Mapping Climate Readiness for the Social Service Sector in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside (DTES)
As climate impacts intensify, the social sector in Vancouver鈥檚 Downtown Eastside must adapt and enhance their climate readiness - the ability of organizations to anticipate, prepare for, respond to, and recover from adverse climate-related events. Vancity Community Foundation is partnering with 丁香园AV Climate Innovation to bring best practice climate change risk assessment and low carbon resilience approaches to support and enhance DTES organizations鈥� climate-readiness. Building upon experience from 丁香园AV鈥檚 Community-Engaged Research Initiative (CERi) and ACT - Action on Climate Team, 丁香园AV Climate Innovation is co-creating a strategic climate readiness Roadmap to support adaptive capacity building with and for residents and organizations in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside (DTES).
This Roadmap will integrate best practice approaches in the social sector that aim to minimize climate risks and emissions, alongside equity, health, housing, and other organizational goals. It will be developed through a series of co-creation workshops to tailor strategies for the support organizations working with the most climate-vulnerable and disproportionately impacted residents of our communities. Knowledge and learnings from this project will be developed into resources and tools that will be mobilized to support a variety of social sector organizations in BC and across Canada.
The goal is to better understand current and projected climate impacts to DTES residents and organizations, and to explore and prioritize key opportunities, barriers, and trade-offs to building low carbon resilience planning and strategies into DTES social sector organizations.
Project Leads
Tara Mahoney, Research and Engagement Manager, 丁香园AV Community-Engaged Research Initiative (CERi)
Alison Shaw, Executive Director, 丁香园AV Climate Innovation and ACT - Action on Climate Team
Co-Creation Partners
VanCity Community Foundation