Our Work

At TCO, we work to transform how climate data is produced, shared, and used in Toronto. Too often, traditional datasets overlook the lived realities of the communities most impacted by climate change, leaving critical gaps in our ability to plan and respond equitably. 

Our work addresses these gaps by assessing the availability, quality, and usability of climate information across the GTA and identifying where new forms of data are urgently needed. This means looking to the broader social and political dimensions of climate knowledge, particularly examining who collects data, who has access to it, whose experiences are represented, and which voices are excluded.

It includes, for example, producing new information that spotlights the systemic architectures and incentives that facilitate disproportionate and outsized amounts of carbon emissions from particular sectors; building data infrastructures that ensure equity is central to flood resilience planning; or designing municipal frameworks that make monitoring and evaluation more transparent, participatory, and accountable. It means examining how forces like climate migration, displacement, and housing precarity are already reshaping the city, and what kinds of information are needed to prepare for these changes. Importantly, this work also strives to acknowledge colonial histories of exclusion in data and create space for Indigenous and community-led approaches, expanding what counts as climate knowledge and ensuring it can inform just and place-based adaptation.

We approach this through human-centered and participatory design, combining technical analysis with community-informed perspectives. By doing so, we not only uncover where existing systems fall short but also co-create new infrastructures that prioritize transparency, accountability, and justice. Ultimately, reimagining climate data systems means moving beyond numbers alone to build knowledge frameworks that are responsive to Toronto’s diverse communities, capable of directing resources where they are most needed, and aligned with a vision of equitable and place-based climate action.

Equitable climate action depends not only on the data we collect and information we produce, but also on the infrastructures that store, process, and make that data usable. At TCO, we work to strengthen the systems behind climate data in the GTA so that resources and investments flow to where they are most urgently needed. 

This means building infrastructures that are not only technically robust but also socially just – bridges between complex climate information and the communities, governments, and organizations who need it for action on the ground. Our work includes advancing platforms that provide accessible, cloud-based tools for analyzing large climate and satellite datasets, ensuring they meet the diverse needs of users rather than reinforcing technical or institutional silos.

It also involves, for example, developing mechanisms to rapidly collect and share post-disaster data on the physical, social, and economic impacts in vulnerable communities – information that is often overlooked in traditional monitoring systems but essential for equitable recovery and resilience planning. By combining technical innovation with ethical governance and participatory design, we help create data infrastructures that are transparent, inclusive, and aligned with the principles of climate justice. In doing so, we hope to transform data systems from barriers into enablers of place-based adaptation across Toronto.

We believe that everyone – particularly communities on the frontlines of climate change – should be able to shape how climate information is produced and shared. Through community engagement, participatory platforms, and citizen science tools, our goal is to enable local stakeholders to co-produce critical climate knowledge, contribute data on local climate impacts, and participate in decision-making on how this data is presented, shared, and used. 

Our work aims to ground climate knowledge in place. This includes, for example, participatory mapping processes for heat vulnerability as uniquely shaped by the Toronto urban metropolis – a justice-based approach that moves beyond conventional heat maps and their quantitative bias, and instead emphasizes the social, cultural, and lived dimensions of vulnerability. Another example of this is our Toronto Water Atlas – a critical, collaborative re-imagining of communities’ relationships with Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area’s (GTHA) waterways.

Our focus with this pillar is on participatory approaches that prioritize storytelling, community engagement and situated voices, local knowledge, relationship-building, and co-creation, centering the lived experiences of Toronto communities most impacted by varied climate risks. 

We also translate complex climate data into actionable insights for adaptation planning and work to democratize data access for local climate action. Through these efforts, we aim to redefine what counts as climate knowledge, decentralize how it is collected and used, and build community capacity for resilience on the ground.

The TCO is a hub for learning, collaboration, and capacity-building. Our annual Toronto Climate Summer School , workshops, and conferences hold space for researchers, governments, students, and civil society to imagine the region’s climate future together. Under the banner of the 2024 Beatrice and Arthur Minden Symposium on the Environment, for example, we brought together a diversity of engaged stakeholders – researchers, Indigenous representatives, government staff, students, and non-profits, amongst others – to host the Ontario Climate Risk Workshop . This two-day gathering provided space for stakeholders from across disciplines to develop shared, holistic understandings of climate risk and differential vulnerabilities across Ontario, and to co-develop shared agendas for research and action in addressing these risks and building climate resilience. 

We also focus on improving communications around climate data and information to democratize access. This includes making complex data meaningful for those who need them, such as through innovative, novel data visualizations that can make this information accessible and usable for local stakeholders to design responsive and equitable climate solutions.