losses (Gregory and Trousdale – 2009)
  • Use of Structured Decision Support for Valuing Lost Cultural Benefits Associated with Environmental Injuries (Trousdale and Hanson – 2020)

 

These papers explore methods for evaluating and compensating for losses of non-market cultural values, particularly in the context of environmental damage impacting Indigenous communities. McDaniels and Trousdale present a community-based multi-attribute analysis approach for valuing resource damages affecting complex, intangible values, using Metis settlements in Alberta as a case study. This method aims to characterize the significance of resource losses from the perspective of common property resource owners. Gregory and Trousdale’s research focuses on improving the assessment and compensation of Aboriginal cultural losses resulting from environmental damages.  They advocate for alternative approaches like structured decision making (SDM) and structured decision support (SDS), which prioritize community participation, consider non-market values, and address uncertainty to create more effective and culturally appropriate compensation agreement.  Trousdale and Hanson outline a structured decision support (SDS) approach for scaling the value of threatened or lost cultural services, emphasizing “Benefit-to-Benefit” or “Benefit-to-Cost” scaling without requiring stakeholders to assign direct monetary values to non-material losses, applicable in both Indigenous and non-Indigenous contexts. These approaches offer alternatives to traditional economic valuation methods, addressing the unique challenges of quantifying and redressing cultural losses due to environmental injuries.