Rio’s extreme inequality makes sustainability in any sense impossible. The promotion of justice and institutional accountability is thus a critical step towards a livable city. In Rio we are viscerally aware that a sustainable city cannot be built without a foundation of social justice.

“Strong” institutions are not necessarily the goal—institutions must be dependable, transparent, and accountable. Central to our mission of cultivating sustainable communities is the guiding principle that communities should be aware of—and empowered to claim—their rights.

We undertake a number of activities across our whole organization to support this goal:

With this goal, the aim is to guarantee people's right to roots and to develop and maintain a sense of belonging in the places they inhabit.

In an ever globalizing world, we grow increasingly aware of what is lost when we do not or cannot maintain and cultivate our connections to a place, a common heritage, memory, community, or cultural identity. Building and maintaining such connections are fundamental to achieving sustainability. Why? Because it is through a sense of belonging that we generate the desire to care for our environment and those around us. And because it is through a sense of belonging that we generate meaning in our lives—essential to guaranteeing our psychological health as we strive to address increasingly intense challenges over the years ahead. This principle highlights the relevance of preserving roots, not only as a right in itself but also as a key element to attaining sustainability.

Thus, we propose a Roots and Belonging "localizing SDG" that recognizes the process through which, by cultivating a sense of value towards one's home and origin, we develop the motivation to preserve them.

With this goal, the aim is to promote residents' autonomy and their ability to decide on development strategies at the community level.

Traditional "development" brings both positive and negative change to informal settlements, with no clear certainty that the positives outweigh the negatives. Residents may benefit from expanded access to infrastructure, but wider streets and losing evicted neighbors may produce a less humane architecture, for example. Or formal recognition of individual land rights may be followed by speculative development, bringing with it the displacement of those very long-time residents said recognition was purportedly intended to serve. A previously rich community fabric may be atomized, losing the collective assets produced over generations.

Thus, we propose a Community Control and Autonomy "localizing SDG" that recognizes the value of insurgent urban planning, tactical urbanism, Community Land Trusts and other mechanisms to ensuring communities control their own development, which of course is always balanced with other SDGs such as SDG 10 on Reduced Inequalities.

With this goal, the aim is to ensure that policies that impact communities are realized in accordance with residents' actual needs and demands.

For development that hinges on public investment, true channels and mechanisms to incorporate community input into decision-making are necessary. These would constitute the "partnership" and "delegated power" rungs on Sherry Arnstein's Ladder of Citizen Participation. Too often, public officials base decisions on political or public relations calculations, and not the true needs or demands of residents, using "manipulation" or "consultation" as a vehicle to "participation". When this happens, by engaging, residents in effect wasted their time and lent artificial credibility to the descisions made (e.g. a visually-impactful cable car that supports a politician's corporate allies in the construction industry, as opposed to an underground sewerage system that would dramatically improve the health of the population).

Designing and implementing programs closely with residents is necessary to building long-term, sustainable communities, particularly in informal settlements where generations of self-build have produced complex and dramatically unique outcomes with qualities an outside observer would have trouble identifying.

Thus, we propose a Direct Channels to Government "localizing SDG" that promotes policies that operate on the upper rungs on Arnstein's Ladder, such as participatory budgeting or Brazil's Minha Casa Minha Vida—Entidades self-built public housing program.

With this goal, the aim is to ensure that representations of communities such as favelas beyond their borders are fair to their realities—their assets and challenges—rather than falling back on broad generalizations, focusing solely on violence, or featuring primarily outside voices.

Local and international media play a critical role in shaping public opinion of informal settlements. While limited incomes commonly result in the squatting that produces informal settlements, and state neglect and lack of opportunity can make these communities easy targets for organized crime, many informal settlements are self-sustaining centers of commerce and vibrant incubators of culture, among numerous other qualities. Building accurate and nuanced narratives on favelas is particularly important because the historic narratives were produced by outsiders who knew little of these communities and benefited from their neglect, and because public officials typically base their policies towards these communities on public opinion. In Rio de Janeiro, for example, there is a direct relationship between a century of stigmatization and the current acceptance that police helicopters shoot down into favelas full of unarmed civilians.

Thus, we propose a Fair, Nuanced Media Representation "localizing SDG." In the absence of proper research, community contacts, or recognition of the impact of their words, many reporters fall back on damaging stereotypes. Capturing complexity and nuance is a difficult but hugely important responsibility of both individual journalists and the institutions they write for.