Edmonton is rich in examples of neighbourhood level initiatives to address climate change. The Green Leagues program under the Edmonton Federation of Community Leagues is one example that has taken the lead and has assisted community leagues in adopting renewable energy for their operations as well as created awareness about climate adaptation.

The result of it is that twenty one community leagues have either conducted energy audits for their facilities or have installed roof-top solar panels to meet their energy demands.

Some leagues even have well established sustainability councils and directors to help coordinate their work regarding greenhouse gas mitigation and climate change adaptation.

In their earlier works, researchers Dr. Sandeep Agrawal and Dr. Neelakshi Joshi found that early adopter leagues are now beginning to feel the need for a long term plan with concrete goals and actions to sustain and amplify their transition efforts as well as align them to the city’s energy transition and climate adaptation trajectory.

In this project, they aim to work extensively with three pioneer community leagues and the Green Leagues program to co-create neighbourhood climate action strategies in line with the City of Edmonton’s goals.

They will engage with the community members through a series of meetings, workshops, focus group discussions and online engagement sessions.

Their research intends to produce two key deliverables: a climate action strategy for participating leagues and a general toolkit for leagues to formulate their own neighbourhood climate action strategies. In doing so, they will contribute to the nascent field of neighbourhood level action for climate change mitigation and adaptation.