Short Abstract

This session presents an initiative to co-design an evidence-informed framework for evaluating sustainability interventions, drawing on a UK–Brazil project focused on building and empowering communities of evidence.

Description

Municipalities in Brazil face persistent challenges in managing sustainability interventions due to limited resources, complex policy interdependencies, and competing political and administrative demands. These conditions frequently result in fragmented planning, inefficient implementation, and inadequate evaluation practices. Addressing such challenges requires structured evaluation frameworks that help municipalities design, implement, and assess sustainability interventions systematically, while balancing short-term constraints with long-term environmental goals.

Our project responds to this need by co-designing an evidence-informed evaluation framework (EF) that strengthens municipal capacity to integrate evidence throughout the policy cycle. The initiative focuses on sustainability interventions in solid waste management within municipalities in the State of São Paulo—one of Brazil’s 27 federal units and responsible for roughly one-third of the national GDP. Solid waste management is a critical policy area where behavioural change, stakeholder engagement, and cross-sector coordination are essential for effective and sustainable results.

The co-designed EF is grounded in behavioural change principles and in empowering communities of evidence. It recognises contextual factors shaping local decision-making and provides municipalities with practical tools to plan, implement, measure, and refine sustainability interventions. By integrating evidence use into routine processes, the framework supports improved governance, enhances transparency, and enables adaptive learning. In doing so, it contributes to advancing the Sustainable Development Goals at the municipal level.

This initiative emerges from a collaboration between the University of Portsmouth (UK) and the University of São Paulo (Brazil), with strong emphasis on knowledge mobilisation across international partners. The project also includes exchanges between researchers and municipal practitioners, enabling co-production of tools that are both context-sensitive and operationally feasible for local governments.

Through this session, we will share the framework, key components of the toolkits, and reflections from the co-design process. We will also discuss how building communities of evidence can strengthen municipal evaluation culture and contribute to more effective sustainability outcomes.