Preparing Social Purpose Organizations for the Impacts of Climate Change

The effects of climate change are widespread, leading to long-term social, economic, and environmental impacts. For mid-sized Canadian cities, some of the major environmental impacts include food insecurity, extreme weather resilience, and environmental pollution. Understanding the intersectionality between social issues in the urban sector and climate change allows organizations to create targeted and effective climate action programs. The primary relationships identified in this report are between climate change and social issues such as poverty, racial inequalities, mental health, climate migration, and food access. This analysis explores the relationship between these topics and the ways in which social purpose organizations in Canada are impacted by a multitude of intersections. Information and recommendations from this report can be applied to any mid-sized city in Canada. Five social purpose organizations that have implemented socio-environmental intersectional programming were researched and interviewed for this report.

This report was created by graduate students of the Masters of Environmental Sustainability program at Western University in partnership with SDG Cities.