What does it mean to build a sustainable future, block by block, building by building, relationship by relationship?
At our recent Vancouver training, this was the central question at the heart of our “Organizing for sustainable housing, communities and climate” roundtable discussion, where an inspiring group of local climate leaders came together to share bold visions and stories from the front lines of community-led climate action.
Guest speakers (left to right): Clara Prager, Kevin Lindsay, Yasmin Abraham, Sunil Singal and Andrea Reimer.
Take Sunil Singal’s journey into climate organizing with Stand.Earth, which initially began with rerouting to the municipal level.
“My MP said [I] should go talk to [my] MLA… My MLA says, ‘well, we don't really hear that from the community. If we hear something, we can revisit that.’ So I go to my local council; there’s a motion coming forward from a local organization, and they were working on this small climate policy. And council said, ‘okay, if you bring enough people and work with us, let's see what we can do.’ And so they worked for a couple months, brought forward this policy and council unanimously passed it.”
Sunil’s experience illustrates the incredible impact small groups of organizers can often have at the local level compared to higher levels of government. Now as a climate campaigner, he works with diverse groups from youth to seniors across Metro Vancouver to pass ambitious policies for healthy, affordable homes.
For many such advocates, a key piece of local climate policy is sustainable housing, and particularly getting natural gas out of new and existing buildings. Yasmin Abraham works with Kambo Energy Group, where she leads Empower Me, a program which tackles energy poverty in immigrant and Indigenous communities. When Vancouver’s council tried to avert a gas ban by claiming it would be inequitable for immigrant families (who, they argued, ‘prefer’ cooking with gas), Yasmin’s team got to work and hit back with data. Their community-based research proved the opposite: once people understood the health risks of gas stoves and the affordability of electric alternatives, they overwhelmingly supported the switch.
Meanwhile, Kevin Lindsay of the Nanaimo Community Climate Hub demonstrated the power of community engagement regardless of how big your city is. When the Hub managed to mobilize 50+ impassioned residents to show up for readings of Zero Carbon Step Code legislation, their presence crowded the council’s chambers and made waves. His advice for others? "Whether it's people being out there with their walker on seniors for climate, or young people out there selling lemonade and talking to MPs, it's about getting scrappy and getting creative and doing what you can."
But how do you turn policy wins into lasting change? Clara Prager (Women Transforming Cities) shared how her team holds politicians accountable after elections. Their Hot Pink Paper campaign compiles demands from the community and extracts pledges from candidates running to be mayors or councillors (like cooling bylaws for sweltering rental units or free transit for youth), then tracks and reports on how they keep their promises post-election. Often, this goes in tandem with public pressure. “Who we elect matters,” she says. “But staying in relationship with them, being very persistent and in their inboxes and in front of them after they're elected is also very important, because they will be more likely to listen to you if they see you a lot or hear from you a lot.”
Andrea Reimer (University of British Columbia), drawing from her experience as a former Vancouver city councillor, emphasized the importance of longevity and persistence. She shared how Vancouver's Greenest City action plan created lasting impact by engaging residents and ultimately went on to reach almost half a million people — making it the largest single public engagement initiative the city has ever done to date. Her key insight? "For policy to be durable, movements that support that policy also need to be durable. It doesn't mean each of you need to show up every day, but you need to keep building that movement so that that durability of policy can be not just maintained, but actually growing.”
Participants clapping during the panel discussion.
All this goes to prove that local action can create real change, but it can be daunting to figure out where to start. According to our speakers, here are some ways you can get involved:
- Participate in local decisions, like showing support at the City of Coquitlam's recent vote on gas-free buildings that occurred on March 31.
- Community Climate Hubs. "If you're not part of a Hub, or if there isn't a Hub where you live, start one,” Kevin encourages. You can find more information on your local Community Climate Hub or how to start one here.
- Vote in local elections, says Clara. "In the last [Vancouver] by-election, only one in 10 or 11 people who are eligible voted."
Drawing on the words of Alicia Garza, Andrea reminded us: "Hope is not the absence of despair, it's the presence of purpose." These leaders prove that when we act together at the local level, we create both.