On June 3, 2024, City Council adopted the Environmental Framework as presented at the regular City Council meeting (watch here).

The plan consists of 13 goals, and actions that will be implemented by the City of Medicine Hat in ongoing operations.

Read the Framework | See the Action Plan

A further refined version of the Environmental Framework will be presented to Council for full approval in 2024 following additional engagement with departments to socialize the proposed actions and further identify City corporate and departmental priorities and budgetary restrictions/requirements.

Following development of an Environmental Framework Implementation Plan, additional implementation and training workshops will take place with City staff later in 2024 to introduce the Framework and identify how it will be incorporated into day-to-day operations.

In October 2023, a Draft Framework Progress Update Session was held in-person with internal and external stakeholders. The purpose of the session was to come back to internal and external stakeholders to present the following key elements of the Draft Environmental Framework:

• Introduction
• Framework Structure
• Guiding Principles
• Environmental Topics
• Goals, Targets and Strategies
• Implementation and Action Plan

Additionally, the vision statement from the Draft Framework was further workshopped with stakeholders.

In November 2023, an engagement session took place with City staff. The purpose of the session was to collaborate with City staff to identify potential actions and associated timelines that can be carried out to support the achievement of the goals, targets and strategies outlined in the Environmental Framework.

Based on the input received during the Stage 5 consultation sessions, the first version of the Environmental Framework and Proposed Action Plan was presented to City Council on December 18th, 2023. City Council approved the Environmental Topics and related Goals presented in the Environmental Framework and received the remaining content for information. The Environmental Framework report and Proposed Action Plan are an initial step toward the creation of intentional environmental stewardship within the City of Medicine Hat Corporation through community leadership and commitment.

The following engagement sessions were held as a part of Stage 4 Refine Key Focus Topics:

• An in-person, half-day, facilitated workshop was held with internal and external stakeholders, with the purpose of soliciting feedback on the development of example goals, targets, and strategies that the City could undertake for inclusion in the CMH Environmental Framework. As a part of the workshop, 14 proposed goals and a series of strategies to support the achievement of each goal were reviewed and discussed. The objective of this exercise was to obtain stakeholder views and inputs on the following:
  • Whether the proposed 14 goals are in alignment with the stakeholders and City views and priorities.
  • To understand which strategies are to be considered to support each of the 14 goals and which strategies may not be suitable for Medicine Hat.
  • To identify strengths and opportunities that can be built upon or if any of the proposed goals should be further broken out.
  • Whether there are any additional goals or strategies that should be considered.
  • Feedback was gathered during the workshop, in addition a post-workshop strategies worksheet was issued, allowing for further contemplation and evaluation from stakeholders.
• An in-person facilitated workshop was held with City Council, with the goal of providing City Council with a project background overview, a current status update, and an opportunity to solicit individual and collective feedback to inform the technical work.
• Technical discussions with City departments took place to collect additional feedback on the finalization of goals, strategies, as well as the feasibility of certain supporting implementation actions. Sessions were held regarding Energy and Carbon, Planning and Waste, and Stormwater and Watershed Management. The feedback collected through these technical discussions was used to inform the development of the Draft Framework.

In April 2023, as a part of Stage 3 Key Focus Topics, the City of Medicine Hat hosted a virtual visioning workshop with stakeholders from the CMH organization in order to solicit feedback on the development of an overarching vision statement for the Environmental Framework. As a part of the workshop, examples of key phrases and peer municipality sample vision statements were used to facilitate the exploration and discussion of a meaningful vision statement for the CMH Environmental Framework. The feedback gathered as a result of this workshop is to be further discussed and refined through engagement with the CMH alongside the finalization of the CMH Environmental Framework.

In May 2023, the following stakeholder and community engagement sessions were held as a part of Stage 3 Key Focus Topics:

• An in-person facilitated workshop with internal and external stakeholders
• An in-person facilitated engagement session open to the community

The purpose of the stakeholder and community engagement sessions were to provide a project background overview, a current status update, and an opportunity to solicit individual and collective feedback to inform the technical work. Click to view the storyboards that were presented at the community engagement session.

The feedback gathered as a result of these sessions are to be further discussed and refined through Stage 4 engagement.

In February 2023, as part of the Stage 2 Materiality Assessment, a facilitated half-day in-person workshop with stakeholders from the CMH organization was held to solicit feedback on their understanding of the preliminary environmental sub-topics through two lenses: (1) impacts to the CMH as an organization; (2) perceived significance to internal stakeholders. As an outcome of the working session, an online survey was shared with CMH internal stakeholders to collect feedback on the preliminary list of environmental subtopics.

In March 2023, as part of the climate resilience assessment, a facilitated virtual stakeholder engagement session was held to assess the risk associated with each climate trend. The purpose of this workshop was: (1) to review and validate sensitivity and adaptive capacity scores, and (2) evaluate consequence of climate impact to assess the risk of climate change to the community. Additionally, the workshop was intended to build organizational capacity around integrating climate resilience into future planning for Medicine Hat. A pre-workshop survey was used to gather information from the participants ahead of the session in order to reserve time for conversations around the assessment inputs and outputs.  

The Stage 2 Materiality Assessment Report is currently being finalized with key findings and the project team is preparing for the Stage 3 engagement sessions.

In December 2022, the following two key reports as part of Stage 2 which informs the materiality assessment engagement sessions:

Baseline Review and Analysis Report was created to conduct a comprehensive current state assessment of various environmental topics. WSP conducted a three-pronged Baseline Review and Analysis, consisting of a review of the following:

• City of Medicine Hat’s existing environmental-related policies, programs, and initiatives;
• Relevant federal and provincial polices and legislation; and
• Best practices and environmental frameworks and/or master planning development for peer municipalities.

Informed by WSP Stage 2 Analysis, seven preliminary environmental topic areas were identified to help streamline the research and capture relevant targets and metrics that are likely to be of interest to the City of Medicine Hat. The topic areas are:  

• Water;   
• Energy and Air;  
• Climate Resilience,   
• Ecosystems and Agriculture;  
• Solid Waste;   
• Community and Land Development; and  
• Green Economy. 

The environmental topic area names and groupings identified at this stage are considered preliminary and are not confirmed to be captured in the final Environmental Framework. The intention was to provide an initial structure through which to evaluate initiatives and targets. The topic areas are expected to evolve over the course of the development of the Environmental Framework. 

Climate Resilience Assessment Report has been completed to provide an overview of future climate projections, trends and hazards for City of Medicine Hat in the mid- and late-century time period. The report includes detailed climate projections against the environmental focus topics identified from the Baseline Review and Analysis Report.