As a leading climate change consultancy, we help create decarbonized, equitable, healthy communities for everyone.
As a worker co-operative, we prioritize providing meaningful work for our member-owners and demonstrate how a democratic business model can thrive.
SSG creates state-of-art climate mitigation and adaptation plans for municipalities, governments, organizations, utilities, and campuses to create decarbonized, healthy, equitable communities.
We began our work in 2004 in Canada, but have since expanded to the US, Latin America, and beyond. We have charted decarbonized futures for more than 40% of the Canadian population, and worked with over 100 municipalities and organizations responding to the climate crisis through equitable community engagement and evidence-based energy, emissions, land-use, and financial modelling.
We designed our state-of-the-art climate action planning models in collaboration with whatIf? Technologies, a systems dynamics modelling firm established in 1987. We have combined forces on the bulk of our climate action plans and democratically merged our organizations under the SSG worker co-operative banner in 2022.
We help decision-makers create viable plans for mitigating greenhouse gasses and adapting to climate change. We enable communities and organizations to increase resilience and reach their emissions reduction goals through energy, emissions, land-use, and financial modelling and analysis, informed by robust public engagement.
Through a quantitative modelling process, combined with qualitative analysis and meaningful engagement with local communities, we help decision-makers understand the costs and benefits of implementing climate actions and policies at a time when the number and severity of climate hazards is increasing.
Plan implementation is the most critical step in addressing the climate crisis. We create step-by-step implementation frameworks that detail how climate action becomes reality, including program design, staffing needs, and where funding is sourced, spent, and recouped.
Our energy, emissions, land-use, and financial scenario modelling enables decision-makers to map out possible futures to determine how to reduce emissions, create jobs, and optimize land use to create equitable, decarbonized, healthy communities. Find out more about our models here.
We build inventories that enable communities and organizations to classify and take stock of their energy use and emissions, so they can determine reduction strategies and track progress. Our inventories are compatible with the Global Protocol for Community-Scale GHG Inventories, the Global Covenant of Mayors, the Carbon Disclosure Project, the U.S. Community Protocol for Accounting and Reporting of Greenhouse Gas Emissions, the Local Government Operations Protocol (LGO Protocol), and FCM’s Partners for Climate Protection Milestone Tool.
Carbon budgets are a state-of-the-art tool for tracking and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. We help cities and organizations identify and commit to a carbon budget—an overall cap on how much greenhouse gas they can emit, ever. Our carbon accounting frameworks help institutionalize this budget by providing a method for organizations to manage their emissions alongside their financial budget.
Climate action does more than just reduce emissions. We help local governments and organizations understand how climate action impacts equity, household costs, the local economy, and public health. We work with local communities to co-design climate action plans that create jobs, save money, and improve quality of life.
Land-use planning is climate change planning. We combine qualitative analysis, quantitative modelling, and public engagement to generate land-use planning and transportation insights that help local governments integrate climate planning into the heart of official plans.
The cooperative model enables how we work to reflect why we do this work.
Though SSG and whatif? Technologies emerged from different places, with different service offerings, both were rooted in a recognition that nothing short of systemic change is needed to address the greatest challenges of our time.
Our commitment to operating as a worker cooperative is informed by our belief that businesses that value economic, social, democratic, and ecological priorities are foundational to a just transition to an equitable, healthy, and decarbonized future
We are actively engaged in Co-ops and Mutuals Canada, Canadian Worker Co-op Federation (CWCF), Co-operatives UK, and participate in UN negotiations and engagement.
We are grateful to have been recognized over the years for our contribution to the field of sustainability planning.
