Sustainable Development

Sustainability starts with geography

Every community has a vision for a prosperous and vibrant future—one that achieves peace and prosperity for all. Use GIS technology to better understand and reduce local inequalities, implement plans that have the greatest impact, and ensure no one is left behind.

Take a geographic approach

Promoting sustainability requires a location-based understanding of the ways social, economic, and environmental factors interact in communities.

Use maps as a common language

Collect, view, and analyze data about a community with GIS. Create maps that communicate critical needs, priorities, and actions.

Create shared understanding

Connect organizations, ease collaboration, and drive collective action toward sustainable prosperity with dynamic maps and spatial analysis.

Urban highway with tree-filled median and skyscrapers in the distance

Support sustainable growth

Maps reveal ideal places to connect green spaces for healthier ecosystems and enhanced quality of life.

Achieve sustainable development goals with GIS

Establish and measure performance baselines, monitor and account for investments, report on progress toward targets, and ensure transparency with sustainable development partners.

Align and localize
Measure what matters
Communicate and engage

Connect local priorities to global goals

Sustainable development goals (SDGs) can be localized to align with a community’s vision. Use them to outline priorities and consider related targets that can increase impacts. Once you connect global goals to local priorities, use GIS to identify partners, detect gaps in services, and align communication on progress—all while guaranteeing efforts are aspirational and locally meaningful.

Aerial view of a road going through a solar farm and residential area near water.

Analyze data to understand community needs

Map and analyze data from integrated sources in GIS to quickly identify inequities and gaps in community resources, making it easier to focus on efforts that matter most to your community. With location-based insights into your development baseline, you can easily visualize and outline priorities and develop strategies that will help you move closer to a shared vision for the future.

Map of flooding impacts in a developed area.

Visualize and report on progress

Tell a story about your vision for a sustainable and resilient future in the context of location to inspire and mobilize your community. Maps provide an intuitive way to promote transparency and inform everyone on the work that is yet to be done. Use spatial analysis to target areas where change is most needed.

Sustainable Development Goals

A framework for turning your vision into action

Use GIS to understand local inequalities, share SDG progress in the context of location, encourage community engagement, and combat misinformation with authoritative data and maps.