Canadian charities can now apply for the 2019
Intact Adaptation Action Grants.
TORONTO, Oct. 22, 2019 /CNW/ - Natural disasters
caused by climate change are real and immediate. These disasters
cost people, businesses and governments billions of dollars every
year, and they take a toll on Canadians' mental and physical
health.
Through the Intact Adaptation Action Grants, Intact Financial
Corporation is investing $1 million
in charities that are developing practical and effective solutions
that help protect people from natural disasters like floods,
wildfires, extreme heat, wind and hail.
"Our purpose is to help people, businesses and society prosper
in good times and be resilient in bad times. We do that by
mobilizing our more than 4,000 claims employees to help customers
get back on track quickly after a catastrophic weather event. These
events are impacting our communities and that's why we're taking a
proactive approach to protect people from natural disasters by
building a more climate-resilient country," said Charles Brindamour, Chief Executive Officer,
Intact Financial Corporation.
The Intact Adaptation Action Grants will prioritize
projects that use natural infrastructure as part of their
solutions, take a community engagement approach, and help Canadians
understand the climate risks they are facing.
Transformational change takes time and requires investing in
both new and existing ideas. With this in mind, Intact is funding
three types of grants:
- Fostering Ideas: Contribute to new solutions by
exploring new ideas through research, peer support and/or skills
development
- Testing Concepts: Testing and validating an existing
idea to confirm the impact of a concept
- Scaling Projects: Scale a proven concept to expand
impact and reach
Over the past two years, Intact Financial Corporation has
invested $2.3 million in 16 projects
to help create a more climate-resilient Canada. Successful projects are helping to
reduce flooding by protecting and restoring natural infrastructure.
They are also helping to reduce urban heat islands by greening our
cities and using artificial intelligence to predict wildfires. See
the attached backgrounder for a full list of charitable partners
and their projects.
For more details about the Adaptation Action Grants window,
including the link to apply, please visit the Intact Financial
Corporation website.
About Intact Financial Corporation
Intact Financial Corporation (TSX: IFC) is the largest provider
of property and casualty (P&C) insurance in Canada and a leading provider of specialty
insurance in North America, with
over $10 billion in total annual
premiums. The Company has approximately 14,000 full- and part-time
employees who serve more than five million personal, business and
public sector clients through offices in Canada and the U.S. In Canada, Intact distributes insurance under the
Intact Insurance brand through a wide network of brokers, including
its wholly-owned subsidiary BrokerLink, and directly to consumers
through belairdirect. In the U.S., OneBeacon Insurance Group, a
wholly-owned subsidiary, provides specialty insurance products
through independent agencies, brokers, wholesalers and managing
general agencies.
Backgrounder
2017 and 2018 Charitable
Partners
NATIONAL
ALUS Canada
Project name:
Implementing natural infrastructure projects in communities
upstream of urban centres
Description: ALUS Canada
implements natural-infrastructure
projects on marginal or inefficient-to-farm agricultural
lands, to reduce the risk of floods in Calgary, Ottawa and Brandon, MB
Outcomes to date:
- 217 acres of land restored as natural-infrastructure
projects.
- 8 farmers and ranchers newly enrolled in ALUS program.
- 3 new ALUS community programs surrounding the city of
Calgary
Nature Conservancy of Canada
Project
name: Protecting and restoring wetlands
Description: Protecting and restoring wetlands in
Ontario to help reduce the impact
of severe storms
Outcomes to date:
- 4 new wetlands created (5 acres total)
- 60 acres of native habitat restored to reduce floods and
non-point pollution
Green Learning Canada
Foundation
Project name: Wild weather –
engaging youth in education and action on extreme weather
preparedness
Description: Flood education directly engages youth in
preparing their schools and homes for a flood event
Results to date:
- 400 youth participated in a beta version of the flood education
program
- 80 teachers (about 2,000 students) have registered for the
2019-2020 flood education program
FireSmart
Project name: FireSmart
Home Partners
Description: Addressing the need for a standardized system
that offers defendable, detailed and customized wildfire risk
assessments and tracks measurable risk reduction for homes
Results to date:
- Creation of an online FireSmart Home Partners Program training
course for firefighters, allowing 500 firefighters to be trained in
one year instead of 100.
- Work is underway to expand the program from Alberta to British
Columbia, Saskatchewan and
Manitoba.
- Creation of an initial assessment tool that summer students at
fire stations in Wood Buffalo and Fort
McMurray used to complete 350 initial assessments.
BRITISH COLUMBIA
University of British
Columbia
Project name: Megafires
– urgent need for climate change adaptation to build community
resilience, prevention and recovery
Description: Developing post-fire recovery strategies to
prevent future forest fires and increase climate resilience in 21
communities in Canada
Results to date:
- Analysis of more than 300 fire scarred trees and collection of
1,000 cores from trees
- The team is building statistical models to show forest
composition and structure prior to European settlement and the
relationship between the time of the last fire, forest density and
growth rates of trees in the study forests
ALBERTA
The Miistakis Institute of the Rockies
Inc.
Project name: Smart from the
start
Description: Creating a least-conflict lands planning tool
to guide placement of large scale solar and wind projects.
Results to date:
- Digital maps that can be used by provincial and municipal
planners to help municipalities site renewable energy development
to areas of least ecological, social and economic conflict
- Actively working with other rural municipalities in
Alberta to implement the least
conflict lands process to aid in placement of renewable energy
development and to inform municipal planning strategies.
University of
Alberta
Project name: Using
artificial intelligence (AI) to predict extreme fire weather
Description: Developing a computer program that recognizes
large scale atmospheric patterns associated with extreme fire
weather using AI
Results to date:
- Identified Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN), a deep learning
approach commonly used for image analysis, as the AI/machine
learning model to predict extreme fire weather.
- Preliminary data collection and CNN modelling
Green Calgary
Project
name: Flood prevention through rainwater harvesting
Description: Helping Calgarians to act to protect their
homes through rainwater harvesting
Results to date:
- 2,000 Calgary homeowners
bought rain barrels for their gardens to reduce flood risk,
potentially conserving 6.8 million litres of water per year
- Over the lifetime of a barrel (9 years), it can result in 61
million litres of water captured
ONTARIO
Ducks Unlimited
Project name:
Brick Ponds Wetland Restoration and Enhancement
Description: Increasing the amount of shallow water wetland
cells to provide wildlife habitat, increase aquatic plant diversity
and to aid in flood water management and water quality
improvement.
Results to date:
- Increased community resiliency in Woodstock, Ont., by attenuating stormwater
through a series of new shallow wetlands and channels, increased
sequestration of carbon and the management and eradication of
invasive species
- Reduced potential for residential basement flooding due to
increased water-retention capacity and improved water management in
the watershed
QUEBEC
WWF-Canada
Project name: Bleu
Montreal
Description: Restoring water to the urban landscape,
improving water management and strengthening Montreal's resilience by uncovering
underground rivers and creating new ones.
Results to date
- Successfully completed a feasibility study of three pilot
projects in three Montreal
boroughs
Conseil régional de l'environnement et du développement
durable de l'Outaouais
Project name:
Reducing heat islands of downtown Gatineau
Description: Reduce the impact of urban heat islands by
implementing a strategy that includes greening and community
involvement
Projected outcomes:
- Implement and scale an urban greening strategy for Hull Island
in Gatineau
Nature-Action Québec
Project name:
Restoring shorelines to reduce flood risk in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu
Description: Shoreline restoration of the Hazen Bleury and
the Barbotte rivers targeted for their vulnerability to flood and
their low vegetation
Results to date:
- Delivered a report to prioritize action sites and map priority
intervention areas
Nature Québec
Project name:
Healthy Living Space
Description: Help municipalities reduce the number of heat
islands and air pollution through heat island mapping, public
awareness and green areas preservation and restoration
Results to date:
- Collaborated with the City of
Sherbrooke to develop a multi-functional greenspace in the
Saint-Élie neighbourhood
- Collaborated with the City of
Victoriaville to convert a parking lot into a green parking
lot
- In the City of Trois-Rivières, projects include greening the
outdoor space of a community centre and depaving a school yard
Sentier Urbain
Project name: The
Garden Circuit
Description: Restore green areas by creating urban gardens,
improving water management, increasing the levels of oxygen and
reducing CO2 emissions in the sector
Results to date:
- Three new gardens were created in the Montreal area
- In 2019, 50 new trees and 150 plants were planted
- In 2019, more than 264 workshops were delivered to raise
awareness on the importance of greening initiatives to reduce urban
heat islands
NOVA SCOTIA
Coastal Action
Project name: Green
Streets stormwater project
Description: Working directly with municipal and community
partners in southwest Nova Scotia
to locate, design and install low impact development (LID) projects
with the aim of improving stormwater management
Results to date:
- Planted about 1,000 native plants
- Diverted more than 1,000 m3 of stormwater runoff annually and
removed more than 500 kg of contaminants
- Engaged more than 600 people in stormwater management
workshops, presentations and community planting days
NEW BRUNSWICK
Community Forests
International
Project name: Forest
Infrastructure Adaptation Project
Description: A natural infrastructure adaptation approach to
flood-risk reduction in New Brunswick
Results to date:
- Saved 350 acres of endangered forest in one of New Brunswick's most flood-prone regions
- Developing training videos to guide forest managers towards
planting more climate change-resilient trees in the Acadian
Forest
SOURCE Intact Financial Corporation