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Aubree
McAtee
Aubree is passionate about facilitating connections to place through education, community building and systems change work. With a background in place-based learning, Aubree spent five years in the field of education program development and land conservation in Chile, before moving to Canada, where she completed a master of education for sustainability and worked for both UBC’s Sustainability Initiative and B.C. GreenCare, leading programs and engaging stakeholders in sustainability. Aubree currently leads the development and implementation of innovation projects across Western Canada as the regional project coordinator, working within the UBC Planetary Healthcare Lab for CASCADES. Her interests intersect climate action, community well-being, and planetary health. In her free time, she enjoys cooking with friends, going on bikepacking adventures, and tending to her garden. She is grateful to work and live on the traditional and unceded territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations in Vancouver, B.C.
PROJECT
Aubree’s work locally takes place in collaboration with VCH and the UBC Planetary Healthcare Lab. As part of CASCADES she is supporting efforts to transform systems and practices to move toward climate resilience, low-carbon and sustainable health systems. One of the projects that she is supporting and has recently been launched is the Planetary Health Capital Projects working group at VCH. This work is committed to bringing a planetary health lens to the capital projects across the health authority. This work is connected to two core actions with the Climate Adaptation Strategy, core actions 1 and 2–climate robust infrastructure and climate resilient buildings. Her role in this climate initiative will be to support the spread and scale of these efforts, through the development of a playbook that will document their learning process and strategies. This will then be adapted for other health authorities across the Lower Mainland, BC and other provinces.
This initiative is supported and led by Vancouver Coastal Health Authority to develop an integrated strategy for planetary health as a strategic priority. This work is a collaborative initiative supported by the VCH Transformation Office, the Energy and Environmental Sustainability team, the Environmental Health Protection team, and the Sustainable Clinical Services team to develop organization-wide transformation.
MOTIVATION FOR AND COMMITMENT TO CREATING A BETTER AND MORE SUSTAINABLE PLANET
Her early career as an education director in large-scale conservation projects immersed her in rewilded landscapes and seascapes which evoked a sense of care for her community and the planet. These experiences led her to working in the field of environmental sustainability and civic engagement across many different sectors—such as agriculture, academia and health care. It is in the spaces, that she learned to see from a different perspectives and appreciate the need to find ways to support both human and environmental health. Her hopes in being part of the Women 4 Climate mentorship program are to strengthen and enhance opportunities for relationship building, to develop her leadership skills and to make connections within the W4C community.
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