Developing a Utility Strategic Plan Integrating Sustainability, Innovation and Equity: A Case Study of the 2021-2025 MWRD Strategic Plan

The Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (MWRD) is a special-purpose district responsible for treating wastewater and providing stormwater management for residents and businesses in its 882-square-mile service area, which encompasses Chicago and 128 suburban communities throughout Cook County. The MWRD works diligently to protect Lake Michigan, the source of their drinking water, and to ensure the health and safety of residents and area waterways. In 2020, the MWRD embarked upon a strategic planning process to establish the vision and goals that would guide its work over the next five years. The MWRD engaged Arup and Civic Consulting Alliance to conduct the strategic planning process in collaboration with its Board of Commissioners and Executive Team. We brought expertise on structuring comprehensive stakeholder engagement for water utilities along with experience working with institutions to embed an equity-focus across their work — two strategic priorities for the MWRD in this round of planning. This new Plan built on the accomplishments of their 2015-2020 Strategic Plan. The goals were to: - Articulate the mission, vision, and strategic goals for the MWRD for the next five years - Identify a set of strategic initiatives to achieve those goals - Provide a framework for measuring progress and reviewing/updating the Plan on an annual basis The planning process began in September 2020 and was completed February 2021. The Strategic Plan was formally effective on June 3, 2021. We undertook a comprehensive, staged approach that consisted of four consecutive phases: - Phase 1: Led an intensive and iterative engagement effort to assess the MWRD's current state and identify its desired future state. That engagement effort included MWRD leadership and more than 500 MWRD staff, as well as approximately 50 stakeholder organizations that participated in a stakeholder workshop — including the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, the Metropolitan Planning Council, and a range of environmental and community-based organizations — and members of the general public who participated in public-facing surveys. - Phase 2: Conducted a workshop with the MWRD's strategic planning Steering Committee, which identified five strategic goals: resource management; stormwater management; workforce excellence; community engagement; and enterprise resilience. The strategic goals were formulated based on information and opinions collected during Phase 1. - Phase 3: Facilitated working groups for each strategic goal and developed a Strategic Roadmap for the MWRD to implement, including 150+ sequenced initiatives and metrics to measure progress. - Phase 4: Finalized the Five-Year Strategic Plan, which includes 5 overarching strategic goals, 32 strategies (that support the goals), and initiatives and a framework for the MWRD to update the plan annually. We presented on global best practices and industry trends to help guide the visioning process, and facilitated external stakeholder workshops to bring perspectives from environmental organizations, local communities, and regional planning groups into the planning process for the first time in the MWRD's history. Our Strategic Planning team leveraged industry frameworks from organizations such as the National Association of Clean Water Agencies (NACWA) and Water Environment Federation (WEF); and augmented with other trending research such as City Water Resilience Approach (by Rockefeller Foundation, Stockholm International Water Institute, Arup) and Circular Economy principles (Ellen MacArthur Foundation) to create a context-specific Strategic Plan for the MWRD. This resulted in a Strategic Plan that is innovative, responsive to key trends such as the growing threat of climate change, and the racial and social inequity in Cook County. As a result of this process, the MWRD is equipped with a Strategic Plan guided by the principles of engagement, collaboration, innovation, equity, and resilience. The MWRD's vision for its future state has been updated, and given the racial and social inequity in the communities served by the MWRD, its core values have been expanded to include equity and diversity. Moreover, these values are reflected in the specific strategic initiatives outlined in the new Plan. For example, one key focus is to identify and eliminate barriers to participation for disproportionately impacted areas (DIAs) — low-to-moderate income areas that may be more susceptible to flooding, and that often have less capacity to partner with the MWRD to implement stormwater solutions and alleviate local flooding. The benefits and significance of the Strategic Plan will be far-reaching for the MWRD to give a positive social impact to the communities it serves. These include: - Integration of an equity lens into the District's vision and strategies, to reduce the disproportionate impact of flooding and other water management challenges on low-to-moderate income areas in Cook County - District is equipped with a robust, collaborative, and community-informed strategic planning process that will guide it to a path to a more sustainable future The presentation will provide the following: - An overview of the overall strategic planning process - Steps to make the process more inclusive, and how staff at all levels were engaged, and how external organizations and the public were engaged - Identify the industry related frameworks that were used to develop the Strategic Plan - A review of key themes and initiatives identified in the Strategic Plan - Key outcomes that will forge stronger and more equitable connections with the communities the District serves - Lessons learned from conducting this process remotely and in virtual environments