Exploring inclusive employment of persons with disabilities in the green economy

>>>Francis Fung: Okay, I have a time check here, it's past noon so we're going to get started. um So welcome everyone to the IDEA speaker series. Our regular host Dan Samosh is off this week, so I'll be filling in for him. My name is Francis Fung I'm the Engagement Co-lead for IDEA and the National Manager for Rehabilitation and Clinical Services at March of Dimes Canada. This uh session is being recorded and the recordings will be made available on our IDEA website that's triple W https://vraie-idea.ca/

For those of you who may not know much about IDEA, it is a social Innovation laboratory focused on helping create stronger and more diverse labour markets that include persons with disabilities through knowledge to practice. IDEA is the acronym for Inclusive Design for Employment Access.
Before we dive into today's webinar, I'd like to share a land acknowledgement relevant to the IDEA National office which is located in Toronto. IDEA is uh National office is situated on the traditional land of the Huron-Wendat, the Seneca and most recently the Mississaugas of the Credit. Today�this land is still home to many Indigenous People across Turtle Island, and we are grateful to have the opportunity to conduct our work on it. Please note, that this acknowledgement is only relevant to Toronto, however since we are gathered for this meeting virtually uh, we suggest you think a little bit about the communities in your respective locations as well.

If you're new to this monthly speaker series um this series serves um as an opportunity to hear the latest about the current topics in the work disability policy arena and learn about their activities underway within and beyond IDEA, and we um we encourage you to stay uh connected with us through this webinar series. During the last 20 minutes of this webinar, we will hold a question-and-answer period, and you will be able to type your questions in a Q&A box at any time throughout the presentation and we'll answer as many questions as we can at the end of the webinar.

Our speaker for today is Dr Alexis Buettgen, a Postdoctoral Fellow, at DeGroote School of Business and an adjunct assistant clinical professor at the School of Rehabilitation Sciences at McMaster University. She's also an adjunct faculty member in the Critical Disability Studies program at York University. For IDEA Alexis co-leads the measurement and evaluation activity area and she's also an advisor and consultant to the International Disability Alliance. An International alliance that advocates at the univers.. uh sorry at the United Nations for more inclusive environments worldwide. Alexis's work focuses on advancing research practice and policy in the areas of social and climate justice, inclusion, and poverty reduction, as well as community capacity and coalition building with a particular interest in disability studies. So welcome Alexis and over to you.

>>>Alexis Buettgen Thank you, Francis, for that introduction, still hearing me, okay? All good. It's one of those days where there are lots of tech surprises so hopefully all goes well for the rest of this webinar and thank you to all of you who are here today. I can't see you so it's kind of strange as a presenter to be sitting in this sort of invisible room with people that I can't see, um but um happy to connect with you uh a bit throughout my presentation and then also at the end.

Um so this topic is a big one and um uh something I that I've been exploring over the last couple of years or so, uh in terms of um disability inclusion in the green economy you know broadly speaking, but today I'm going to focus in particular on the area on inclusive employment in the green economy. So sometimes uh acknowledgements and thank yous come at the end, but I want to start here and express my thanks from the outset, uh to some really important groups and people who were integral to making this research happen. So first, I want to thank IDEA uh for their uh support of this work and for this webinar in particular, uh as well as for my thanks for co-funding my post-doctoral research which is where this week's um presentation comes from, with IDEA and the Institute for Work and Health. I also want to thank Emile Tompa who was my post-doctoral supervisor extraordinaire, uh and really integral and making sure that this work happened. We had lots of conversations and thinking through this um uh newish area of research I would say. Thank you also very much to IWH staff so the Institute for Work & Health Emma, Maggie, and Joanna who were really helpful with some of the uh literature review pieces; the McMaster University Department of Economics where I was um during during the data collection for this, all interview participants who took their time and contributions um to speak with me and share their thoughts and ideas and experiences and Katherine Lofts who was a stellar research assistant throughout this work. So just want to say all that right from the beginning because I'm just really grateful for all of the support for this work. um

To get started I'll give a bit of background and context on the topic, um so this work stemmed from a recognition and many years of work I've been doing in academia but also been working with uh the disability movement uh internationally but also locally and nationally here in Canada, around issues of socioeconomic poverty and the profound and disproportionate rates of poverty and low employment rates among people with disabilities which some of you may be familiar with and one of the reasons why IDEA exists as well. So, this has been an issue that's been bothering me, and I've been thinking about um solutions for quite a while. So, it was in about 2020 when I started learning about climate change and its disproportionate impacts on people with disabilities um particularly in terms of how um folks are able to um manage in emergencies. So, in wildfires or in floods how can they get out? How are they supported? How are they included in um emergency preparedness plans and often not? um Some solutions to climate change is around um using public transit which when it is built is not always affordable or accessible to people. So, people with disabilities are left behind and left out of those um situations, but there's also this need to shift towards more sustainable economic development, with a growing recognition that climate change is real, and it is happening, and it is getting worse and so we need to do something about it. um So I started learning a little bit about the green economy, and what it means and the possibilities there and I'm really interested in that, but then found that there was very limited knowledge or awareness about disability inclusion in terms of climate change but also in terms of the emerging green economy and green jobs.

So on the screen here, um I just have those points written out in terms of background and context, and an image of people dressed up as polar bears uh from a um a protest, and they're holding signage that says "climate change makes poor people poorer" um often because the areas where um uh communities experiencing structural oppression and low income also tend to be disproportionately impacted by things like environmental pollution um and um the toxicity of of of that. So, there's a lot of um connections there. So, I'll get a little bit more into that, but before I go into it I wanted to just check in with all of you um to ask you um what does green economy mean to you? it's uh this concept that kind of gets thrown around a little bit sometimes the um the definition isn't clear it's a little bit elusive. So I just wanted to take a moment to invite you all to use the Q&A and just share you know, one word or a few words about what the green economy means to you and I'm going to try to see that at my end if I can if not, I'll just ask um Therese or Francis to see that because I don't see it right now.

>>>Francis Fung: Okay, so we have an entry, uh "sustainability."

>>> Alexis Buettgen: Oh yes, there it is I see that. Hi, Sandra, anybody else have any thoughts that come to mind what does the green economy mean to you? {Alexis Buettgen reads} "In tested domain", yes, I can see it now, {Alexis Buettgen reads} "shift in skills and jobs to those that support environmental sustainability." Yup, so great so thank you for that, uh {Alexis Buettgen reads} "means a workplace and environment that supports climate health." Yes, {Alexis Buettgen reads} "an economy focused on environmental preservation, sustainability and accountability." Great, thank you, uh I'm just going to.. great start.

There are no right or wrong answers to this, this isn't a trick question and it's not it's not a quiz, um but also wanted to um ask you likewise, what does "green jobs" mean to you? Please use the Q&A if you have any thoughts about what this term means to you. "Jobs with a low environmental footprint", "jobs that contribute to preserving the environment" is what I'm seeing in the in the Q&A area. Yes, "jobs that are good for the environment", yep, great so thank you all. uh "Jobs that cover a range of employment sectors" yes, "a job that is sustainable, healthy, and environmentally friendly reducing the environmental impact is what I'm seeing. Thank you all for contributing to that and thinking about it.

>>> Alexis Buettgen: um So uh as I started embarking on this research uh and went through a fairly steep learning curve; uh my my previous research was around uh as I mentioned, like disability and poverty issues, social inclusion, social exclusion, and social justice issues; so it's only been in the last few years I've started learning about this topic. uh So when I uh came across the green economy, I used the definition set out by the United Nations environmental program as sort of like an International broadly written definition, which understands the green economy to be something that is low carbon, resource efficient, and socially inclusive; and those three things together is what really interested me in this topic. Green jobs uh was also something that I've heard about um before, so I was curious about what those are, um, particularly with my interest in work and employment. um So for this research I was inspired by the International Labour Organization's definition of green jobs, which is defined as decent jobs that contribute to preserving or restoring the environment uh either in traditional sectors like manufacturing and construction or in new emerging green sectors such as renewable energy and energy efficiency. So, this definition is the one that I drew from because it refers to quality work with a fair income, job security and prospects for personal development, and social integration and equality of opportunity and treatment for all. So, to me, it sounds great, these are things that are going to help the environment and promote some sort of social inclusion and address some of the challenges that we're having in working employment now; but there was very little research that was done on this topic, so I explored it, using um these three broad research questions.

Uh the first uh reads, what are the challenges, barriers, and opportunities for inclusion of persons with disabilities in the green economy? That's really like the crux of this research, um but then I was also interested in really what is the current state of the scholarly literature on disability inclusion in the green economy. I wanted to take a deep dive into that to see what's actually known about this topic, and what programs, policies, and initiatives can support sustainable and equitable participation in the green economy. So those are my broader research questions, but this presentation will focus on findings specifically related to work and employment as part of this larger postdoctoral research project on disability inclusion across the green economy. So my methodology for this uh was an evidence synthesis approach uh which uh was was inspired by a critical disability theoretical framework, um and here I defined disability in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities; as long-term physical, mental, intellectual, or sensory impairments which in interaction with various barriers may hinder an individual's full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others. I'm particularly um uh interested in the right to decent work and employment. So the the convention also talks about um the right to work and employment but this definition is one that I like to draw from because it focuses on people with disabilities as rights bearing citizens and understands disability from a cross perspective with people with different impairments and how their disability is impacted by the environment in which they're living in. um critical disability studies also draws from the disability justice model which focuses on examining disability and ableism as they relate to other forms of of oppression and identity such as like race, indigeneity, class, and gender; uh and that model in particular has a has a specific focus on sustainability so quite relevant to this work.

My methods involved a scoping review, um which included only those studies published between 2012 and 2023, uh published online and in English. We ended up with 21 at the end. uh We conducted qualitative interviews with 18 key informants, the majority of these participants included diverse people with disabilities who were familiar with the connections between disability and climate change, uh but participants also included green economy experts like researchers, policy analysts, policy makers, non-profit service providers and employers and entrepreneurs who are engaged in environmental sustainability efforts. uh Then I did an environmental scan um which uh is currently just in the process of analysis. All of this work is sort of in the later stages of a of an early analysis. um So this scan identified more than 30 promising policies, practices, and initiatives on a continuum really of more or less relevance to the green economy specifically; uh and most of these examples are from Western Europe a few from Canada and the USA. uh to scope out this work, I focused on the Global North um with a particular interest in Canada.

So, the findings I'm going to talk about in terms of the challenges and barriers and then also talk about opportunities. So, starting with challenges and barriers, uh one of the um biggest themes that came out of this work is that the current structure of work and employment as it is now is inherently problematic. um This is um as some of you might already be aware, there's you know, these disproportionately low employment rates of people with disabilities. There's a lack of accessibility. there's a lot of exclusion, explicit and implicit discrimination; and so, what I learned through this research is that all of those things will continue to be the same unless there's a transformational shift in the way we understand work and employment in relation to um environmental sustainability. So here are some of the particular areas that are problematic in relation to green jobs and um the green economy; is a lack of access for people with disabilities to education and relevant skills in the green job sector, um as well as like a over representation of people with disabilities in entry-level jobs and potentially hazardous green jobs especially in um some examples from the uh e-waste recycling sector where um people are dealing with new chemicals um new types of equipment on a regular basis. They're a lot of times run by um small businesses who might not have the capacity to provide health benefits and there's a lot of health and safety hazards and risks associated with that work. um, so that's one particular problem, as well as this prevalence of the charity model where people with disabilities are getting jobs because it's considered the nice thing to do uh as opposed to like true inclusion. uh Through this work, I found a few examples of disability inclusive employment uh in the green economy um but not many. uh So the point made through the interviews and through the research like the scoping review was that this is a largely untapped potential to harness the creativity and um really advance the socially inclusive green economy by including people with disabilities in green jobs. um The last point here is um around the uh risk of dependence on financial incentives for employment of people with disabilities. So um on the one hand, uh the research that uh has been published on disability inclusive employment and green jobs was that financial incentives were found to be a key facilitator of employment of people with disabilities um and examples from the literature of inclusive employment emphasize that employers relied on financial incentives to employ a substantial number of people with disabilities in green jobs, um but the literature and the interviews suggest that there's a need to reduce this dependency on wage subsidies and financial incentives to advance the emergence of a new image of true diversity in green enterprises. So, shifting away from this charity model to more um rights-based approach and true inclusion.

Other challenges and barriers, um A big one that kept coming up over and over again is this uh problem with dialogic and functional silos. So, on the screen I have an image of um four uh steel silos side by side each separate from one another. um So this this theme of silos kept coming up over and over again um, particularly between government departments and agencies. So, for example, ministries of disability and social affairs are separate from ministries of the environment, um some people critiqued the Accessible Canada Act for not really addressing sustainability specifically. uh There was also some discussion around the um conceptual and practical divisions between ESG initiatives, so this is Environmental Social and Governance initiatives whereby disability and accessibility and corporate sustainability reporting has been largely neglected, um and relegated to social sustainability considerations which are less attention than environmental and economic sustainability; but there's also silos and divisions between and within movements, so a big challenge here is around the uh exclusive and inaccessible climate justice and labour movements um who are working towards progress um in a just transition to a green economy. So, in particular, the labour movement um working towards leaving no one behind. when we shift away from our dependence on fossil fuels to alternatives; um but disability has not really been included in in much of that so there's um been some divisions there.

There's also a general lack of meaningful investment in disability inclusion um in relation to to green jobs and the green economy and this is really reflected in the dirth and lack of literature and research on disability inclusion in the green economy which currently is largely hypothetical and conceptual, and it doesn't really have a lot of empirical studies. So, there's that piece, but also um what I heard was that you know, it's no longer socially acceptable to discriminate against people with disabilities; so there's an increasing mention of people with disabilities in laws, policies, and programs in relation to climate change, um but rhetoric really isn't enough. So, I have a quote here uh from one of the participants saying, "rhetoric isn't enough to change the climate and it's not enough to sustain a business." So for example, for somebody like a uh person with a disability trying to start up a business in the green economy or um support green jobs in some way, that there is a lack of appropriate funding uh in that regard for disabled social entrepreneurs in particular, and a lack of disability inclusion and climate financing; so like the loss and damage fund, adaptation funds, and green climate and environmental funds. So, this lack of investment um means there's not enough knowledge and technical expertise for people with disabilities and their representative organizations to be informed and prepared for the growth in green jobs and the green economy. So, all that being said, the challenges and the barriers uh are heavy but there are also some interesting opportunities and I want to share this example here on the screen of sustainability includ...uh Sustainability Through an Inclusive Lens. or STIL Solutions.

This uh was a Canadian Social Enterprise founded by woman with a vision impairment to bridge the gap between sustainability and accessibility. So, on the screen I have Hillary Scandin who was the entrepreneur who um started up this business. uh So the company produced something called Waste Finder uh on the screen in the the um top right corner, I have the Waste Finder system which is uh tactile floor mats placed in front of waste disposal bins. So, if you've ever been in a a public space uh where you might see you know those there are three bins, two or three bins side by side, one is for garbage, one is for recycling, and one might be for compost. what Hillary found as a blind woman was that she wasn't able to divert her waste properly because she couldn't see which one needed where her waste needed to go, so she um started a business to create these tactile floor mats; and they were sold to municipal governments, universities, pharmacies, food markets, and nonprofit organizations across Canada the US and even in India. They also offered consultation and workshops for businesses, communities, and institutions to make their spaces more accessible and sustainable; uh but this business has unfortunately closed down um because of the challenges with the lack of investment. A lot of people were keen on the projects and started pilot projects but didn't actually fully invest in it. So, um this is an example of both the challenges, barriers, and the opportunities um around disability inclusion in the green economy. So, I'm always interested in in understanding the challenges and barriers but where are the opportunities and how do we go forward. um What are the solutions and how can we harness some of that to promote broader forms of inclusion. So, um now I'm going to talk about the opportunities that were identified um in this research.

So, the first was around employment opportunities in green jobs. So green jobs were mostly defined uh by participants as waged employment in the renewable energy uh environmental and conservation sectors, um and so as employment options arise to provide um good green goods and services, there are opportunities to advance equitable employment especially as our economic and environmental transitions can negatively impact low-income communities. So, um some of the things that I heard was that it uh there's opportunities to leverage all of the money going into disability and employment and green solutions and if we can bring those things together there could be tremendous opportunity to advance disability inclusion in the green economy. um Also there was some thought that perhaps employers who are um trying to advance green jobs are receptive of changes in the world of work, so perhaps more receptive to employing people with disabilities, um and the literature suggests that firms employing a substantial number of workers with disabilities and integrating diverse worker knowledge into their business model reinforce the social, economic, and environmental sustainability of the organizations. So, some of these business models that could work well for disability employment are those that focus on a triple bottom line in terms of the people, the planet, and profit. So, there is some opportunity there, but um the evidence suggests that this is um not really happening right now. So I have a quote on the screen now from a participant I'll call Joe, uh who said that, "respecting the environment, society, community, people and also thinking about social impact and not just generating revenues. For me a green job is receptive of changes of individual needs and adjusting for reasonable accommodation flexibility and adaptability." So, there's the opportunity, however, another participant I'll call Sydney said, "we cannot just assume that every green job is a decent job, and it's important to ensure that green jobs also meet those decent job requirements." So thinking back to the challenge that I mentioned just before, around um some of the health and safety risks and entry-level positions in some sectors of the so-called green economy um are important things to think about; and that we don't replicate the current challenges in work and employment going forward um towards transforming our economy to be more sustainable.

So, with that in mind, I want to share another example um of a organization called ATF Gaia. uh This is a firm based in France that specializes in the life cycle management of professional IT and mobile equipment from deployment to reuse through operational um maintenance. So, since its Creation in 2005, uh ATF Gaia has promoted the employability, professionalization, and social inclusion of people with disabilities. They have 81 employees uh 68% of them are people with disabilities on permanent contracts. The company reconciles economic performance with their social mission and continuously works to advance the integration of employees with disabilities; adapt their workstations, when necessary, support the professionalization of their employee's development of skills in the environmentally sustainable jobs sector, and focus on the extension of the lifespan of IT equipment, waste reduction, and the protection of natural resources. So, I came across this example as um in the literature as an exemplar of social, environmental, and economic sustainability um with um record... um recorded annual business sales nearing almost 10 million Euros. So, seems to be um somewhat of a successful business model.

Other opportunities related to this is around human rights law and policy. uh So um this was thought about as a way to leverage current anti-discrimination and affirmative action requirements to increase the employment of people with disabilities, um as well as lean on international human rights law that obliges states to ensure inclusion and meet climate targets. So, examples here were the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the Paris Agreement and the sustainable development goals. um in terms of policy and thinking about the connection between disability and climate; uh participants talked about the built environment regulations is something like hanging fruit that could be a starting place, uh leveraging uh LEAD certifications, so that's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design with accessibility standards for the built environment. So, things like automatic doors that also conserve energy, living walls that offer tactile information and cleaner air, as well as automatic taps and lighting all of which are beneficial for the environment and for people with disabilities, and kind of everyone, I would argue. There's also increasing recognition of disability in climate policies and agreements, um so it's good news that people with disabilities are at least considered and specifically mentioned; um like in Canada their 2021 Nationally determined contribution under the Paris Agreement, as well as Canada's Sustainable Jobs Plan. uh So this sustainable jobs plan includes targeted support for Canadian workers and communities and specifically mentions people with disabilities in the investment and skills programming for sustainable jobs. So, they cite um almost $300 million over the next five years is promised for the Opportunities Fund for people with disabilities which assists people with disabilities to prepare, obtain, and uh maintain employment. um so that is great, um but the Opportunities Fund is not new and it's not specific or targeted to green jobs or green economic development in particular.

So, on the screen, I have just some examples of what I mentioned, uh image and the front cover of the Accessible Canada's Act, an image on the CRPD, an image of the Climate Agreement, front page of the Sustainable Jobs Plan and the Government of Canada's Adaptation Action Plan which also at least mentions people with disabilities as well. So, these are potentially opportunities to leverage. The last opportunity I want to highlight is um this cultural shift that's happening as we start to recognize the impacts of climate change and its realness, um and so the shift towards thinking about wellness and collective care. So the green economy presents a cultural shift really uh to transform our current economic and business models to support a thriving ecosystem, and my research indicates that collective care and support for living in a world that is hostile to us is work that's already underway by people with disabilities, Indigenous people, and other historically marginalized groups; so there's an opportunity to learn from those experiences and value that knowledge. There are also a lot of possibilities within the care economy. So, the care economy recognizes paid and unpaid care work um and calls for greater investment in public health infrastructure and expanding the inherently low carbon sectors of caregiving, teaching, social work, and the arts which is often not considered uh part of the green jobs but is really essential to our social, environmental, and economic sustainability. So, when thinking about well-being, I just want to share this other example here of an organization in the UK called Wheels for Well-being. uh They address the challenges and barriers to accessible and environmentally sustainable forms of transportation such as cycling. um So they uh are run by a group of trustees, staff, and volunteers with disabilities to create ad adapted forms of of cycling um and particularly for those who don't have access to uh alternate forms of accessible and affordable transportation options. So, on the screen, I just have a couple of pictures of these adapted bicycles uh and the folks who are involved in that initiative.

So, to conclude, uh I have some preliminary conclusions because this research has been a lot to think about and I'm really open to hearing from you around um what... how to interpret this, what matters most to you, what sort of stood out for you, what should be thought about. um This is just the beginning of a longer research program for me; um but basically uh what I've concluded is that there is an opportunity right now to make the green economy and green jobs inclusive. As it's emerging it can be reconceptualized and represented um uh to to support an inclusive image of disability. Also, that disabled experiences and epistemologies must be central to the design, planning, and implementation of the emerging green economy using inclusive design principles so very relevant to the IDEA initiative and including people with disabilities throughout the whole process. Also, there is a need to implement a just transition. So, this is about making the transition to a green economy socially just, uh and that will require an integrated mix of employment standards, social protection, skills development, and attitudinal transformation with regards to disability.

Some preliminary recommendations, I've split them up and thinking about research, uh policy, and practice. So, for researchers there's a real strong need for theoretically informed empirical research within a transformative paradigm focusing on um social justice and I would suggest a critical disability lens fits very well with this work; uh and looking for examples where there more examples of inclusive green economic activities in real-world settings. So, like ESG or sustainable business models as well as a critical policy analysis of some of the just transition and sustainable jobs plans that are coming out now. In terms of policy, um lots of the research indicated that Government needs to take a lead here, and there is an opportunity for the Government of Canada in particular to demonstrate international leadership in this area. There needs to be multi-stakeholder governance with a focus on decent work as well as collaborative cross-sector local workforce development so bringing together the public, private, and non-profit sectors as well as um community groups in order to to inform that process. There must also be mandates and regulations or requirements for disability inclusion in climate financing and procurement to enforce this to happen, um as well as leveraging the existing incentives that I mentioned uh before. Employers uh themselves can showcase their promising practices and initiatives in this regard, some employers might be doing it and not even really thinking about it as uh as as as a big deal but trying to connect the economic, environmental, and social sustainability together, employing people with disabilities in some sort of green jobs is really um critical. So, and thinking about this skepticism abounds in this area, so most participants were really skeptical of the role of the private sector in a disability-inclusive green economy given the current emphasis on maximizing profit. So, one of the participants said {Alexis Buettgen reads} uh that "simply capital cannot do this job because of the way the capitalist system is designed to operate, um and that these systems cannot be reformed in a way that would be inclusive of collective care", and that theme was carried out throughout the literature as well. um Another participant said {Alexis Buettgen reads} "I don't have any hope of the private sector doing anything that's not in its own interest unless there are reasons it becomes its interest" so those quotes are up there on the screen.

So I have questions remaining and for discussion that if you want to take up that would be wonderful, but things that I'm thinking about now and engaging with uh participants who took place in the study and other groups I'm working with; is wondering you know is it possible to realize a disability inclusive green economy and green jobs in a capitalist political economy, and if so, what would that look like? Also, what role can we play? So those of us who are interested in the intersection of disability and employment uh and contributing towards inclusive employment in a green economy how have you considered the intersection between disability inclusion and environmental sustainability in your work, uh and what opportunities can you leverage to advance knowledge and practice at this intersection? So, I'll leave those with you to ponder uh today or later on I'd be happy to connect um at some point over email or on LinkedIn. I have my references and resources listed here and my contact information. So, thank you very much for listening, I know it it's been a lot uh it's a big topic but a really interesting one I think, so thank you.

>>>Francis Fung: Well thank you Alexis for a very uh interesting and informative session and I know that you've left some questions for us to ponder um and also methods to stay connected with you and carry on the conversation that we are uh uh really appreciative of that; um but we have a little bit of time right now um if you would mind may be taking some questions. So um for the audience if you're new to the Zoom platform um there is a Q&A button that should be on the bottom of your screen and if you click on that you should be able to type in your question, um and I will try to bring that to Alexis and uh and have that answer with the remaining time that we have for this session. So um you can go ahead and do that, and um while we're waiting for the questions to come in, Alexis um you've mentioned quite a few things um with connecting the you know the the the support to people with disabilities and the inclusion uh with uh green economy which is emerging in our society, um and you talked a little bit about having that social conscience um altogether, and uh you know there are certainly some challenges uh from a employer side in a capitalist economy. I I'm wondering from the political front how do you see this, because environmental issues and social services issues are often treated very very separately you know in terms of funding and departments within the government. um Has there been any efforts you know related to that that you've seen um even at the grassroots level or is this very very new still?

>>> Alexis Buettgen: Yeah, I've been looking uh and I I um can say you know that the so the Sustainable Jobs Plan for example uh is something that was informed um part by Chrystia Freeland and thinking about disability in particular and how um the Government of Canada wants to move forward with a just transition to a green economy. um So I was able to see her working in collaboration with uh Steven Guilbeault the um minister for the environment, and so that has been something that's been good to see in like building those connections, but that's also a result of years of advocacy. so, um there's a group that I've been working with at McGill University called the Disability Inclusive Climate Action Research Program and that's a uh an international network of people interested at that uh in disability and climate issues. uh and I've been lobbing for a long time to get recognition of the impacts of climate change on people with disabilities as well as how people with disabilities can be engaged as agents of change and moving things forward; so, um there are those elements and I found, individuals here and there that that are starting to make the the connections as well. um There was a one example also that I came across locally at the University of Waterloo, um they did some work to um put together a guide on um... related to the circular economy and their built environment at the university to make it both sustainable and accessible at the same time. So, there has been a few examples that are starting to arise but there's not that many um mostly because where we're at right now I think is just in in building education and awareness around the connections between disability and climate and social justice so it's kind of where we are right now.

>>>Francis Fung: Great, um I know that uh among our audience we probably have quite a few people that are working with employers or um try to facilitate a more inclusive workplace; um and when we had the opportunity to speak with um perhaps maybe the leaderships um you know within those employer settings, what can we tell them about green economy and how how do we connect that conversation with with um inclusion of people with disabilities, because you know when we work with these employers they're not necessarily familiar with green economy depending on their operation and what their business uh nature is like. Can you comment on that?

>>> Alexis Buettgen: Yeah, so anecdotally uh and just just learning um from the findings from this research. um One I think important point to make is that um at some point employers uh are going to have to be more sustainable and they're going to have to be more accessible and that those two things don't need to be done separately they can be done together. uh Which ultimately can save time and resources and be much more effective overall. um So my thoughts would be to start thinking about how those two initiatives might connect, um and when they're talking about or thinking about sustainability are they talking about that in terms of environmental sustainability or economic sustainability or social sustainability, and what are the connections between um those three elements of their work? So um I think it's just it's a conversation at this point, but this is definitely an area where there needs to be more research, is an understanding of um any examples that are out there of people who are are trying to do this, to try to make the connections; um but the challenges that I've been hearing about um in the literature and from people trying to advance this work are that you know the sustainability departments are separate from the accessibility departments and they don't really talk to each other. So starting to have those conversations and finding where their mutual interests are is a good place to start.

>>>Francis Fung: Thank you, um I want to bring to you a comment and a questions from our audience as well um one of our audience um uh works with the Disability Inclusion Business Council Secretariat um and the council members are are are big businesses and um they continue to emphasize that disability inclusion is good for business and good for employers, um and when their workplaces are inclusive it results in a better business outcomes and in the context of your earlier comment that you know perhaps employees are reluctant to do anything uh that isn't you know within their their self-interest, um the audience is wondering um if there's an opportunity to show employers that disability inclusion in the transition to a green um economy is, in fact, their best interest.

>>> Alexis Buettgen: It's a tough business case um to make, I think you know we all been trying it for many years um and so um the the folks who were uh quite skeptical about this are are are people that weren't necessarily also um doing this work um from the private sector's perspective, um so there I just want to caveat my comments around that point, um so yeah and making the business case around it. I think it's it it resonates well with the argument that you know if we design things to be inclusive from the outset it actually costs less money in the long run, because then you don't have to go back and retrofit, you don't have to worry about um providing you know accommodations or adaptations to something that's already built or developed, whether it's uh a structural physical entity or whether it's a policy or a program. So, designing inclusively from the outset I'll actually make it more effective, um and the same goes for anything around sustainability or climate action. So, you know thinking about how um when you know if there's if there's this push in a municipality let's say to um create a better public transit system so that they can um reduce the number of cars on the road. If those public transit systems are not uh built to be accessible and affordable then there's a huge wack of the population that aren't going to be able to use it and it won't fully address the issue that they're hoping to address. So, the same would happen at an organization or firm level um where whatever they're trying to develop and build I they think they can really harness from the knowledge of people with disabilities themselves. So, one of the points that I made earlier was that you know people with disabilities are um well versed and have had a lot of experience working, living, and managing in a world that has been hostile to their existence, and we are now living in a world that is becoming increasingly hostile to our existences. You know there's there's wildfires, there's heat waves, there's flooding, there's droughts that's making it harder and harder; and so, learning from that experience and how to manage it and think creatively because if we need to think outside the box, we need to talk to people who live outside that box, that would be part of my answer.

>>>Francis Fung: Right, thank you, um you've earlier on mentioned about the the green economy maybe a bit more new um it's an emerging economy. uh An example was brought up um that in the '90s uh technology advancement um allowed the telecommunication sector to grow quite a bit um and at that time um call centers type of occupations became sort of a preferred um environment for people with disabilities to uh to get jobs, um and um however, in many instances some of those jobs became um precarious in nature and there was lack of career advancement for people with disabilities. So, uh you know sometimes it's due to the inaccessibility of the system um uh in that in that sector, so what can we learn from that example um with the transformation um of that technology and those jobs available for people with disabilities, and how do we avoid the same type of pitfalls?

>>> Alexis Buettgen: I think using a decent work agenda right from the outset is really critical. um We need to address poverty and uh climate change together uh in the in the same vein. um So you know, if for example there are government grants available to promote green job development then that green job development must be decent, it must provide quality work, it has to um you know... there's various indicators around how to measure that and I don't need to go into it right now, but there the International Labour Organization has a decent work agenda for example; but that's about um avoiding precarious work, providing people with a fair income, uh opportunities for professional and personal growth, and and real inclusion in the workplace. So, my sense uh from this research is that Government needs to be a leader in that way uh in terms of how they're moving this forward. So that's been a key message from what I've learned around climate change, in order to make an impact Governments need to be strong leaders, and also in terms of green jobs and the green economy they also need to be strong leaders to promote um environmental sustainability and social inclusion at the same time. So there's this need to really think about how the green economy is defined um and that was why in my recommendations for research doing some critical policy analysis and looking at how disability is starting to be mentioned, and how some of these initiatives are really going to impact people with disabilities and how they can be better included in the design and the implementation right now before we get too far along in the transition.

>>>Francis Fung: Okay, we have a couple more um entries on a Q&A, um One of them is um more of a comment um but I'm going to uh try to paraphrase a little bit for you, um so we have someone that had experience with research in economics and retention, um and there are some um employment insertion models that have been discussed, um and one of the things that were noticed is that uh there's a dependency on funding, um and and that often force leaders to uh focus on sort of the performance of employees and uh during those reintegration programs. So, the uh questions uh that raised is regarding um how sustainable is this with this kind of a structure um against the social mission and and the challenges for the working collective.

>>> Alexis Buettgen: I'm not quite sure I fully understand the question.

>>>Francis Fung: That's um so it's not so much of a of a question but more of a comment on that and wondering you can elaborate on it. So, the um the comment is that uh certain elements such as dependency on funding has become a major constraint that forces leaders to strengthen the performance of the employees um and participants in reintegration programs, so um this sometimes would raise questions about the sustainability of the structure um for the social mission and also present significant challenges for the working collectives. So, wondering if you have any comments to elaborate on that.

>>> Alexis Buettgen: So, in terms of reintegration and sustainability. I mean um I so I I'm not super familiar with the reintegration process itself, um but when I think about disability inclusion and sustainability um you know it's it's it's thinking about you know how like I think about it is also not forgetting that people with disabilities are are people. So, um what you were just talking about there sounds very much like a kind of surveillance type of model, which I would say you know, really, I don't know... if that's um that's not really what the green economy based on a definition of being socially inclusive is not really so much um what that's about... So, you know in support but in supporting people reintegrating means you know supporting people back to work, if they've been injured or so on, um you know engaging people in like engaging workers and employees with disabilities in conversations and initiatives at an organization or firm level about how they can be more sustainable gets more buy in from uh employees. You know, and you really gather a lot of diverse worker knowledge in order to uh create better happier workers and workplaces as well as move towards something um that's going to be sustainable and work for the organization itself. So, I'm not sure if that's kind of getting at that at all but that's um my comment.

>>>Francis Fung: Yeah, um we have another question that perhaps is somewhat related to this as well. I think the question is that um you know when we supporting people with disabilities and when there is a structure that has a focus on uh performance in the capitalist um economy um and how would that impact on that social mission? um there's a follow up to another question that's maybe related to this, is that you touch on the health and safety in some of these green economy uh jobs. um So the question is that what would you advise in terms of um how you could limit health and safety risk for people with disabilities in particular in those uh environments.

>>> Alexis Buettgen: Oh that's a big question, there's I think there there's so many layers to this work and it's it's it spans the bounds of policy and practice and programs like it's really it there's there's so many silos to be broken down in order to make that happen, um but I think one one of the critical points is that just because a person with disabilities has been employed in a job does not mean that that's a good job, it doesn't mean that it's quality work and so um looking at that and thinking about how to address that challenge is really important, but you know the thing the example with the E-Waste um recycling um in the health and safety risk so the the ATF example I shared with you that wasn't necessarily the case, but in some other organizations it is, and part of that is just because the the the exponential growth in tech it's really hard to keep up with the changes in in the equipment and in the materials that are used, um and then the challenges associated with being a small business, so there's this is why there's a need to do to promote more cross- sector uh and uh more cross- sector collaboration and multi-stakeholder governance around those things. So it's very layered and very complex.

>>>Francis Fung: Yeah, thank you, Alexis, I I think you've given um um the audience a lot to think about. There's a lot of um interconnected things that you touched on.

>>>Francis Fung: um So we are um close to the last few minutes um of our time together now um so I want to uh thank you on behalf of IDEA for um taking the time to provide this uh presentation. I wanted to give a reminder to the audience that the session was recorded um so it will be made available on our IDEA website, um and we will also be back for our next IDEA speaker series on Friday, June 28th so just about a month away, and the next speaker will be Valerie Martin from the University of Quebec in Montreal. um In the meantime and uh if anyone has any questions uh they can feel free to reach us at info@vraie-idea.ca or https://www.vraie-idea.ca/ um and we invite you to follow us on our social media accounts as well. So, thank you again uh Alexis for the wonderful session and uh we'll end here today thank you.