On April 29th, May 3rd and May 6th 2021, we hosted three amazing events convening over 60 community advocates and builders around specific action areas in three diverse yet connected topic areas linked to climate justice, each of which are critical to make progress in if we are to achieve 50by30 and a far more sustainable, just Waterloo region.

These topics included: Voices and Actions on Food Sovereignty; Housing and Density; and Transportation.

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Our role at these was as a convener for supporting the sharing of community knowledge, and learning how to better amplify and support the amazing work of so many people and groups already active in these areas throughout our region. A big takeaway from these events was that it is clear that local communities already have many of the solutions to both the climate crisis and social justice challenges being faced across our region, and need to see these solutions scaled and more explicitly supported.

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To achieve the changes needed, many participants expressed a clear desire to advocate more together, strengthening our voices, specifically to encourage tangible policy changes to support the emergence of a more sustainable, just Waterloo region. Multi-solving was also identified as an important tool to seeing how diverse solutions can intersect to better address complex problems. There was desire to see a coalition emerge that could support this broader advocacy for solutions at the intersections of climate and justice.

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Here is a visual summary of the key points of discussion from each event: