Common Language
Common Language
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Planetary Health:
Planetary Health:
“The achievement of the highest attainable standard of health, wellbeing, and equity worldwide through judicious attention to the human systems—political, economic, and social—that shape the future of humanity and the Earth's natural systems that define the safe environmental limits within which humanity can flourish. Put simply, planetary health is the health of human civilisation and the state of the natural systems on which it depends” (Richard Horton & Selina Lo, 2015).
Environmental Health:
Environmental Health:
"Environmental health is the science and practice of preventing human injury and illness and promoting well-being by identifying and evaluating environmental sources and hazardous agents and limiting exposures to hazardous physical, chemical, and biological agents in air, water, soil, food, and other environmental media or settings that may adversely affect human health." (National Environmental Health Association, 2022)
Ecological Health:
Ecological Health:
"Ecological Health captures the connection among healthy functioning ecosystems, the valuable services they provide (often called ecosystem services), and human health and well-being. We can ensure that the ecosystem services in this region contribute to our collective well-being by maintaining and enhancing the integrity of local ecosystems and other natural features." (Metro Vancouver, 2022)
One Health:
One Health:
"The “One Health” approach is a collaborative, multisectoral, and transdisciplinary approach— working at the local, regional, national, and global levels—with the goal of achieving optimal health outcomes. Its foundation is the recognition that the health and wellbeing of humans, animals and the environment are intricately linked. By promoting collaboration across all sectors, a One Health approach can achieve the best health outcomes for people, animals, and plants in a shared environment." (Genome BC, 2021)
Co-Benefits:
Co-Benefits:
"Co-benefits describe the intersectional benefits of strategies that positively affect multiple objectives, such as community health, environmental sustainability, economic growth, and social equity." (Fraser Health Authority, 2021)
Anchor Institutions:
Anchor Institutions:
"Anchor institutions are influential organizations rooted in their local area with resources that can be intentionally leveraged to co-benefit the health, wellness, and economy of our communities in an equitable and sustainable way." (Fraser Health Authority, 2021)
Mitigation: Reducing our greenhouse gas emissions
Mitigation: Reducing our greenhouse gas emissions
"Organizations around the world must take urgent steps to decrease their greenhouse gas emissions in order to minimize changes to our global climate system. The less our global climate warms, the fewer the impacts to our health and our day-to-day lives." (Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, 2020)
Adaptation: Preparing for current and future challenges
Adaptation: Preparing for current and future challenges
"While we need to drastically reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, we also need to adapt to the unavoidable and often unpredictable risks associated with a changing climate. Climate change adaptation is the process of making sure that we are ready for the current and future challenges that come with a changing climate." (Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, 2020)
Net Zero:
Net Zero:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09613218.2012.703489
Low Carbon:
Low Carbon:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09613218.2012.703489
Environmental Sustainability:
Environmental Sustainability:
"Environmental sustainability could be defined as a condition of balance, resilience, and interconnectedness that allows human society to satisfy its needs while neither exceeding the capacity of its supporting ecosystems to continue to regenerate the services necessary to meet those needs nor by our actions diminishing biological diversity." (Morelli, 2011)
Social Sustainability:
Social Sustainability:
"Sustainability is defined as the strategic, transparent integration and achievement of social, environmental, and economic goals in the systemic coordination of key inter-organizational business processes for improving the long-term economic performance of the individual company and its supply chains (Carter and Rogers, 2008).
Social sustainability is concerned with the human side of sustainability (Huq et al., 2014). It addresses issues related to quality of life and drives decision makers to consider the potential social consequences of their decisions (Laguna, 2014). Such decisions are to take into consideration that everyone has the opportunity to experience a full existence in terms of intellectual, emotional, spiritual, and physical health (Silvis, 2012).
Hence, social sustainability is becoming a key objective within healthcare because, while healing patients is the primary outcome of healthcare service supply chains, providing access and teaching opportunities about preventative behaviour and wellness are equally important." (Houssain et al., 2018)
"Social sustainability has three components. ‘Development’ social sustainability, is concerned with meeting basic needs, inter- and intra-generational equity, and so on. ‘Bridge sustainability’ focuses on changing behaviour so as to achieve bio-physical environmental goals. ‘Maintenance sustainability’ refers to social acceptance or what can be sustained in social terms. (Vallance et al., 2011)
In “Social Sustainability: towards some definitions,” McKenzie identifies several attempts to define social sustainability and concludes it generally to be, “a positive condition within communities, and a process within communities that can achieve that condition.”
Intergenerational Equity:
Intergenerational Equity:
"Intergenerational Equity [is] the ethical and legal principle that current and future generations have equal rights." (Treves et el., 2018)
Circular Economy:
Circular Economy:
"In the current economic model, referred to as a linear economy, raw resources are extracted for production and products are disposed of at high rates. An alternative model, known as a circular economy, would emphasize the reuse, sharing, and repurposing of goods, discourage and delay disposal of goods in landfills, and create new economies for sharing and recycling. Benefits of a transition to a circular economy include reduced emissions, waste, and extraction of finite natural resources; supply chain reliability and security; improved food security; cost savings; improved health and well-being; and reduced health inequity." (GreenCare, 2021)
Climate Resilience:
Climate Resilience:
Community resilience is described in the Emergency Management Framework for Canada (EM Framework) as “the capacity of a system, community or society to adapt to disturbances resulting from hazards by persevering, recuperating or changing to reach and maintain an acceptable level of functioning. Resilient capacity is built through a process of empowering citizens, responders, organizations, communities, governments, systems and society to share the responsibility to keep hazards from becoming disasters. Resilience minimizes vulnerability or susceptibility by creating or strengthening social and physical capacity in the human and built environment to cope with, adapt to, respond to, and recover and learn from disasters.”
As outlined in the UN Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (Sendai Framework), adopted by BC in 2018, and as emphasized in the Emergency Management Strategy for Canada (EM Strategy), Resilient Capacity refers to how our communities work together as a whole, rather than individuals or independent organizations, focusing on how we communicate and collaborate as a system to dynamically adapt. The EM Strategy further highlights that "resilience is a strengths-based construct, focusing on capacities, assets, capabilities and aptitudes, and how these can be proactively mobilized and/or enhanced in order to reduce vulnerability and risk." Likewise, the Sendai Framework directs us to "leverage existing knowledge, experience and capabilities within EM partners in order to strengthen the resilience of all." Each of our communities contains people, organizations, services, and unique strengths that allow us to evolve together; through sharing the assets, capabilities, and scope of our local organizations, we can work together towards community resiliency.
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