Together for Climate
Managing risk through community collaborationTogether for Climate project
The Together for Climate project, supported by the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia’s (REFBC) granting program, supported eight communities across Vancouver Island in advancing their climate adaptation and resilience efforts. This two-year project fostered relationship-building and enduring partnerships, not only between participating municipalities but also between community stakeholders, ensuring an ongoing commitment to climate adaptation across Vancouver Island and beyond.
About the project
During the two-year Together for Climate project we undertook a collaborative planning process with eight municipalities across Vancouver Island – working to build adaptive capacity and community resilience to local climatic impacts. Each step of this process involved diverse partners, stakeholders, and community groups unique to each municipality, who helped to identify local climate impacts and risks, and then envision climate adaptation objectives and actions that can be taken to enhance climate resilience across municipal departments and the wider community. Moreover, this project fostered relationship-building across not only participating municipalities but also between community stakeholders and unlikely suspects” – fostering enduring partnerships that will ensure an ongoing commitment to climate adaptation across Vancouver Island and beyond.
Together for Climate team and process
The Together for Climate project maintained a regional focus – we selected eight communities from across central and southern Vancouver Island in order to propel climate action within a broad geographical area on the Island. Participating municipalities followed ICLEI Canada’s Building Adaptive and Resilient Communities (BARC) Framework Milestones 1 through 3. Each municipality worked with ICLEI to host community workshops focused on identifying climate change impacts, assessing vulnerabilities and risks, building adaptation actions, and collaborating on implementation details. At the end of the project, each municipality determined how to align and integrate the final product of the Together for Climate project to support existing plans, priorities, and goals. Solutions ranged from integrating a low carbon resilience lens to adaptation actions to developing adaptation actions focused on a specific impact (e.g., increasing precipitation and sea level rise) and even creating a Community Climate Change Adaptation Plan to be adopted by Council and fully implemented.
Adaptation planning documents from the participating municipalities
Project resources
Together for Climate project results and outputs report
Through the Together for Climate project, we undertook a collaborative planning process with eight municipalities across Vancouver Island – working to build adaptive capacity and community resilience to local climatic impacts. Each step of the process involved diverse partners, stakeholders, and community groups unique to each municipality who helped to identify local climate impacts and risks and envision climate adaptation objectives and actions to enhance climate-resilience across municipal departments and the wider community. Learn more about our approach, the eight participating communities, and the lessons we learned throughout the process. Learn more about our approach, the eight participating communities, and the lessons we learned throughout the process.
Protecting cultural heritage from sea level rise resource
As with natural resources, biodiversity, public health, and municipal infrastructure, the integrity of our cultural heritage is threatened by climate change. Of the various climate change hazards we face, sea level rise (SLR) is one of the most damaging to our tangible cultural heritage. As a direct result of the climate change impacts identified by several of the participating local governments and their interest in protecting cultural assets from SLR, we developed Considering Sea Level Rise and Cultural Heritage: A Resource for Municipalities. This resource assists municipal planners in better understanding cultural heritage and the various approaches and adaptive actions that can be taken to begin sea level rise management, or continue these efforts.
“Together for Climate” project webinar
This webinar provided an opportunity for climate practitioners to learn directly from other municipalities regarding adaptation planning and different processes and actions that can be taken to achieve effective climate action. The following guest speakers reflected on their experiences and lessons learned throughout the duration of the project both in terms of challenges and successes.
- Hana Lapp, Climate Change Programs Manager, ICLEI Canada
- Maggie Baynham, Senior Sustainability Planner, the District of Saanich
- Chris Osborne, Acting Manager Long Range Planning and Sustainability, the City of Campbell River
- Nicole Smith, Archaeologist
We also unpacked our new resource, Considering Sea Level Rise and Cultural Heritage: A Resource for Municipalities, and provided key takeaways for local governments looking to protect cultural heritage but are not sure where to start.
This project was made possible with funding from the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia. We would also like to acknowledge those who graciously shared their experiences and knowledge to help shape the legacy resources. Photo credit: Eden, Janine, Jim, Flickr; Explore Alberni; Keith Holmes, Hakai Institute.
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Toronto, ON
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We respectfully acknowledge that ICLEI Canada’s work happens across Turtle Island which has traditionally been and is home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples since time immemorial.