2022-2023 Impact Report

Click here to view the 2022-23 Impact Report

Green Action Centre hosted our Annual General Meeting on June 28th, wrapping up the 2022-2023 fiscal year. In addition to electing new board members and reviewing our annual financial statement, we took time to celebrate another year of hard work.

Some key highlights from the 2022-2023 year include: 

• The number of Manitoba First Nation communities supported by the Pathfinders keeps growing! This
  past year we worked with the following 11 communities: Black River First Nation, Buffalo Point
  First Nation, Bunibonibee Cree Nation, Fisher River Cree Nation, Garden Hill First Nation, Little
  Saskatchewan First Nation, Peguis First Nation, Pine Creek First Nation, St. Theresa Point First
  Nation, Tataskweyak Cree Nation, and Wasagamack First Nation.
• Held the speaker event: Transportation for a Strong Town, featuring Charles Marohn who spoke about
  his book “Confessions of a Recovering Engineer” to a sold out audience.
• Performed a Waste Reduction Program for École River Heights School, which involved conducting a
  waste audit with the entire school; 18 classes with a total of 450 students.
• Delivered a Composting and Waste Reduction Pilot for provincial government buildings to assess the
  effectiveness of staff education and implementation of Compost Winnipeg pickup in reducing the
  Provincial government’s carbon footprint.
• Submitted the summary of Green Action Centre’s Indigenous Accord goals and progress since becoming
  a partner and signatory to the Winnipeg’s Indigenous Accord in 2021.
• Increased social media following by 12% across all platforms.

See our 2022-23 Impact Report here

Executive Director & Board Chair Note

The 2022-2023 fiscal year was full of exciting changes at Green Action Centre. We moved to a new office, welcomed nine new staff members to our diverse team, and added four new volunteers to the Board of Directors. On the leadership front, Compost Winnipeg welcomed a new General Manager in late summer 2022, and Green Action Centre welcomed a new Executive Director at the beginning of 2023. Needless to say, things have been busy while we navigate post-pandemic life and respond to new challenges.

The physical return to the office and delivering our programming in-person has been so rewarding. Live interaction with partners and stakeholders continues to inspire us. Human interaction connects us in a unique way, and our amazing team knows and acknowledges that. It is great to be back!

With no doubt, this was a year of consolidation and growth. We were able to expand several programs including First Nations Waste Minimization (FNWM) and Sustainability Projects. We delivered projects in areas relatively new for us, including green infrastructure and food security. In collaboration with the Climate Action Team, a coalition of environmental organizations in Manitoba, we provided four rural communities (two settlers and two Indigenous) with an empowering program to create their own community climate action plans. In Sustainable Transportation we hosted a sold-out “Transportation for a Strong Town” event, where powerful conversations led by Charles Marohn of Strong Towns ignited our community. Finally our social enterprise, Compost Winnipeg, continued to increase its number of clients, staff and trucks to deliver their mission across Winnipeg. All of these achievements are thanks to an amazing and cohesive team full of great ideas, creativity and hard work.

Our mandate is to promote greener living through environmental education and real climate action to all Manitobans. These last three words – to all Manitobans – resonate with us every day. The partnerships and relationships we build with organizations strongly rooted in underserved communities expose us to a reality we cannot ignore. Those who are facing the biggest economic and social challenges are, at the same time, the most impacted by the effects of climate change. Supporting and providing services to these communities is imperative in our fight for climate justice.

Floods, food insecurity, wildfires, heat waves – we saw climate change coming, and here it is! Now more than ever we need tangible climate action to provide resilience and ensure sustainable, healthy communities for the future. We acknowledge that, collectively, there is still much work to be done by our society to protect our environment now and for future generations, but Green Action Centre remains inspired to act as an agent of change for Manitobans.

We could not complete this report without acknowledging two incredible leaders and humans: Tracy Hucul, former Executive Director, whose legacy has had a profound impact on the success of our organization, and Beth McKechnie, former Interim Executive Director and Program Coordinator at the FNWM program, who selflessly stepped up to steer us through leadership transition and stabilization.

To the entire staff of Green Action Centre and Compost Winnipeg, the Board of Directors, our volunteers and our members, thank-you for your passion and commitment to a greener future for all Manitobans.

Let’s keep up the good work, folks!