The Green Resilience Project, a community development effort that works at the intersection between income insecurity, local resilience, and climate solutions, has won one of 40 Top Project of the Year awards announced last week by Canada’s Clean50.
Green Resilience (GRP), a joint initiative of Energy Mix Productions and the Basic Income Canada Network, has worked with more than 1,500 participants and more than 50 community partners in every Canadian province and territory over the last 4½ years. Nearly two-thirds of those field partners do most of their work outside the “bubble” of climate and energy action—in areas like food security, income security, housing, and anti-poverty social justice, among many others.
“The climate emergency and the failure of social and income security systems are dangerous, all-encompassing challenges accelerated by legacy responses that fall short of addressing their root causes,” the Clean50 writes. “The GRP provides a potentially planet saving conversation starter, for organizations outside of the climate bubble to take part in discussions about climate change, and for organizations within the climate bubble to engage with their community about issues outside of climate change.”
“It is thrilling that the Clean50 Award has put a spotlight on the Green Resilience Project and especially on the many amazing partners and community members across the country,” said BICN Chair Sheila Regehr, who also serves on the Energy Mix Board. “The award is so valuable in recognizing that we all face intersecting challenges, people know what the solutions are, and working together for common goals has never been more essential.”
Project Director Janet Patterfung said those priorities were reflected in the design of last week’s Canada’s Clean50 Summit in Toronto.
“The way that [Clean50 founder Gavin Pitchford] and his team thoughtfully grouped people together at the Clean50 Summit meant that instead of a standard ‘show and tell’ style of conference, they provided a real opportunity to find connection and collaboration,” Patterfung said. “I was blown away by the ingenuity and commitment I was hearing throughout the day from people addressing the climate crisis in a multitude of ways. For me personally, it was a nice infusion of hope at a time when that’s sometimes hard to find.”
(The Energy Mix was a media sponsor for this year’s Canada’s Clean50 awards.)
