MA Climate Action Leadership
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Item Architects, Climate Change, and Resilience: Bridging Gaps Between Research and Practice(2024) Perdue, Joanne, L.; Dale, AnnIntensifying climate change impacts puts cities at unprecedented risk, including their populations, ecosystems, and built environments. In the face of large-scale and enduring climate change impacts, resilience has rapidly emerged as a central priority for cities. Research indicates resilience thinking is relatively new among North American built environment professionals. This qualitative study employed semi-structured interviews to understand how Canadian architects engaged in green building or regenerative design conceptualize and apply resilience thinking in their practice. It then compared these findings with how resilience is conceptualized in scholarly literature and embedded in green building practice frameworks. The research findings identified resilience as an emerging concept, with the participants’ climate science and resilience literacy varying considerably. Further, there were notable gaps between the definitions of resilience in the reviewed scholarly literature and the green building practice frameworks. The study conclusions identified seven core attributes to advance resilience thinking and practice.Item Determining Conditions That Enable or Impede the Inclusion of Climate Justice in Municipal Adaptation Planning in Canada(2023) Lash, Jennifer, Robin; Dale, AnnAbstract Governments are increasingly turning to adaptation planning to prepare for the onset of climate change. A climate justice framework in adaptation planning seeks equity by ensuring all parts of society receive the benefits required to address their vulnerabilities. This thesis examined the extent and quality of climate justice in municipal adaptation planning in Canada to identify the conditions that enable or impede climate justice. Levels of justice were measured in twelve municipal adaptation plans in Canada using an Adaptation Justice Index. Interviews with municipal planners explored the conditions that affect their ranking. Results found that capacity, engagement, leadership, process design, worldview, and continual learning are the insertion points at which justice can be included or excluded. Furthermore, integrating climate justice requires an iterative process of evolving values which influence and could continually improve the process structure.