Does your municipality have a tree planting project and want to strengthen the climate resilience benefits of that plan. Are you interested in learning how to effectively communicating the benefits to your community? 

Read our Maximizing the Climate Resilience Benefits of Tree Planting Projects tip sheet to discover strategies to help enhance the climate resilience benefits of your tree planting projects. It also provides examples of how to effectively communicate these benefits to your communities.  

You‘ll learn how to:

• Effectively communicate the climate resilience benefits of your tree planting projects.
• Identify climate risks like urban heat, flooding and poor air quality – and use that data to enhance your project.  
• Design equitable tree planting projects that strengthen your community’s resilience.
• Explain how your planting project complements your municipality’s climate adaptation goals.
• Use diverse tree species in your tree planting projects that contribute positively to future climate resilience. 

This resource was created in partnership by Tree Canada Opens in a new tab. and FCM’s Green Municipal Fund (GMF) for the Growing Canada’s Community Canopies initiative, which is delivered by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and funded by the Government of Canada. 

Are you planning a tree planting project but are unsure how to enhance the biodiversity and ecosystem health benefits? Are you curious about how to communicate those benefits to your community?

Read our Communicating the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Health Benefits of Tree Planting Projects tip sheet that outlines strategies you can use. These strategies will help you present a business case to council, communicate with residents and other stakeholders, and prepare high-quality tree planting project proposals and funding applications.   

You‘ll learn how to:

• Explain how tree planting contributes to biodiversity and ecosystem health.
• Design tree planting projects that consider and contribute positively to biodiversity and ecosystem resilience.
• Design tree planting projects that support ecosystem connectivity and habitat restoration.
• Align your project with existing biodiversity strategies and monitoring practices within your community. 

 Download the tip sheet today 

This resource was created in partnership by Tree Canada and FCM’s Green Municipal Fund (GMF) for the Growing Canada’s Community Canopies initiative, which is delivered by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and funded by the Government of Canada 

This webinar explored the Low Carbon Resilience (LCR) approach—a proven strategic framework that integrates climate considerations into core municipal processes. Discover how your municipality can use LCR to strengthen and accelerate climate planning.

The webinar was delivered in English with French simultaneous interpretation (SI).

Watch the webinar recording to:  

• Understand the core principles of the Low Carbon Resilience (LCR) approach and how it can streamline climate planning.
• Apply LCR to align climate initiatives with your municipality’s existing priorities and systems.
• Exchange ideas with peers and explore practical ways to embed LCR into your community’s planning processes.

Speakers:

• Lauren Vincent (she/her), Associate Director, Action on Climate Team & Simon Fraser University Climate Innovation
• Randy Sa’d (he/him), Executive Director, REFOCUS
• Laura Sampliner (she/her), Manager, Climate Action for the City of New Westminster

Resources discussed in the webinar:  

(Please note that, unless otherwise indicated, the resources below are available in English only.)

• ACT, MCIP's Role in Mobilizing Municipal Climate Action - Action on Climate Team - Simon Fraser University  
• Municipal Net-Zero Action Research Partnership (N-ZAP), The state of climate action in Canadian municipalities (2024) (available in French)
• Abacus Data, Trust, change, and uncertainty: What’s really shaping the Canadian vote (2025)  
• Abacus Data, Issue ownership in the 2021 election  
• ACT, The low carbon resilience planning handbook (2021) (Port Moody highlights on pages 18–19, 24, 54, 85, 95, 106, 119–121)  
• ACT, The low carbon resilience decision tool (2022) (Port Moody highlights on page 10)  
• Integrated Climate Action for BC Communities Initiative (ICABCCI), Partner community profiles: Climate action and key LCR opportunities (Port Moody highlights on pages 12-13)  
• Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions (PICS), Promoting climate engagement in B.C.: Reactive and proactive strategies report (2025)

FCM’s Local Leadership for Climate Adaptation initiative is delivered through our Green Municipal Fund and funded by the Government of Canada.

Municipalities across Canada are grappling with aging infrastructure and rising operating costs. Energy retrofits present a smart solution with long-term savings—but rarely does a single funding stream cover 100% of the costs. That’s why combining funding sources is essential: it stretches local budgets, lowers financial risk and increases the impact of achievable retrofits.

The Green Municipal Fund’s (GMF) Community Buildings Retrofit (CBR) initiative is designed with that flexibility in mind. Whether you're conducting a feasibility study or implementing a capital project, GMF offers grants and loans that can cover up to 80% of eligible costs. The remaining 20%? It doesn't have to come from your municipal budget—we show you how to tap into other funding sources to bridge the gap.

Why municipal energy retrofits matter

Community buildings—like arenas, pools and libraries—are at the heart of Canadian communities and are among the most expensive assets to operate and maintain. Upgrading these facilities with energy-efficiency measures—such as high-efficiency lighting, solar panels, improved insulation and modern windows—can significantly reduce utility bills, ease pressure on local energy grids, create skilled local jobs, and free up funds for other essential services.

A practical guide to maximize funding opportunities

This new GMF guide is built to help you plan early and fund smart. It outlines key considerations, including:

• where to look for complementary funding programs across Canada
• how to prioritize buildings and retrofit projects
• where and when to seek expert help with your funding applications

Tip: CBR allows you to bundle multiple buildings into one application—saving time, effort and administrative costs.

Making the most of CBR

As a core feature of this guide, the CBR initiative is explored in detail. Learn how to:

• book a one-on-one meeting with a GMF Outreach Officer
• find a database of successful retrofit projects across Canada
• access coaching services to strengthen your application
• stay informed on new funding opportunities and resources 

Read the guide.

Assessing and planning for local climate risks are essential for building a resilient community that can thrive amidst a changing climate. The tip sheets will guide municipalities through key stages in assessing and planning for climate changes, offering practical advice, clear examples and actionable steps.

Use these tip sheets to recognize your existing climate resilience efforts, identify opportunities and roadblocks, envision potential solutions for your community, and access the tools and support needed to implement your adaptation plan.
 

Explore tips for municipal climate risk assessments and adaptation planning

Discover how to get started in some key risk assessment and adaptation milestones with the tip sheets below.

Tip sheet: Start preparing for climate risk assessment and adaptation plan 

Time investment: 12 minutes

Early preparation is a prerequisite for making your climate risk assessment and adaptation efforts highly effective. Read the tip sheet for support with:

• scoping your project
  • finding the information you need
• bringing together people and resources to support your work

Tip sheet: Start identifying local climate impacts 

Time investment: 8 minutes

Use climate change information to understand how it affects your community. Refer to this tip sheet for support on:

• accessing and interpreting national and regional climate information
• understanding its local significance

Tip sheet: Start assessing your local climate risks 

Time investment: 7 minutes

Assess local climate risks to understand which residents and locations are most at risk. Read the tip sheet for strategies to build and make use of your team’s capacity to assess climate risks.

Tip sheet: Start climate adaptation planning 

Time investment: 9 minutes

Get started on developing climate actions to address prioritized risks and to benefit those who are most impacted. Explore this tip sheet for ways you can choose actions that strengthen your community’s climate resilience.

This tip sheet will help you answer:

• How do we prioritize risk management actions?
• How do we identify and implement actions in ways that are informed by Reconciliation and anti-racism, equity and inclusion?

Getting started

Developing a climate adaptation plan involves managing identified climate risks and creating a roadmap for actions that strengthen community climate resilience. Because of that, identifying and prioritizing adaptation actions is critically important.

How can you develop a climate adaptation plan that effectively addresses climate risks and is designed with the diverse needs of all community members in mind?

Here are some tips to help you get started.

Laying the foundation for adaptation action planning.

1. Set a climate adaptation vision, objectives and goals for your community.

Developing a climate adaptation vision, objectives and goals helps prioritize risk management actions. These elements provide a framework you can use for decisions about which actions you can take and how you might prioritize them. For example, they can act as:

• a goalpost toward which you direct actions, helping align adaptation actions with your community’s aspirations
• a filter to help you efficiently make choices about what actions you will consider

You may have already begun defining the objective of your climate risk assessment in the preparation stage (see Tip sheet: Start preparing for climate risk assessment and adaptation plan). You can use this work as a starting point for reflecting on your climate adaptation vision, objectives and goals.

The ICLEI Changing Climate, Changing Communities: Guide and Workbook for Municipal Climate Adaptation (Milestone 3: Plan in the Guide and Worksheet 9 in the Workbook) contains detailed information about the purpose and process of developing your climate adaptation vision, objectives and goals and how to establish them.  

2. Engage impacted communities.

While everyone in your community may be impacted by climate risks, some people will be affected more than others. Effective adaptation planning considers who will be most impacted, why and how. In Canada, this often includes equity-deserving and marginalized communities, such as Indigenous people, newcomers, people of colour, women, people with low income and people with limited mobility. These groups are often underrepresented in decision making but are crucial for developing an impactful climate adaptation plan.

To engage these groups, start by identifying equity-deserving groups in your community. Factsheet: Why equity matters in municipal climate adaptation includes some suggestions on how to do that.  If your climate adaptation team does not yet include representatives of these groups, it is critically important that you invite and compensate them for their participation as soon as possible. This could involve:

• initiating discussions with local and regional First Nations, Métis, Inuit and urban Indigenous Peoples communities and organizations about whether and how they would like to collaborate and/or partner on climate adaptation work
• initiating discussions with equity-deserving groups about whether and how they would like to collaborate and/or partner on climate adaptation work
• allocating financial resources, training and support (e.g., grants, technical assistance and capacity-building programs) to stakeholders and partners from equity-deserving groups  

Additional support can be found in the following resources: 

• GMF Factsheet: Why equity matters in municipal climate adaptation
• GMF Factsheet: Factsheet: Applying an Indigenous inclusion lens to climate adaptation
• GMF Factsheet: Advancing government-to-Nation relationships

Identifying and prioritizing potential adaptation actions.

1. Seek to benefit equity-deserving and marginalized groups.

When developing climate adaptation actions, look for actions that will benefit equity-deserving and marginalized groups. For example: 

Climate adaptation action type	Example actions
Housing and infrastructure	Develop climate-resilient affordable housing projects to protect low-income residents from climate impacts such as flooding and extreme heat. Implement programs to retrofit existing homes in vulnerable neighbourhoods with climate-resilient features such as improved insulation, permeable pavements and urban green spaces.
Public health and safety	Establish cooling centres in low-income and marginalized communities to provide relief during heatwaves. Develop communications for the elderly about staying safe during heat waves. Conduct an audit of emergency processes and buildings to ensure they are accessible to people with disabilities.
Education and awareness	Implement climate education programs in elementary schools to raise awareness among youth.
Biodiversity	Develop programs that incorporate Indigenous knowledges in the protection and restoration of culturally significant sites and landscapes affected by climate change.

 

2. Seek alignment with other plans and processes.

When developing climate adaptation actions, look for ways they can be integrated within other local government plans and processes. For example: 

Climate adaptation action type	Example actions
Housing and infrastructure	Incorporate climate resilience standards into building codes to ensure new constructions are designed to withstand extreme weather events. Update zoning regulations to restrict development in high-risk areas, such as floodplains and coastal zones.
Public health and safety	Develop and implement heat action plans that include early warning systems, public cooling centres and community outreach programs. Integrate climate risk considerations into emergency response plans to ensure preparedness for climate-related disasters.
Education and awareness	Implement climate education programs in elementary schools to raise awareness among youth.   Conduct workshops and training sessions for residents and local businesses on climate adaptation practices and emergency preparedness.
Biodiversity	Establish conservation easements to protect critical habitats and promote sustainable land use practices.

 

3. Work on the most critical climate risks.

One way to identify the most critical risks is to use the results of your risk assessment. Using the climate hazard, likelihood, vulnerability and consequence information, you can determine an overall score for each climate risk. Focusing on the risks with the highest scores can help you direct your efforts.  

Use Worksheet 8 in ICLEI’s Changing Climate, Changing Community: Guide and Workbook for Municipal Climate Adaptation for support on ranking climate risks.

In addition to determining a risk score as described above, consider that criticality is influenced by your vision, objectives and goals. This will help ensure you are taking the most impactful actions. For example:  

• If your vision is, “A resilient community that thrives in the face of climate change, ensuring the sustainability of our natural and built environments,” some of the most critical risks might be those threatening key infrastructure and biodiversity.  
• If one of your objectives is, “Enhance public health and safety in response to extreme climate events,” some of the most critical risks might be those with the greatest potential to harm public health and safety.
• If one of your goals is, “Reduce the vulnerability of low-income neighbourhoods to flooding,” some of the most critical risks might be flood risks likely to affect low-income neighbourhoods. 

4. Look for mutual benefits.

Review other plans and initiatives your municipality has in place to identify opportunities to align climate adaptation actions with other organizational objectives. By aligning climate actions with existing plans, you can maximize resources and achieve multiple community objectives simultaneously.

Some examples to illustrate these mutual benefits are:

• Look in your community’s Emergency Management Plan for objectives related to climate risks such as flooding or wildfire.  
• Align climate adaptation actions with public health plans by addressing heatwaves through cooling centres or increased green spaces, which improve air quality and reduce urban heat islands. 

5. Learn from your neighbours.

Learn from the experiences of neighbouring municipalities and other jurisdictions (e.g., regional districts). By examining their climate adaptation actions, you might be able to identify best practices and common pitfalls. 

6. Work with your strengths and challenges.

When trying to prioritize adaptation actions, it can be helpful to identify the key strengths and challenges that will influence your efforts. Strengths can include factors such as community support, political will and available funding, while challenges might involve financial limitations, staffing shortages or technical expertise gaps. Understanding these factors helps prioritize feasible and impactful actions, ensuring that your plan is realistic and aligned with your community's capabilities.

The ICLEI Changing Climate, Changing Communities: Guide and Workbook for Municipal Climate Adaptation Worksheet 11 provides detailed instructions and examples to help you identify strengths and challenges and use them in planning. 

Next steps

Developing a climate adaptation plan is a crucial step in strengthening community climate resilience, but it's just one part of the process. Ongoing efforts to implement the plan, integrate it into municipal plans and processes, and continuously monitor and review progress are essential to being a climate-ready community. 

Explore the Climate-Ready Communities Assessment Tool for additional insight and support in developing a climate adaptation plan. You can use the tool to evaluate your existing climate adaptation efforts, pinpoint areas for improvement and chart a clear plan for strengthening your community’s adaptation efforts. 

This tip sheet will help you answer:

• How do we develop competencies required to complete climate risk assessments?
• How do we assess the risk of climate impacts we have identified? And how do we do so in a way that is informed by Reconciliation and anti-racism, equity and inclusion (AREI)?

Getting started

Develop your capacity to assess local climate risks.

This involves enhancing your organization’s skills, knowledge, experience and tools to analyze and evaluate climate impacts.

How can you develop the skills, knowledge, experience and tools needed to assess local climate risks?

Here are some tips to help you get started.

Addressing climate change requires diverse tools and people with skills, knowledge and experience from various disciplines, backgrounds and educations. You likely have people within your organization who have relevant competencies (for example, those identified in Tip sheet: Start preparing for climate risk assessment and adaptation plan.) Where you have gaps in competencies, there are some steps you can take to address them.

Here is an overview of skills, knowledge, experience and tools that are relevant to analyzing and evaluating local climate risks and some actions you can take to fill gaps you may have: 
 

Skills and knowledge

Skill and knowledge category	Description of skill and knowledge
Community context	your community’s specific needs, values and concerns
Basic climate science literacy	the causes and impacts of climate change, the science behind climate information and how climate trends influence hazards
Indigenous knowledges	the historical and current practices, processes, protocols and experiences of local and regional First Nations, Métis, Inuit and urban Indigenous Peoples communities and organizations
Risk assessment techniques	how to identify, analyze and evaluate risks, including understanding probabilities and consequences
Information management	how to collect, manage and interpret climate data
Communications and engagement	how to work with and involve local and regional First Nations, Métis, Inuit and urban Indigenous Peoples communities and organizations as well as other jurisdictions, institutions, organizations, communities of practice and/or stakeholders how to work with equity-deserving communities in Canada
Institutional knowledge	Lessons learned and other reflections from past projects and initiatives.

 

Here are some ways to fill skills and knowledge gaps: 

• Identify organizations in your region who are doing climate work and may be able to support you. These could include, for example, universities or non-profit organizations.
• Attend workshops on climate science fundamentals and other climate resilience training opportunities such as those listed on the Green Municipal Fund’s page Climate resilience training from GMF Partners.
• Purchase or acquire access to tools such as ICLEI’s Building Adaptive and Resilience Communities (BARC) Online Tool.  

Tip: The Canadian Centre for Climate Services hosts a Library of climate resources. 

• Identify and reach out to representatives of different community groups to participate in their processes.
• Hire qualified consultants.
• Apply for government funding to support capacity-building initiatives.

Experience

Category of experience	Description of experience
Organizational experience	working with your organization’s processes, procedures, infrastructure systems and services
Previous climate or related projects	contributing to similar projects that can provide practical insight
Cross-departmental collaboration	working on initiatives with different municipal departments
Relationship building	developing meaningful and trusting relationships with community members

 

Some examples of activities to fill experience gaps include: 

• Pair less experienced staff with long-term employees to share institutional knowledge and lessons learned.
• Conduct an organization-wide survey to see who already considers climate change in their work and in what ways.
• Work with universities to develop co-op work experience programs.
• Partner with non-governmental organizations.
   

Browse the Green Municipal Fund’s website for a comprehensive list of reports, guides, case studies, templates and more to help fill gaps in skills, knowledge and experience.

Assess climate risks across your community.

Use the skills, knowledge and experience you have to effectively assess climate risks in a way that accounts for the varied impacts of climate change on different people and areas within your community.

Without prior experience, how can we assess local climate risks?

Here are some tips to help you get started.

1. Use a framework that meets your needs.

There are many resources that include risk assessment frameworks useful for climate risk assessments and adaptation planning. These include, for example: 

• ICLEI’s Changing Climate, Changing Communities: Guide and Workbook for Municipal Climate Adaptation and C40 Cities’ Climate Change Risk Assessment Guidance are useful if you are planning a  community-wide assessment on various services and sectors.
• Public Infrastructure Engineering Vulnerability Committee (PIEVC)’s Large Portfolio Assessment Manual can be used if you are focusing your assessment on impacts to infrastructure assets.

2. Familiarize yourself with the foundations of a climate risk assessment. 

Regardless of the framework you choose, there are foundational concepts that underpin the climate risk assessment process. Climate risk, as defined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), is the “potential for adverse consequences.” It is a function of three things: the likelihood of a climate-related event (a climate hazard) occurring, the vulnerability of the systems it affects and the potential impacts of the event. To conduct a climate risk assessment, you need to consider the following:

 

Identify a local climate hazard.

Common questions to answer:	For example:
What climate hazards has my community faced? What climate hazards does/will my community face?	Those you identified in Tip sheet: Start preparing for climate risk assessment and adaptation plan.

 

Estimate the likelihood of an event related to that climate hazard.

Common questions to answer:	For example:
How often has this climate hazard occurred historically? What do climate models predict about the future frequency and intensity of this hazard?	Likelihood scores as outlined in the ICLEI Changing Climate, Changing Community: Guide and Workbook for Municipal Climate Adaptation Worksheet 8 Risk Assessment

 

Assess your community’s vulnerability to the climate-related event.

Common questions to answer:

For example:

How able is our community to adjust to changes, minimize damage, take advantage of opportunities and cope with the effects of climate change? Are there people, livelihoods, species, ecosystems, infrastructure or cultural assets in our community that could be negatively impacted by climate change? Which areas and populations in our community are most vulnerable to this hazard? What factors contribute to their vulnerability (e.g., socio-economic status, infrastructure quality, health conditions)?

Vulnerability ratings outlined in the ICLEI Changing Climate, Changing Community: Guide and Workbook for Municipal Climate Adaptation Worksheet 7 Vulnerability Assessment

 

Determine the potential impacts of the climate-related event.

Common questions to answer:	For example:
What are the potential consequences of this climate hazard on the components within the scale of our climate risk assessment?	Those you identified in Tip sheet: Start identifying local climate impacts.

Next steps

Once you have assessed local climate risks, you will be in a good position to start developing your climate adaptation plan. For support on getting started with this next phase of work, read Tip sheet: Start climate adaptation planning.

Explore the Climate-Ready Communities Assessment Tool for additional insight and support in analyzing and evaluating local climate risks. You can use the tool to evaluate your existing climate adaptation efforts, pinpoint areas for improvement and chart a clear plan for strengthening your community’s adaptation efforts.