Government Sustainable Development Strategy 2023-2028

The Strategy is meant to incorporate sustainable development into all spheres of government action, i.e., laws, public policies and programs for accelerating the transition to a more prosperous, green and responsible Québec.

The plan involves more than 110 government ministries and agencies working to transform the environmental and climate challenges faced by Québec into business opportunities, while protecting the pocketbook, health and well-being of its citizenry.

The Strategy 2023-2028 at a glance (PDF 0.98 Mb)

The 2023-2028 government guidelines

The Government Sustainable Development Strategy (PDF 7.49 Mb) (French) consists of five policy guidelines grouping together 20 strategic and 40 secondary objectives.

Guidelines 1 through 4 define the strategy’s ambitions for a prosperous, green and responsible Québec, as well as the means for achieving them.

Guideline 5 defines priority governance and management ways and means that will allow the government to lead by example by conducting its operations responsibly in key areas such as procurement and property management, and in its decision-making processes, to better reflect sustainable development challenges in its actions.

Complementary to the objectives, the Strategy also includes five work stream projects that will spur targeted ministries and agencies to work in tandem to accelerate the realization of structuring and strategic measures for Québec.

As anticipated in the Sustainable Development Act, this framework will oversee government action over the next 5 years.

Key province-wide indicators will measure the extent to which the objectives of the 2023-2028 Strategy and the success of the work stream projects are being met. See the Cadre de suivi préliminaire des objectifs de la Stratégie 2023-2028 (PDF 194 Kb) (French) monitoring framework for more information.

The preliminary monitoring framework for the 2023-2028 Strategy objectives will be updated within six months of the adoption of the Strategy and presented in its final form to the Cabinet, for adoption.

Intensifying climate and biodiversity challenges

The 2023-2028 Strategy takes into account the context of accelerating global challenges associated with the climate and biodiversity crisis, whose consequences impact society across-the-board. It gives pride of place to the issues facing Québec so as to widen the search for concrete solutions in all areas of government intervention, opening up new fields of action.

Québec’s contribution to the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

Implementation

The Strategy involves more than 110 ministries and agencies that work in all spheres of society. Each produces a sustainable development action plan (PADD) that lays out commitments in their spheres of activity for contributing to the realization of the Strategy’s objectives and, in this way, mentoring change throughout society. The contribution of each is therefore known in advance.

The Ministère de la Santé et des Services sociaux, Ministère de l’Éducation et de l’Enseignement supérieur and Ministère des Affaires municipales et de l’Habitation are tasked with ensuring the contributions of institutions of the para-public networks and municipal organizations under their aegis. Currently, these institutions and municipal organizations do not fall within the purview of the Sustainable Development Act.

Sustainable development action PADD plans of government ministries and agencies

All entities covered by the Sustainable Development Act are required to produce a PADD for the 2023-2028 time frame. Hyperlinks to the PADDs will be added upon publication. Per the Orientations en matière de planification pour l’administration gouvernementale (PDF 210 Kb) (French), government ministries and agencies have until September 1, 2023 to adopt their plans, which are required to cover the period of implementation of the 2023-2028 Strategy.

List of government ministries and agencies required to produce a sustainable development action plan (all documents available in French only):

Accountability and performance evaluation

The government ministries and agencies are required to annually report their PADD achievements in a separate section of their annual RAG management reports, which must be tabled to the National Assembly. On the basis of RAG results, the Ministère de l’Environnement, de la Lutte contre les changements climatiques, de la Faune et des Parcs assigns a sustainable development performance index covering 2018-2019 for each ministry and starting in 2023-2024 for each agency.

Sustainable development performance index

The Ministère de l’Environnement, de la Lutte contre les changements climatiques, de la Faune et des Parcs assesses PADD quality when published, as well as annual results. Each ministry and government agency that produces a PADD is then assigned a sustainable development performance index.

View the results on the sustainable development performance index This hyperlink will open in a new window. page.

Government Sustainable Development Strategy implementation reports

Strategy accountability is assured through the production of periodic implementation reports that describe the actions taken by government ministries and agencies to achieve their assigned objectives. The Ministère de l’Environnement, de la Lutte contre les changements climatiques, de la Faune et des Parcs is tasked with producing the reports, that include the following:

  • a report tabled every five years in the National Assembly by the Premier;
  • the state of sustainable development in Quebec, produced in collaboration with the Institut de la statistique du Québec when the Strategy is reviewed.

Currently available: the Government Sustainable Development Strategy 2015-2020 implementation reports This hyperlink will open in a new window. (French) .