About
Challenge: In Canada and around the world, cities are acknowledged as critical actors in efforts to transition to a climate resilient and low carbon world. Healthcare should have an essential role in urban climate action: it has a concentrated presence in urban environments, is a significant carbon emitter and is a vital participant in community climate adaptation. Yet healthcare as a sector is largely absent from city climate action
plans. Collaboration is the only way to assess the potential of city-healthcare partnerships to support ambitious urban-led climate action and to tackle healthcare’s critical place-based climate accountabilities.
Goal: To identify and explore specific opportunities for the healthcare sector to support
city-led climate action by building city-healthcare partnerships. To reach our goal, we will pursue three specific objectives:
- Develop and share usable resources that synthesize co-created knowledge on selected topics to support cities and healthcare to pursue collaborative climate action.
- Identify and engage with critical scholarly questions about sustainability transitions, urban climate governance and multi-level governance in order to assess how intentional engagement between healthcare and cities can support city-led climate action.
- Deepen existing partnerships and engage new partners in preparation for application for a SSHRC Partnership Grant. This partnership initiative builds on the work of the Toronto Academic Health Science Network (TAHSN) Sustainable Health System Community of Practice, which is a climate-engaged health network across Toronto and Mississauga affiliated with the University of Toronto.
The following three thematic areas have been prioritized for exploration and joint working through this partnership:
- Built Environment: Climate resilient and low carbon healthcare infrastructure
- Urban Futures: Resilient and equitable cities and health systems of the future
- Policy & Governance: Place-based climate and health policy
Lead(s)
Fiona A. Miller
