Q.west for good: Change leadership stories with Denise Withers

It's become crystal clear that we need to change our approach to tackling the climate crisis, to work in collaboration with Indigenous Peoples, Nations and knowledge keepers. As historic stewards of nature, they have rich insights, expertise, and perspectives to share about how we might move forward.

But that doesn't just mean collaborating with Indigenous elders or scientists. We also need to listen to and learn from Indigenous youth who will be the stewards of the future. That's why I'm so excited to have Autumn Peltier join me on the show. She's the Chief Water Commissioner for the Anishinabek Nation and an Indigenous rights and water activist who's been using her voice to pursue justice since she was eight years old.

In the last 10 years, she's addressed Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, spoken at the UN General Assembly and World Economic Forum, been shortlisted for the International Children's Peace Prize four times and featured in Maclean's top 50 Canadian power list. She's also received multiple honours and awards and recently released her first documentary, The Water Walker, produced by Seeing Red Six Nations on HBO Canada.

In this episode, she shares her experience growing up learning to care for the water and the land, connects justice issues like water rights and violence against Indigenous women and inspires hope for new and better collaboration in the future.  

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Most leaders know by now that a "business as usual" approach won't work if we want to avoid the worst effects of climate change. We need expertise from across sectors, cultures, continents and disciplines to be able to resolve the kinds of wicked problems we now face.

But figuring out how to do that kind of interdisciplinary, intersectional work, particularly in a Western, largely patriarchal society, grounded in somewhat risk-averse institutions, requires a major shift in our processes, systems and beliefs. And we don't have the luxury of waiting a few decades while we figure it out. That's where Margot Hurlbert comes in.

As the Canada Research Chair in Climate Change, Energy and Sustainability Policy and a Professor of the Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy at the University of Regina, she's studying interdisciplinary approaches to these kinds of wicked problems through research on real-world projects about issues like water and clean energy. She's also been a Coordinating Lead Author, Contributing Author and Review Editor for the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change or IPCC

Through that work and her decades of research, Margot has developed deep expertise that allows her to bring a unique perspective to this challenge. In this episode, she unpacks key concepts about inter- and trans-disciplinary work, explores the very real barriers that still prevent us from doing it and shine a light on promising new approaches for current and future climate leaders. 

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Municipalities are ground zero for tackling climate change, especially when it comes to adaptation. They're well positioned to take direct action to do things like build infrastructure and create new policies. However, they're also the level of government typically operating with the tightest fiscal constraints and most demands in terms of serving a diverse constituency. 

So what does it take to be able to lead the kind of transformative change we need in such a challenging environment? That's what we're going to find out in this conversation with Norm Connolly.

Trained as a planner, Norm's worked for several municipalities across the Lower Mainland of British Columbia on files from development to community energy. These days, he's the Sustainability Manager for the City of Richmond, a largely island-based municipality. Home to critical infrastructure like the Vancouver International Airport, Richmond is under threat from sea level rise, as well as events like heat domes and extreme storms. 

In this episode, Norm shares several stories about how he's been able to lead innovation and generate engagement for climate action, despite fiscal and political constraints. He also highlights the need for interdisciplinary collaboration, and offers insights about the kind of climate action leadership we need going forward. 

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We often think of engineers as simply technical experts when it comes to tackling issues like flood management from climate change. But early in her career, Tamsin Lyle realized that she'd have to grow her leadership skillset and change the way she approached her engineering work if she wanted to have a real impact.

That inspired her to start her own consulting company, ebbwater, and build a new kind of approach to climate action leadership that blends technical skills with so-called "soft skills" like communication, facilitation, envisioning and engagement. Along the way, she discovered that we desperately need to change the way we work to become more collaborative, creative and multi-disciplinary if we want to develop and scale climate solutions that make a difference. 

In this conversation, Tamsin shares the story of how she built a leading engineering consulting practice, explores the challenges of creating effective adaptation solutions and unpacks how she's been able to build multidisciplinary teams and communities that inform and inspire climate action.

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When it comes to climate innovation, North Americans are often guilty of assuming that we do it best. But we forget that the most powerful innovation is driven by need, creativity and constraints. These are some of the key contributors to the success of Sea6 Energy, an Indian company co-founded and led by Sowmya Balendiran to develop breakthrough solutions to key global problems.

Over the last decade, Sea6 has revolutionized tropical seaweed farming on the ocean through its patented solutions across the value chain, from the cultivation of seaweeds to the end products, paving the way for a sustainable tropical blue economy. Earlier this year, the World Economic Forum recognized them as a top innovator, inviting Sowmya to Davos to share their work.

But building a global biotech business from scratch that transforms the way we think about, grow and use sea plants hasn't been easy. As a Ph.D. student turned entrepreneur, Sowmya's had to develop a collaborative leadership style that enables her to not only build strong teams but also thrive in a male-dominated economy. 

In this episode, she shares insights from her journey over the last ten years, along with what she's learned about leading climate action, specifically embracing a multi-disciplinary approach powered by curiosity and collaboration.

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Climate action leadership isn't limited to governments and scientists. We need all hands on deck if we want to avoid the catastrophic effects of climate change today and in the future.

But what does climate action look like for people not on the frontlines, like those who work in areas as diverse as finance, health care or software as a service? That's what we're going to find out today in my conversation with Abid Saifee.

He's the Senior Director of Product Management for ecomedes, a climate tech company that's making it easier to source sustainable commercial building products. A veteran product developer, Abid spent years working at giants like Microsoft and Nordstrom before moving into climate tech. This gives him a unique ability to see what's needed to run a business that can make money and tackle climate change. 

In this episode, Abid shares his journey into climate action, reveals hidden benefits for businesses that tackle climate change and highlights how we need to change the way we work to resolve these kinds of wicked problems in the future. 

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When you buy a digital ad through something like Google, it usually gets placed on a website. But you don't get to choose which websites it goes on. Who does? The ad tech industry. Which is not a problem, until you discover that they're running your ad for your precious brand on a site that promotes disinformation, racism, hate or even treason. 

So how do you stop that from happening? That's what Claire Atkin and her partner Nandini Jammi are trying to figure out, through their work at their Check My Ads Institute. Together they're taking on a ridiculously huge and largely unregulated industry to fight not only disinformation and hate but the rise of global authoritarianism. 

In this episode, Claire shares the incredible story of how they got started and have gone on to defund some of the biggest names in disinformation and hate speech, from Steve Bannon to Fox News. Simply by starting to ask questions and call out lies in public, they've started a movement that's garnered support from across the industry. They're also working hard to inform policy and best practices while pushing for more transparency about where client funds go and how they're used.

This is my new favourite episode and I'm grateful to Claire for sharing their work. If you'd like to support them, you can sign up to become a CheckMate at https://checkmyads.org/membership. And if you want to know more about how to protect your business, subscribe to their newsletter Branded to get behind-the-scenes stories the ad tech industry doesn’t want marketers to know.

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It's one thing to take on the challenge of bringing an innovative product to market. But figuring out how to build an entirely new industry requires next-level vision, creativity and passion. 

Mark Smith brings all of that and more to his role as the President and CEO of the Pacific Seaweed Industry Association. He and his tiny team are working with growers, manufacturers, distributors and governments – including First Nations – to scale seaweed production across Canada. And they're doing it in an environment that's short on infrastructure, production systems, clear regulations or even a market.

In this episode, Mark shares the backstory of how he and his colleagues at the Vancouver Island Economic Alliance managed to get the island designated as a foreign trade zone – then leverage that win to start building out the seaweed industry. 

We explore the incredible potential for seaweed products – including foods, biofuels that can replace fossil fuels, and nutriceuticals. 

And we unpack the secrets to his success to date and what's going to help the industry become a world leader, in a way that's economically, culturally and environmentally sustainable.   

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When Deljit Bains stepped into her new role to lead the South Asian Health Institute in British Columbia, she knew she had a big challenge ahead of her - trying to find ways to improve health outcomes for the huge South Asian population there, which had really high rates of chronic disease.

A nice neat plan had already been developed for her, where she was supposed to find volunteers to go into the community to do things like educate people, give flu shots and run exercise programs.

But when she started to put the plan into action, she realized quickly that it wasn't going to work. It had been designed for a predominantly white, educated, English-speaking health care system that operated from 9 to 5 on weekdays – not a culturally rich, Punjabi-speaking, population with often low literacy rates that gathered in the evening and on weekends.

If she was going to have any impact at all, she'd have to let go of old-school approaches to health promotion and adopt an innovation mindset. And that's how the Apnee Sehat Design Lab for South Asian Health started.

In this episode, Deljit shares her biggest insights about leading change in an incredibly complex situation and tells us how she found a new way forward using human-centred design.

You can find much more detail about the project in the evaluation report. Or watch the video summary of the project. 

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We wouldn't expect someone to be able to run a bank or do surgery unless we trained them to do it. So why do we think we can "magically" adapt to climate change when we haven't taught people how?

Workers across every nook and cranny of society need to learn what climate change adaptation is, how it affects their jobs and what they can do to tackle it.

That's why Vivian Forssman, Robin Cox and the team at the Adaptation Learning Network (now CanAdapt) at Royal Roads University in  British Columbia decided to spend almost 4 years of their lives figuring out how to teach Canadian workers to address adaptation.

Though they had a pretty straightforward plan to identify core competencies and develop some courses, they soon found themselves having to find new ways to "do" higher education as they navigated a world disrupted by COVID, JEDI, reconciliation, and a looming recession.

 In this episode, Vivian shares her story about how they wrangled unforeseen challenges and developed deep insights that are now informing work to educate professionals across Canada, including the entire civil service.

Read the Adaptation Learning Network's final report, discover the future of this work and find out more about climate change adaptation educational opportunities. 

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