From fish docks to food hubs to home energy retrofits — explore our projects, the impact, and the communities at the heart of our work.
No images? Click here
Shelby Huebner coordinates the T'aaq-wiihak Fishery Monitoring Program on the West Coast of Vancouver Island. Here, she is collecting catch data dockside in Tofino before a harvester sells his fish. (Photo by Shannon Lough)
Our mission, to build an economy that provides for life, is vital and urgent, but it also demands deep patience. This is work that requires thoughtful cultivation, a healthy appetite for exploring the unknown, and a willingness to learn from failure. Along the way, everything we do is nourished by the deepening relationships with people and place. These are the connections that grow quietly below the surface, sustaining the important action unfolding above ground. This is a garden of ideas, people, and projects that we have tended for more than thirty years.
The importance of cultivating the roots of change in rural, remote, and Indigenous communities cannot be overstated. In each of these communities is the information, wisdom, practice, and energy needed to reinvent whole systems. As the grinding rattle of an extractive economy pulls itself apart, it is from these communities that our most practical and meaningful alternatives for a vibrant, resilient economic life will emerge.
All around us, the systems and structures maintaining the status quo are weakening. The resulting transformation will be both disruptive and necessary. The roots we tended in 2025 are part of our larger investment to meet change with creativity and resilience — and to empower communities to meet the future on their own terms.
New & Noteworthy
Ecotrust Canada celebrates the renewed federal investment in home energy retrofits.
This week, Natural Resources Canada announced the expansion of the Canada Greener Homes Affordability Program to four provinces, including BC, and contributed $68.8 million to BC Hydro's Energy Conservation Assistance Program (ECAP) for the free installation of weatherization, ventilation, insulation, and heat pump upgrades for income-qualified households.
This represents a win for the priorities we've long championed: equity-targeted investment, accessible retrofit programming, and expansion of ECAP to reach renters and fund more impactful upgrades. Through our community partnership work and on-the-ground projects, we see firsthand how these investments transform lives — by lowering bills and improving health and comfort.
We're tracking progress on our other recommendations to ensure this momentum carries through to full implementation. Transparency on impact, long-term sustained funding, use of local contractors, and safety upgrades will be crucial to getting this right.
Celebrating a hot policy win
We congratulate the City of New Westminster on being the first municipality in Canada to implement maximum overnight temperature limits in rental units. With heat waves becoming more frequent and longer due to climate change, this is an important effort to address extreme indoor heat.
Where We Work
Our Climate Resilience team’s carbon fieldwork appears on the cover of our latest Annual & Impact Report. In April 2025, our team connected with Nuxalk Coastal Guardian Watchmen on the Central Coast of BC, where the Nuxalk Nation has purchased 181 hectares of private land to protect it from logging and development. Together, we dug soil pits and collected samples from ancient forests to build a concrete, data-backed picture of the carbon stored in soils that Indigenous stewardship has protected for millennia.
(Caylin Sun photo)
P.S. What did you find the most interesting from our 2025 Annual & Impact Report?
Proving the Possible
Ecotrust Canada works with rural, remote, and Indigenous communities toward building an economy that provides for a healthy and resilient natural environment; sustainable and abundant energy, food, and housing; prosperous and meaningful livelihoods; and vibrant cultures and inclusive societies. We call this approach, building an economy that provides for life.
Thank you for your continued support!
The Ecotrust Canada Team
