Author: Mia Chung
Summary: ISET Canada attended Adaptation Canada 2026. One key takeaway was the need to build bridges to work together. Integrated systems thinking is at the heart of the approach needed to actualize the relationships to put the pieces together effectively.
As Ewa Jackson, Managing Director of ICLEI Canada, welcomed us to the Adaptation Canada conference from the main ballroom stage in the Westin Harbourfront Castle in the heart of the Toronto financial district, I took in my surroundings. In the dimmed room, excitement buzzed amongst the 1000+ professionals, scholars, and practitioners attending the event. Among them, an esteemed 6 speakers, including Indigenous Elder and Knowledge Keeper Valerie King and the multi-hyphenate Don Iveson, opened the conference, alongside dance performances by Red Sky Performance. The conversations and expertise in the room had me wondering – had climate adaptation in Canada finally gathered momentum?
After many years of climate adaptation being sidelined in favour of the easier-to-measure mitigation, and the work of climate adaptation continuing to be an area of development in Canada, the broad selection of sessions and streams presented both as part of the Indigenous Leadership pre-conference session as well as the main program seemed to suggest a shift towards adaptation. The alignment at the conference was palpable. Within this focus, one main thread joined the messaging across the elements of the event that I attended: the need to build bridges to work together.
Building bridges, working together
Collaboration. Meaningful partnership with all interest-holders around the table as equals. The need to work on the problem together – even if the financial costs are borne by those who are less impacted and may not receive a direct benefit. These were some of the many variations of the same message I heard throughout the conference: we need to work together. Climate adaptation is not manageable alone.
However, even as the need for collaboration was acknowledged, the other side of the same coin became evident: We need better support to build the bridges to achieve togetherness.
I had the opportunity of speaking to and hearing from adaptation professionals from all sectors – academia, private sector, NGOs, and governments at all levels – and areas of practice. In the session, “Who Benefits, Who Pays”, the message was clear: There is great interest in new and innovative partnerships for adaptation, but a challenge in brokering those relationships. Indeed, this was a sentiment I heard throughout my attendance at Adaptation Canada. For example, over lunch on Day 3, I listened in as an advocate working with First Nations in Ontario described a lack of consultation with them from the start. From the pre-conference through to the last session, I heard presenters noting the need to ensure that interventions support vulnerable populations, even as they acknowledged the numerous barriers to collaborate and include effectively, especially in short timeframes. And, after my presentation on Outcome Harvesting in the “Meaningful Metrics for Resilience” session, I connected with another knowledge broker who bemoaned the lack of those playing the role of bridging and translating for different interest holders.
The undercurrent of the conversations: understanding that adaptation is a shared problem. But how can we connect the pieces together?
Building bridges
The answer? Building bridges to link our relationships. Operationalizing this is, of course, harder: conflicting timeframes get in the way, hampered by limited resources, and poorly aligned capacities. Differing priorities, worldviews, languages, and cultures are only some of the variables increasing the complexity of the landscape. Integrated systems thinking is at the heart of the approach needed to actualize the relationships to put the pieces together effectively.
While I certainly have no easy ways to go about doing this, I can offer some approaches that ISET has successfully drawn on over its 20 years of experience in building bridges for climate resilience.
Shared Learning Dialogues (SLD)
The SLD is a stakeholder engagement process rooted in participatory action research. Characterized by non-extractive, mutual learning among participants, the premise of the SLD is straightforward: by fostering iterative deliberation and non-hierarchical sharing of multiple specialized ways of knowing, perspectives, and worldviews, the quality and effectiveness of decision-making will be improved.
How it builds bridges: SLDs also allow for multi-directional information sharing, and radically open interaction. The SLD process, when iteratively and carefully enacted, fosters knowledge exchange, dialogue, and deliberation to nurture learning, innovation, and flexibility. Read more here.
Outcome Harvesting (OH)
OH is a systematic but flexible, qualitative methodology for understanding progress and achievements in delivering complex goals, like social impact or systems change. It involves capturing evidence of what changed and why, who contributed to those changes, and why the change is significant. When collaboratively used by analysts familiar with the context, Outcome Harvesting can support meaningful measurement and insightful analysis for many users. Read more here.
How it builds bridges: As a participatory methodology, OH requires meaning to be made with those who have experienced changes. Further, facilitated participation builds ownership, since OH captures narrative evidence of change as opposed to tracking activities alone. For many program teams focused on day-to-day delivery and success, reading the changes they have contributed to, gauged against a greater framework, can allow teams to view their work in a different light. Watch more here.
How ISET Canada can help
The Adaptation Canada conference pointed towards a need for bridge builders. With 20 years of proven success in systems thinking, application of resilience frameworks, climate change adaptation, and community-first global learning applied to local contexts, ISET Canada can help you start to construct these bridges for transformational impact. We are a registered BC non-profit, and committed to an equity informed, partnership and relationship focused way of working. We invite you to connect with us to talk about how we can help.