This tip sheet will help you answer:  

• How do we prioritize climate adaptation when our staff is juggling multiple roles?
• How do we balance competing priorities and make the most of limited staff and financial resources?
• How can we find efficiencies as we undertake climate adaptation work?
• How do we collaborate across departments? 

Getting started

Build an understanding of why climate adaptation matters.

To gain support and funding for climate adaptation in your municipality, you first need to help people understand why climate change matters, how it connects to their responsibilities and what can be done to tackle it. Supporting this understanding is not a one-time effort, as different groups within your organization and community may require specific messaging or approaches to engagement depending on their experiences, concerns and priorities.  

Building understanding involves identifying who your audience is and what they care about, and then communicating with them about the connection between climate change and the things they care about. Your primary audience should be decision makers so you can get the people and financial resources needed for the work. Depending on your municipality, this may include managers, directors or potentially council.  

For support with building your and your team’s understanding of why climate adaptation matters in your community, use GMF’s Talking it through: Guide for local government staff on climate adaptation and check out the customizable PowerPoint tool.  

Involve others.

Many hands lighten the load and can lead to great results. Involve others by finding people who can contribute their skills, knowledge and resources to your municipality’s climate adaptation efforts.  

How can your organization prioritize climate adaptation efforts when staff are already juggling many responsibilities?  

Here are some tips to help you get started.

1. Identify and develop climate adaptation champions.

The most effective climate work is often led by people with a strong interest and desire to learn rather than those in specific roles. Individuals who are passionate about climate adaptation can help find information and funding, drive initiatives, motivate others and ensure that adaptation remains a priority. When empowered to do so, these climate adaptation champions can help your municipality build a coalition of actors and make a lot of progress.  

Finding champions within your organization involves reaching out across departments to identify people who have worked on climate or climate-adjacent projects. Look for individuals who have shown interest in sustainability or environmental issues.

Empowering a climate adaptation champion(s):

• Provide encouragement. Let your climate adaptation champion(s) know that, even if they have other core responsibilities, this is important to the community and that their work to contribute to climate adaptation is encouraged.
• Endorse the role. Giving formal recognition to the role of the climate adaptation champion(s) can help give them needed authority when engaging other staff on climate adaptation work.
• Connect with decision makers. Bring together the climate adaptation champion(s) and decision makers within your organization. This can help ensure that their ideas and initiatives receive the necessary support.
• Provide training and resources. Support the climate adaptation champion(s) in accessing training programs and resources such as workshops, online courses or conferences related to climate adaptation as this will enhance their knowledge and skills. For example, some resources currently available are:
  • The Green Municipal Fund’s Communities of Practice
  • The Green Municipal Fund’s Climate resilience training from GMF Partners  
  • The Government of Canada’s Climate Services Support Desk
  • The Government of Canada’s Applying Climate Literacy Foundations course  
• Offer incentives and acknowledge contributions. Consider offering incentives such as recognition awards, professional development opportunities or additional resources to motivate and reward your climate adaptation champion(s). Additionally, publicly recognizing the contributions they make can help them maintain their enthusiasm for the work.  

2. Develop and work in partnerships.

Many organizations, institutions and other stakeholders are now involved in climate adaptation, directly or otherwise. Collaborating with these groups can help fill gaps in your internal capacity and provide additional support for identifying and implementing adaptation initiatives.  

For example,

• Academic institutions can support with expertise and resources for research, data analysis or adding additional personnel, such as interns, to your adaptation efforts. Your information needs can often make an interesting project for students.
• Community organizations such as NGOs or local groups can connect with different people in your community, build local awareness and support, and help implement climate adaptation actions.
• Conservation authorities may offer expertise in critical areas such as risk evaluation, watershed management, flood prevention and ecosystem health.
• Regional and provincial governments offer funding, policy direction, technical guidance, tools, and regional coordination.
• Local and regional First Nations, Métis, Inuit and urban Indigenous Peoples communities and organizations have important Indigenous Knowledge systems, stewardship practices and other expertise that can guide adaptation efforts and strengthen their outcomes.

Additional details and guidance are outlined in the following resources:

• Tip sheet: Start collaborating on municipal climate adaptation includes tips on developing and working in partnerships.
• Tip sheet: Start preparing for climate risk assessment and adaptation plan and Tip sheet: Start assessing your local climate risks provide support for involving others in your climate adaptation efforts. 

Balance various community needs. 

Balancing community needs involves making decisions on how to allocate the resources you have to accomplish your community’s objectives and needs—both immediate and long-term.

How can you prioritize climate adaptation alongside other immediate community needs?  

Here are some tips to help you get started.

1. Identify the initiatives (plans, processes or projects) that your municipality will be undertaking over the next few years.

What activities or projects have already been identified as an immediate need in your municipality? Examples might include:

• infrastructure repairs or upgrades
• updating your municipality’s official plan
• implementing asset management practices
• training a new council after a local election
• adapting services to meet the needs of changing demographics and vulnerable populations (e.g., seniors, youth)

2. Identify connections to climate adaptation.

Review initiatives to identify connections to climate adaptation. For example:

• Infrastructure improvements, such as upgrading stormwater systems to account for changes in precipitation patterns, can reduce flooding risks now and help the community adapt to climate change.
• Your community plan and zoning can identify natural areas for protection, such as wetlands that help your community be more resilient to flooding or extreme heat.
• Data collected for asset management, such as an asset inventory and condition assessment, can support improved climate risk assessments.
• Operations and maintenance activities, such as regularly clearing culverts, can help your drainage and transportation services remain reliable when facing storms and flooding.  

In assessing these initiatives, you may find that meaningful actions supporting your community’s climate resilience may not always be explicitly climate-related.

Tip sheet: Start climate adaptation planning includes examples of climate adaptation initiatives that align with municipal work.

3. Identify and communicate co-benefits. 

Where there is a connection between existing activities or initiatives and climate adaptation, there is the potential for co-benefits—activities that both achieve immediate needs and contribute to longer-term benefits, or that have climate adaptation benefits and contribute positively to other areas of work. Often, activities or initiatives can be changed in small ways to achieve even greater co-benefits. For example:

• Regularly maintaining ditches and culverts as part of normal operations builds climate resilience by helping to reduce flooding during extreme rain events.
• Increasing urban tree cover can reduce extreme heat risk and support biodiversity.
• Implementing programs to retrofit homes and enhance the environment in vulnerable neighbourhoods (e.g., with improved insulation, permeable pavements and urban green spaces) can make these areas more climate-resilient while also addressing public health and safety concerns in marginalized communities.

It will be important to identify the co-benefits and then clearly communicate them to the decision makers who must balance both immediate and long-term community needs.

Tips for communicating co-benefits include:

• Highlight immediate benefits.
• Link to long-term goals.
• Identify opportunities to modify the activity or initiative for additional co-benefits.
• Use clear and accessible language.
• Share success stories.
• Engage the community to discuss what the co-benefits might look like for them.

Additional resources on communicating about climate adaptation topics can be found in:

• ICLEI’s Climate Communications Toolkit
• Re.Climate’s Climate Communications Playbook 

Next steps

Resourcing your organization internally is an important part of building the core of your climate adaptation efforts—people, partnerships and governance. For more information on ways to strengthen people, partnerships and governance, explore the following:

• Tip sheet: Start collaborating on municipal climate adaptation
• Tip sheet: Start building council momentum for climate adaptation
• Tip sheet: Start involving diverse voices in municipal climate adaptation 

Explore the Climate-Ready Communities Assessment Tool for additional insight and support. 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.

Communities know that trees matter. They enhance community well-being while creating cooler, greener and more climate-resilient spaces. However, many communities lack urban forestry expertise and support to manage trees effectively, protecting their long-term investment.

Launched in 2023, GMF’s Growing Canada’s Community Canopies initiative (GCCC) helps communities plant the right type of trees in the right places, and urban forestry coaches help to bring this important work to life by supporting them to get the most value from tree planting and planning projects.  

In this article, you’ll discover common urban forestry challenges communities face and how GCCC’s network of over thirty urban forestry coaches can help. Four coaches share their insights:  

• Marshall Buchanan, devoted to nature conservation for over 30 years; he’s managed his own forestry consulting business, specializing in landscape restoration, urban forestry, private woodlot management and forest gene conservation.  
• Barbara Rabicki, principal owner of Wild by Nature; a forest sanctuary of over 1,000 trees planted in a former depleted quarry.
• Tyler Searls, registered professional planner, forester and ISA-certified arborist. He joined Diamond Head Consulting, a company which aims to “protect, restore and enhance the natural environment” in 2021.  
• Margot Ursic, ecologist. She is the Principal of Grounded Solutions, using her experience as an applied Planning Ecologist to advise committees on land conservation efforts.  

How can an ​​urban forestry coach help your community?  

Urban forestry coaches provide specialized urban forest management expertise to communities across Canada and are supported by a partnership with Tree Canada.

Coaches support communities through every stage of the GMF funding journey; during the funding application process, coaches offer specific recommendations to bolster their applications and overall project. This can include support in: 

• developing tree planting plans,
• designing community engagement strategies,
• selecting the right trees and stock,  
• ensuring strong monitoring and maintenance practices. 

Once funding is approved, coaches support communities in the execution of the project, offering best practices to maximize the environmental and social benefits, as well as ensuring high tree survivability rates and sharing tools for tracking metrics. 

 

1. Industry expertise  

Rabicki—like other urban forestry coaches—has developed a great deal of experience that she enjoys sharing with those who want to green their communities, but may lack the industry expertise. In fact, this lack of experience is one of the main challenges that Rabicki and other urban forestry coaches often see funding applicants grapple with—especially for communities without in-house urban forestry experts, or in smaller municipalities who are strapped for staff time and resources. 

2. Community buy-in 

Another common challenge is securing public support for an urban forestry plan, says ​​Ursic. While “most people like trees,” Ursic says, “how much are [decision-makers] willing to really invest? If a municipality wants a canopy to be sustained for the long term, it needs continual reinvestment in planting, maintaining and protecting.”

Rabicki explains that coaches help applicants share with municipal decision makers the value of trees as green infrastructure, which she says can benefit wildlife habitats, air quality, stormwater management, energy savings and pest management. For example, Rabicki says, diversifying the types of trees planted can protect communities against the emerald ash borer, an invasive wood-boring beetle that, within eight to 10 years of entering a community, kills 99 percent of ash trees. 

3. Building momentum

Despite many community members wanting to contribute to a solution, individuals who know the benefits of trees beyond being “nice to look at” may feel uncertain of who to approach to launch a greening initiative, Buchanan says. 

“How can they ignite their enthusiasm [for a solution] and bring [people] together to make it happen? Is the impetus coming from the local government, or is it coming from the citizens group—and how can that effort be empowered?” Buchanan asks.

That’s why GCCC’s network of coaches is so crucial. They act as both expert guides and strategic allies for communities, building compelling cases for long-term investment, helping communities overcome gaps in staffing, training and peer connection.  

Identifying canopy gaps

With years of industry expertise, coaches leverage different tools and resources to support funding applicants, ​​​​​​such as by helping them craft a plan for their tree planting project.  

From an equity standpoint, Searls says that, when creating a tree planting plan, it’s vital that communities identify gaps in their canopy and which neighbourhoods might benefit the most from greening. Factors such as race, culture, income and education may have historically impacted how trees were planted throughout an area, with underserved neighbourhoods often seeing less green space. This lack of green spaces can lead to higher rates of heat-related deaths and illnesses, higher utility bills, structural damage due to extreme weather events and more.  

Addressing biodiversity loss

Buchanan adds that there is a ‘biodiversity crisis’ in Canada—statistics show that at-risk mammal populations, such as the woodland caribou who rely on mature trees for nutrition and safe travel routes, have fallen by almost half in 50 years.

When natural spaces and biodiversity are lost, risks to human health increase. Without the power of trees, the air is filled with more pollutants, food safety and security dwindle, pandemic risks increase, and more.  

That’s why it is so important to design urban forestry projects that increase biodiversity, prioritize native species and protect existing green spaces. Coaches can offer expert guidance to support a more diverse and resilient urban forest through strategic tree planting or naturalization projects. 

Right-sized support  

Regardless of size or prior experience, any community applying for funding can benefit from urban forestry coaching.  

When working with funding applicants, Searls’ first step is to have a discovery meeting to better understand where the community is at in terms of expertise and previous urban forest management—for example, is this the first-ever large-scale greening initiative, or is it a municipality looking to scale their existing urban forestry efforts with additional funding?  

“That can help you chart the course to get through the application process and hopefully be successful,” says Searls. As a coach, one of his first assignments was with an established community of over 100,000 people. Searls explains that, as a larger community, they had a great deal of subject-matter expertise in urban forest management—however, where Searls came in was to help them navigate their GMF funding application.  

“They have good awareness of where they might have needed me, and so we've left the door open to them engaging me as they see fit,” he says.  

Rabicki’s approach is similar to Searls’—she begins every project by identifying a community’s existing capacity. “Are they struggling with staffing resources, financial resources?” she says, listing the kinds of problems a community can face, from managing their urban forestry contacts to finding suppliers, or drafting up contracts and tenders for forestry services. “Those are all things that we can help with, depending on what their individual needs are,” Rabicki says.

From there, she helps funding applicants break down their ​​​​project into “doable chunks”, from​ defining their objectives and collecting data on the status of their canopies, to selecting a planning site and choosing the right tree species. ​​​

Searls says that smaller communities are more likely to have limited urban forestry networks, as they may not have the staff capacity or resources to attend industry conferences. “They don't belong to certain professional associations, they don't get the networking opportunities.”

Even a community that is well-established in urban forestry can benefit from coaching, Rabicki says. “Your network can never be big enough, because there are often challenges that you're facing at different times,” Rabicki said—for example, figuring out how to protect tree canopies from an unexpected disease or pest infestation.  

Coaches can support strategic planning work, like the development of an urban forest management plan. With a strategic plan in hand, Rabicki says that communities have a “road map” that they can refer to, including touchpoints with a community’s municipal council for buy-in, as well as “helping the public understand what the goals are, and why it's critical to build a tree canopy,” she says.

Ursic adds that, while the needs of each community are unique, there’s always something to be gained from working with a coach. For example, a larger municipality might need a particular niche filled—such as an expert on woodland management—while others need assistance with figuring out how to approach their to-do list. “Maybe they need guidance on helping to prioritize [tasks],” Ursic says. “There's a lot they want to do, but they can only do so much. Where's going to be the best place for them to put their resources?”

​​​​​​​​​Currently an urban forestry coach to various municipalities, Ursic adds that funding applicants benefit from urban forestry coaches who work with a breadth of communities. “I learn little bits and pieces in different places that I can bring to other projects and say, ‘over here, they've had this experience, maybe this would work for you,’” she says.  

While communities benefit greatly from working with a coach, coaches also have something to gain from partnering with funding applicants: Rabicki—who has worked both as a forestry consultant and as a municipal staff member—says she “gets excited” about helping others learn and become confident in their projects.  

“It's about passing on the experience and helping others grow and succeed and learn together,” she says. “It's a collaborative greening of Canada's communities.”​

Got a project idea? Don’t do it alone

Whether you’re just starting to dream up your urban forestry project or already deep in implementation, connecting with a GCCC urban forestry coach early on can make all the difference.

The earlier you connect with a GCCC urban forestry coach, the stronger your project will be. Talk to our outreach team to learn about GMF funding, share your project idea, get matched with a coach and explore how we can help. 

The Green Municipal Fund’s Growing Canada’s Community Canopies is a $291 million initiative, ending in 2031, funded by the Government of Canada and delivered by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. Capacity building is enabled through a partnership with Tree Canada. GCCC will support the planting of at least 1.2M trees across Canada by end of March 2031.