OUR APPROACH
Many intersecting challenges define our moment: The climate is in crisis. Social inequities are widening. Trust, in each other and our institutions, is declining. Within our work, we seek to address a growing list of urgent and complex community needs.
OUR VISION
is to co-create deep-green, just,
healthy communities.
Co-create | Intentional and sincere collaboration between different groups of people to build solutions together.
Deep green | A community that operates within planetary boundaries, contributes regenerative solutions and is resilient to the impacts of climate change.
Just | A community of care that cultivates equity, celebrates diversity, and nurtures inclusion for all.
Healthy | A resilient community where all people, for generations, are in a state of physical, mental, spiritual, and social well-being.
OUR MISSION
Our mission is to convene rigorous, experiential processes and to create transformative outcomes that address the complex, collective challenges facing our planet and communities.
OUR VALUES
Our Modus Operandi (way of working) is driven by our values.
Impact | Making real progress on critical issues.
We strive for our projects to have tangible impacts. We do this by writing action-oriented plans and policies, designing people-centered places, and managing projects diligently.
Collaboration and Inclusion | Figuring things out together.
We design fun, dynamic, and collaborative processes that foster empathy and collaboration. We create welcoming spaces for dialogue. We get people to talk face-to-face (or screen-to-screen) about complex challenges. We bring people together to envision a brighter tomorrow.
Capacity | Empowering clients, communities & ourselves.
We build community capacity by raising awareness, broadening participation, sharing information, posing powerful questions, and sharing new ideas. We build organizational capacity by understanding needs, providing training, and offering support.
Learning and Innovation | Embracing curiosity and growth.
We are a team of curious lifelong learners. We learn from the communities we serve, the people we work with, and promising practices in the industry. We learn and communicate through visuals, technical data, stories, and places. We design innovative processes that are iterative, reflective, and flexible.
We seek to build trust – between ourselves, our clients, and the greater public – to create the collective will necessary for change.
WALKING THE TALK
With a company vision to co-create deep green, just, healthy communities, we are continually challenging ourselves to do better by that ambition.
We foster supportive, inclusive and collaborative environments with our staff and project partners. Through our work together, we strive to show tangible progress toward lasting and equitable solutions. We aim to hold each other accountable for the sake of current and future generations.
Because we’re keen to do our part and “walk the talk”, we are proud to be B-Corp certified, Carbon Neutral and a Certified Living Wage company. Through the rigorous B Corp certification process, we have further focused on measuring what matters within and beyond our organization. As a B-Corp certified company, we’re formally committed to climate action, community impact, and employee support. Legally (through explicit revision to our Articles of Incorporation), our company purpose now includes positive impact on society and the environment. Operationally, our company policies have been refined to better reflect our values around inclusion, diversity and equity; and practically, we are held accountable to the standards of B Corp certification through transparent reporting and ongoing assessment. To become a designated carbon neutral company, we measure and offset our greenhouse gas emissions with Ostrom Climate Solutions, Canada’s leading full-service carbon management solutions provider. Ostrom Climate uses industry best-practices to measure emissions from all of our material operational emissions sources and their offset projects are verified and validated by third parties to ensure that they are real, additional, and permanent. The project that we chose to support is The Great Bear Forest Carbon Project – along with climate benefits, it supports the First Nations’ communities of the Great Bear Rainforest. We are a Certified Living Wage company. Our commitment to providing a living wage reflects our support for staff and their active participation in the social, civic and cultural lives of their communities. Perhaps most importantly, through these rigorous certification processes, we keep focused on measuring what matters within and beyond our organization. For example, click here to see a copy of our most recent GHG emission report from climate smart. We look forward to our ongoing learning journey and growth – and the ways we further leverage positive change – from insight to impact.
As part of our Climate Smart certification and our commitment to being mindful of our environmental impact, we monitor our GHG emissions. The most recent report from 2022 can be found here.