Results

Since 2003, we have completed nearly 100 client and multi-client projects in 23 countries on six continents.  Our experience is distinctive for its breadth, yet we helped shape local, national and international agendas in several key areas. Here are some highlights:

We helped build a public health response to climate change – in Canada and around the world. Extensive consultations with senior leaders from Canada’s federal public health agency (PHAC) and from across the wider public health system led to new PHAC commitments to parliament, a successful Memorandum to Canada for new program funding, and new science and outreach initiatives to advance Canadian public health preparedness for climate change. 

We advanced water sustainability in Canada’s natural resource sector. We analyzed 20 years of industrial water use data and consulted with industry and government stakeholders to identify critical issues for water sustainability in the sector. We structured the business case and prepared supporting communications for new federal programming in this area, and prepared a discussion paper for the launch of a major policy research initiative led by the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy.

We served as a leading voice in the international youth climate movement. Liaising extensively with youth and non-youth organizations, we helped grow and strengthen youth participation in the international climate regime, resulting in a 10-fold increase in participation over four years at the annual climate negotiations and recognition of “Youth NGOs” as an official UNFCCC constituency. We helped launch the African Youth Initiative on Climate Change at COP 12 in 2006, coordinated the Canadian youth delegation to COP13 in 2007 and served as a global secretariat for about 1000 delegates to COP14 in 2008. The “mass dialogues”, delivered direct from the climate negotiations in 2008 and 2009, attracted 2,500 participants from 30 countries and international media attention. Similar initiatives have been launched by two international organizations.

We delivered nine projects in support of a politically sensitive, multi-country public diplomacy program, including by advising on program design, recruiting participants and partners, and leading delegations to science and advocacy meetings, including a meeting of G8 ministerial meeting. Its sponsor described it as "perhaps the single most exciting and successful public diplomany project in my time".

We brought carbon finance to the U.S.-Mexico border energy agenda through a process with private, public and intergovernmental authorities from both sides of the border to establish priorities and partnerships for financing clean energy in the region.

We drew national attention to the importance of, and challenges to, healthy urban governance through the project “Good Governance for Local Environment and Health Decision-Making”, co-led with Dr. Cory Neudorf. Visit the  Centre for Urban Health Initiatives for more information.  

We advanced thinking and practice in risk-based approaches to climate change adaptation. We co-led the participatory development of a decision support guide for local authorities, and co-authored a review of international experiences with risk-based approaches that was used for Canadian federal departmental planning and as foundation for federal-provincial collaboration.

We created transformative learning and leadership development experiences. David Noble co-designed - together with Peter Senge, one of the most influential thinkers on management of the last century, and two others - a 10-day expedition to Antarctica for 80 energy executives, researchers and students from 20 countries. In one of our first-ever projects, we developed an experiential training in a risk-based approach to climate change adaptation. Barry Smit, a convening lead author for the IPCC Third Assessment Report, said "I've seen a lot of these types of workshops, and this one is really innovative. It just might work." It did, and was subsequently adopted and replicated across Canada by a national research network.

We designed and executed powerful communications. We crafted successful grant applications for planning and feasibility studies for one of North America's most ambitious community energy plans. A reviewer called the planning grant proposal the best he had ever seen. and produced a photographic archive of Canadian science activity in the last International Polar Year. David Noble delivered a 22-event national speaking tour that attracted 4,000 people and print, radio and TV media attention, and spawned dozens of workshops, collaborations and action projects.  

We (co-) authored or (co-) edited nearly 50 publications in peer-reviewed, government, current affairs and trade publications. David Noble contributed to and co-edited the book Stepping up to the Climate Change Challenge, which was bulk purchased and distributed to the 3,600 Mayors and chief administrators of every municipality in the country. We prepared or contributed to research and policy review papers on a range of climate change related topics, including a major UNICEF submission to the Human Security Network on the implications of climate change for children and a chapter of a Canadian national assessment of health vulnerability to climate change.

We convened and facilitated high-impact meetings with diverse groups of up to 200 people, with different purposes, using different design modalities. We organized the first-ever symposium on health promotion and climate change and co-authored a successful resolution committing the global health promotion professional body to a response to global environmental change. We planned and facilitated the launch of a national dialogue on public health and sustainable development; and a 7-day writeshop for research teams from seven North and West African countries to strengthen writing capacity and advance manuscripts for publication.

We brokered productive partnerships. We nurtured 10 research partnerships involving more than 70 organizations, leading to at least $4.5 million in research.

We inspired and mentored dozens of people through personal and professional growth.