Registrants Provide Suggestions for Organizational Climate Change Strategy

Registrants have made several key suggestions to support Engineers and Geoscientists BC in developing its Organizational Climate Change Strategy (OCCS). 

From February to April, registrants and other interested parties were consulted in one-on-one interviews, focus groups and a survey about the climate change strategy, which is being developed to support registrants in advancing sustainability and addressing climate change.  

“We are grateful for the feedback to help us formulate our Organizational Climate Change Strategy,” said Harshan Radhakrishnan, Manager of Climate Change and Sustainability Initiatives at Engineers and Geoscientists BC. “These insights will offer great value as we aim to formulate a strategy that balances the needs of our registrants with our organization’s mandate and priorities.”

Five overarching themes emerged during this engagement process: 

• Capacity building and education:  Registrants want more resources regarding climate adaptation and resilience and how to integrate both adaptation and mitigation into their practice. 
• Competing priorities: Many respondents said the pressure to deliver projects on budget and on time often leaves limited bandwidth for integrating robust climate change solutions. Meaningful engagement with impacted communities, such as Indigenous peoples, often requires timelines that conflict with the urgency of delivering actionable results. 
• Need for case studies and best practices: Registrants wanted more case studies that illustrate how climate resilience and adaptation can be effectively integrated into practice.
• Challenges of nature-based solutions: The lack of standardized tools or methodologies for evaluating the benefits of nature-based solutions can hinder their adoption, despite their potential to deliver sustainability and cost-effective outcomes in the long run. 
• Concerns about additional requirements: Registrants expressed concerns about the potential for additional regulatory requirements when implementing the climate-change strategy. Many are already undertaking voluntary efforts to advance climate action, along with Equity Diversity Inclusion , and Truth and Reconciliation and expressed the importance of maintaining flexibility and autonomy to determine approaches that work best for their unique circumstances. 

More details on the findings for these initiatives can be found in the full report. 
More information about the project can be found on the OCCS page. 

Photo: Marius M. Grecu - stock.adobe.com