2021 Annual Workshop Report Out – Presentations from this workshop and past session can be found here.
Turning Challenges into Opportunities: Resiliency in the Environmental Industry
We’re excited to report out that the annual workshop held on April 15th was a resounding success. On the post workshop survey, attendees scored the workshop an average of 4.75 out of 5 for delivering value by providing content and interactivity.
It was the first time the workshop was held online, with forty-five participants being guided through an interactive and content-driven event featuring speakers, panelists, and several interactive knowledge sharing sessions.
The event started with attendees exchanging ideas on why resilience matters to the environmental sector today, with some key discussion points being:
- Keeping businesses viable with the demand for different environmental services
- Diversifying companies and resources to continue to support environmental initiatives
- New ways of working, adapting to new working environments at home and in the field.
- Cyber security, maintaining essential services and staff retention
Next, Michael Bodman (DND) and Kristen Ritchot (PSPC) shared their presentation “Rocks, Rails, Residuals and Resiliency – Challenges and Opportunities in Remediating Contaminated Sediments in Esquimalt Harbour”.
Our Meet Your Regulator Panel was a success and included nine regulators from BC MOECCS, DFO, BC EAO, BC MFLNRORD and the BC OSPG.
Michael Crowe from DFO spoke next about responding to the Big Bar Landslide in 2019.
Our resiliency panel consisted of three speakers: Mary Point (YVR), Amber Ashenhurst (Hatfield), and Dorit Mason (Translink) and covered experiences ranging from the personal to the professional, and the importance of continually building relationships.
After hearing from our leading-edge speaker presentations and panelists, attendees discussed their own experience with resilience in small groups.
The workshop ended with a discussion about the future of the environmental sector on topics that emerged from discussions at the workshop, which were:
- Building and maintaining strong workplace teams, a sense of community and trust in your organization during uncertainty
- Creating a culture of adaptability and being able to pivot
- Sharing knowledge as members of the environmental sector and building resilience to climate change into our projects
- Building resilient relationships with Indigenous Nations.
A special thanks again to our panelists, presenters, and regulators for taking the time to share their knowledge. The workshop wouldn’t have existed without them. Presentations from this workshop and past session can be found here.
And lastly, we would like to thank Shelley Metcalfe for designing and facilitating the workshop and our workshop committee from the Board of Directors: Vanessa Osorio, Miranda Lewis, and Jon Arason.