info@shiftcollaborative.ca

Our Climate Change Services

Climate change is not only a technical and environmental problem, but also a human and social one. At SHIFT, we focus on building the conditions and capacities needed to support sustainable change from the inside out—in individuals, groups, organizations and communities.

Through thoughtful design and engagement, we bring people together across sectors, disciplines, and perspectives to create genuine trust, collective insights, and wise strategy to respond to climate change. We work with you to create more robust, equitable pathways to address mitigation and adaptation challenges and to increase climate resilience.

We bring these approaches to a wide range of issues affected by climate change, and have a depth of experience in the following areas:

Our expertise

Climate change
adaptation

Working closely with technical and policy experts, we bring the process and communications expertise to support organizations, communities and collaboratives to deepen understanding of complex topics, build capacity for collaboration and implementation, and better inform climate vulnerability and risk assessments and plans. We work across a wide range of climate-related topics with a particular focus on flood and heat, and also specialize in processes at a regional scale.

Health and
climate change

Climate change is one of the biggest health challenges facing humanity. We support all levels of government, health authorities, and community sectors to understand, plan for, and address the health and social impacts of climate change and ‘multi-solve’ to create solutions that enhance resilience, health, and equity.

Climate
equity

Inequities are amplified by the impacts of climate change, putting marginalized populations at higher risk. Using intersectional, trauma-informed approaches and gender-based analysis (GBA+) we support partners to understand climate impacts on diverse populations and apply a climate equity lens to policies, plans and programs. We centre the expertise of people with lived experience in our research, engagement and planning.

How we can help you

Participatory Planning, Research and Risk Assessment

We design and facilitate processes involving a wide range of stakeholders and partners to better understand climate-related issues, assess priorities, and create well-grounded action and implementation plans.

We work closely with technical and policy experts and those with lived experience to create shared understanding and alignment across multiple jurisdictions and partners, particularly at a regional level.

People collaborating

Climate Leadership and Capacity Building

Beyond assessments and plans, we also need to build our capacity as individuals, groups and organizations to deal with uncertainty and complexity in our work.

That is why capacity-building practices are at the heart of the workshops, trainings and communities of practice we offer. Each one is carefully designed to help develop the leadership skills and practices of those working on the front lines of climate action, so they have the resilience required to face those uncertainties head on.

Poster of sticky notes answering the question, 'what are the biggest opportunities to address climate change'

Multi-Sector Collaboration and Innovation

We provide customized design, facilitation and convening of processes for climate mitigation and adaptation that enable diverse sectors and audiences to reflect, learn and take action together.

Our processes enhance understanding of the impacts of climate change (e.g. heat, wildfires, flooding) and use systems thinking to uncover complex dynamics, interconnections and underlying root causes that hold a challenge in place.

Core to our approach is meaningfully engaging those most impacted by climate change and valuing lived experience as expertise.

Different groups of people collaborating

Let’s discuss how SHIFT can help you advance your climate goals.

Contact us