Childcare, the Environment and Climate Change
Photo by Robert Collins on Unsplash
$10aDay have produced a policy note that identifies five key intersections between the issues of childcare, the environment and climate change, and which provides 10 recommendations for concrete action by the BC government.
Child Care and the Environment: Intersections and Opportunities in BC, produced by The Coalition of Child Care Advocates of BC and Early Childhood Educators in BC, in response to the perception that “British Columbia is at a moment of intense disruption and change, from the pandemic to the climate emergency, to the affordability and opioid crises”, with this, they recommend that “government must seek out intersections between seemingly disparate issues, and act in ways that simultaneously advance multiple goals”.
The policy note examines five intersections amongst the issues of childcare, the environment, and climate change:
Protecting children’s environmental health
Improving buildings
Reducing transportation emissions
Powering the clean economy
Helping all families engage
Based on the exploration of these intersections, the policy note presents 10 key recommendations to the BC government to strengthen the Childcare BC plan, CleanBC Roadmap to 2030, and related provincial plans and regulations, aligned with and supplementing the community Roadmap to $10aDay Child Care in BC.
Protecting Children’s Environmental Health
Ensure BC’s current project to create a new provincial Child Care Facility Design Standards incorporates all the applicable aspects of environmental health discussed in this policy note.
Create complementary provincial Operating Guidelines for Environmental Health in Child Care Settings, and provide additional funding and expert resources and personnel to support childcare programs in following these new guidelines.
Conduct expert and stakeholder consultations to identify potential updates to BC’s Child Care Licensing Regulation and/or Building Code that translate key design and operating standards and guidelines into updated requirements to increase consistency across municipalities.
Improving Buildings
Create a childcare capital plan that includes funds for Indigenous-led program facilities and ensures new and expanded public and publicly funded non-profit childcare centres are built or retrofitted to new zero-carbon, climate resiliency, and environmental health standards. This should include an immediate requirement that no new, public-funded centres use natural gas.
Leverage private capital by requiring or incentivizing – as appropriate – all privately-owned childcare facilities (centres and licensed family homes) to utilize the forthcoming PACE financing tool to undertake zero-carbon, climate resilience, and environmental health upgrades.
Reducing Transportation Emission
Cluster the creation of new childcare programs on or near school grounds or near other community, workplace, and clean transportation corridors and nodes.
Expand and solidify BC’s current “Active and Safe Routes to School” initiatives by (a) increasing program funding to cover more schools, (b) including participation by adults and children traveling to and from onsite or nearby child care programs, (c) providing new funding for dedicated “Active and Safe Routes to Child Care” travel planning initiatives to support child care programs not incorporated into school-based projects, and (d) working with municipalities to adequately fund the necessary supporting infrastructure.
Powering the Clean Economy
In government strategies, position the Childcare BC Plan as explicitly anchoring components of the CleanBC Plan/Roadmap to 2030 and forthcoming CleanBC Jobs Readiness Plan. Use language acknowledging that:
An equitable transition to a clean economy is not possible without child care infrastructure and early childhood educator professionals; and
For families, “Helping people get the skills they need” often begins by providing access to child care.
In BC’s forthcoming system for tracking the creation of “clean jobs”, classify early childhood educator positions as a subtype of “clean jobs”. In BC’s economic planning, highlight the role of childcare, early childhood educator professionals, and the broader care sector in driving lower-emissions growth.
Helping All Families Engage
Fully implement the community Roadmap to #10aDay Child Care in BC, which prioritizes expansion in public and non-profit models of care and upholds Indigenous rights and jurisdiction over systems of care that are determined by Indigenous leadership.