By Joanna Burris, for CALS691: Designing a Practitioner Portfolio, Week 1
Ewa Jackson is an undeniable leader in the climate action space in Canada. In her role as Managing Director of ICLEI Canada, Ewa oversees the organization’s operational activities, including all staff and programs (Ewa Jackson, n.d.). ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability is a global organization that supports local sustainable development in communities and cities across over 125 countries (ICLEI, n.d.). Canada’s branch is an exemplary member of ICLEI’s global network, supporting hundreds of communities and institutions to leverage their local capacity and expertise to take tangible climate action (ICLEI Canada, n.d.-c). The organization’s wide reach and notable impact are in no small part due to Ewa’s leadership.
Ewa is a leader in the field of climate adaptation in Canada. In addition to her leadership role at ICLEI Canada, Ewa is the Director of the new Ontario Resource Centre for Climate Adaptation (ORCCA) that launched in September 2023 (ORCCA, n.d.-b). The new climate services organization was created to fill a resource gap in Ontario and support Great Lakes communities and others to understand and adapt to a changing climate (ORCCA, n.d.-a).
I met Ewa for the first time virtually in early 2022 through ICLEI Canada’s Agents of Change program and in person at the 2022 Livable Cities Forum, which is ICLEI’s annual event to bring communities together from across Canada in the name of local climate action. Beyond being an expert climate adaptation practitioner, Ewa is an accomplished event planner. Ewa and her team put on a fantastic conference that brought together hundreds of people working in local governance and the climate sector, across many fields, to learn, challenge each other, and build connections, all with a focus on equity and reconciliation. We crossed paths again at FCM’s Sustainable Communities Conference in Ottawa in 2023, where I had the chance to hear Ewa speak on a panel titled “From National Adaptation Strategy to Local Climate Resilience”. She explained the challenges communities face getting from adaptation planning to implementation and discussed possible solutions, like normalizing a culture of implementation, celebrating small successes, and multi-solving – making every dollar go further by addressing multiple issues with each project (E. Jackson, personal communication, February 10, 2022).
At ICLEI, Ewa works alongside Executive Director Megan Meaney and leads a team of twenty-three people (E. Jackson, personal communication, February 14, 2024). The small but mighty team administers several programs, including ICLEI’s adaptation program Building Adaptive and Resilient Communities (BARC) that uses a “proven and widely-recognized” framework to help over 120 municipalities, Indigenous communities, and institutions assess climate risks and plan adaptation efforts (ICLEI Canada, n.d.-b). BARC celebrated its 15th year in 2023 (ICLEI Canada, 2023), and Ewa undoubtedly played a key role in the program’s development and impressive uptake by organizations across the country.
On the climate mitigation side, ICLEI Canada runs the Partners for Climate Protection program with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, guiding member communities through the five-milestone program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (ICLEI Canada, n.d.-b). The ICLEI Canada team also leads a number of biodiversity projects and produces informative studies and reports to support local climate action in Canada, such as “Climate Communication Workshop in a Box”, “Cost of Doing Nothing” (CODN) toolbox, “Integrating equity, diversity and inclusion into municipal climate action”, and “Equitable Climate Adaptation” (ICLEI Canada, n.d.-e).
Ewa Jackson’s expertise and prominence in Canada’s climate adaptation sector is evident from the many events and innumerable webinars at which she is invited to speak, both nationally and abroad. Ewa was part of four different sessions at the global Adaptation Futures conference in Montreal in 2023, including two on equitable climate adaptation and one about collaboration between municipal governments and First Nations (McGoldrick, 2023). She presented at ICLEI’s global Resilient Cities 2018 conference in Bonn, Germany (Resilient Cities 2018, n.d.). Ewa also contributed to the “Canada in a Changing Climate” National Knowledge Assessment as a member of the National Assessment Advisory Committee (Lulham et al., 2023). The National Knowledge Assessment is a fundamental series of reports on the state of the climate crisis, impacts, and adaptation in Canada (Lulham et al., 2023), which climate practitioners across Canada look to for up-to-date climate science and recommendations.
Ewa has dedicated her entire career to supporting climate action at the community level (Ewa Jackson, n.d.). For me, as a municipal climate practitioner early in my career, it is inspiring to see the expansive and meaningful impact a person can have when they believe in the power and importance of local climate action. When I grow up (as a climate leader), I want to be Ewa Jackson.
References
Ewa Jackson. (n.d.). Experience [LinkedIn page]. LinkedIn. Retrieved January 16, 2024. https://www.linkedin.com/in/ewa-jackson-662b4431/
ICLEI Canada. (2023). 4th BARC impact report. https://icleicanada.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/4th-BARC-Impact-Report.pdf
ICLEI Canada. (n.d.-a). Energy & emissions. https://icleicanada.org/our-work/mitigation/
ICLEI Canada. (n.d.-b). ICLEI Canada. https://icleicanada.org/
ICLEI Canada. (n.d.-c). Join the BARC program. https://icleicanada.org/our-work/adaptation/
ICLEI Canada. (n.d.-d). Meet the team. https://icleicanada.org/about-iclei/our-team/
ICLEI Canada. (n.d.-e). Resources. https://icleicanada.org/resources/
ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability. (n.d.). About us. https://iclei.org/about_iclei_2/
Lulham, N., Warren, F. J., Walsh, K. A., & Szwarc, J. (2023). Canada in a changing climate: Synthesis report. Government of Canada. https://changingclimate.ca/synthesis/chapter/report/
McGoldrick, C. (2023, October 20). October 2023 newsletter. ICLEI Canada. https://icleicanada.org/october-2023-newsletter/
ORCCA. (n.d.-a). What is ORCCA. https://orcca-craco.ca/about-orcca-the-ontario-resource-centre-for-climate-adaptation/
ORCCA. (n.d.-b). Meet the team. https://orcca-craco.ca/meet-the-orcca-team-of-adaptation-experts/
Resilient Cities 2018. (n.d.). Ewa Jackson: Biography. ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability and Federal City of Bonn, Germany. https://resilientcities2018.iclei.org/speaker/ewa-jackson/