Urban Just Transitions

We are a research cluster at the University of Toronto Scarborough working with community partners towards equity and climate action

Our Approach

We recognize that community-led efforts in energy and all transitions are best equipped to serve place-based needs. This is why we are committed to working with community partners as we develop our research project. Together, we can envision just transitions work and our academic areas of expertise can inform specific action points.

Community-based research Best Practices

  • Listening to lived experiences and needs

  • Collaboratively generating research questions and actionable goals

Working collectively towards net-zero futures

  • Sharing knowledge and resources to empower equitable climate action work

  • Envisioning and building a more equitable and sustainable city

Understanding leverage points to catalyze just transitions

  • Trying to understand how to accelerate change

  • Focusing on the social, cultural, and political challenges of eliminating carbon pollution and addressing the climate crisis

Featured Projects

Here are some of the things we're working on

Our research assistants are performing scans of policies and organizations that intersect with ‘just transitions’. They will also perform a scan of local “disruptions” caused by climate change.

We are working with community partners to determine how to address energy needs such as adequate heating and cooling, while keeping housing affordable.

We’re using publicly available data (e.g. Statistics Canada) to generate comparative, relational data of climate change impacts from community to regional scales.

This project proposes an off-road network of existing corridors to help people move around Scarborough without a car. We invite you to read the report and explore the interactive map.

Contact

Are you involved in just transitions work or interested and not quite sure how it all fits? Let's have a conversation! We're always interested in connecting and working with others.