3-minute read
Written by Casey Clair, Energy & Climate Advocate
Community-based sustainability is a key strategy in developing flourishing eco-conscious businesses. At The Chamber, it is important for us to promote sustainable businesses and their green initiatives. In our Sustainability Spotlights, we will shift our focus towards sustainable practices and the people that adopt and amplify them.
What’s your organization’s story?
If I asked you or your employees about your work, would I hear a passionate story about tackling challenges and making a difference?
For environmental consulting company Narratives, storytelling is more than a concept – it’s a tool for change. Through strategic planning, workshops, and impact assessments, they help teams define their story and operate within it, whether that’s shaping workplace culture, or strengthening the connection between your people and the world we live in.
To understand how this works, we sat down with Brigette DePape, Project Manager and Climate Planner at Narratives, who highlighted a few of the key ways people and the natural world intersect and inform their services. She notes that psychosocial and cultural impacts – though less tangible – are incredibly informative but are not always included in impact assessments. They can be less tangible and thus overlooked, despite the impacts projects and environmental policies have on local communities.
Image of Somia Sadiq, founder of Narratives Inc. Photo provided by Narratives Inc.
“A big reason for founding Narratives was finding that in many assessment processes, many voices weren’t being heard, and so Narratives was created to make space for some of those voices that weren’t being heard and to amplify those voices.”
Some of the most impactful transformations have come from their Indigenous Guardians Program. Narratives works with Niiwin Wendaanimok Four Winds Partnership, an Indigenous-owned and operated corporation. Together, with the Seal River Watershed Alliance, they are transforming the Seal Watershed here in Manitoba into an Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area (IPCA). Simply put, these are large areas of land, identified by local Indigenous communities, that will benefit from conservation.
Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas are critical to a healthy Manitoba. People’s livelihoods are directly tied to the land through their ability to hunt, trap, fish, and forage. IPCAs are also important for protecting critical carbon sinks, promoting biodiversity, and preserving culture.
“There is so much value in understanding diverse ways of knowing and being and when we take the time to really understand and connect with those different ways of knowing and being, we have such a richer, more fulsome understanding of the world…it’s so important for people to feel included, for people to feel a sense of belonging.”
Narratives is there for businesses who need to know the potential impacts of projects and policies and for organizations who want to learn more about what their data means for the long term. So, if you’re working on a policy that might affect the environment, get in touch with the Narratives team. They can help you see the intended and unintended consequences of your policy, so that you can make the most informed decisions. Not only that, but Narratives can help your organization with research and learning as well as land relations for environmental projects and initiatives.
Whether it’s through intended policy, projects or initiatives it’s important to take into account how they will affect the people we relate to and the planet we live on.
This way, we all work toward a story that ends happily ever after, for all Winnipeggers.
P.S. Please reach out to your Chamber’s energy & climate advocate, Casey, if you have a project in mind to increase your energy efficiency. You can save money on your monthly energy bills and help reduce your carbon footprint with Efficiency Manitoba rebates.
