The CAFES Ottawa 2026 Annual General Meeting was held on Tuesday, March 24 at 6:30pm. We had an unforgettable evening with Keynote speaker Katharine Hayhoe, joined by over 290 participants on Zoom for a powerful and engaging conversation on climate science and communication! We are deeply grateful to Katharine Hayhoe for her inspiring talk, motivating us to change the way we communicate about climate change in ways that lead to action, and for reminding us how to move from our heads (information and worry), to our hearts (personal connection to issue), and to our hands (individual and community action opportunities). Her message left many feeling not only informed, but motivated and hopeful.
You can find the recording of the Keynote Event portion of the AGM with Katharine Hayhoe here.
Our AGM Business meeting continued right after the Keynote event, where we celebrated a year of growth and impact for CAFES. Executive Director Angela Keller-Herzog shared the 2025 Impact Report and highlighted the high impact advocacy that CAFES undertook in 2025, which was received very positively. Chaired by Jennifer Gautreau the chair of the CAFES board of directors, the meeting minutes for the last meeting were approved, the reviewed 2025 financial statements were presented by treasurer Johan Hamels, and several governance motions were presented, discussed, and passed including one where the membership instructed the board to pursue and assess benefits of charitable organization status for CAFES. Finally, the slate of candidates for the CAFES Board of Directors was presented. We are pleased to welcome all the newly elected and the returning Board members.
Read about our 2026 Board of Directors here.
Thank you to our members, board, and everyone who joined us. We are looking forward to another impactful year for CAFES!
P.S. - Want to see what our members considered the biggest environmental issues facing Ottawa in 2026? Check out the word cloud from the AGM below!
CAFES is pleased to share our annual Impact Report for 2025! We produce this report each year at the time of our AGM to share CAFES' achievements and highlights from the year prior.
We saw substantial growth in 2025, with 11 new organizational memberships and big expansions to our network - reaching representation from all 24 wards in Ottawa. With 276 individual and organizational memberships, an excellent slate of Board of Directors and an expanded staff team, we have been able to bring together and empower more residents than ever to take action on climate and environment issues.
In 2025 we saw some big wins from our municipal policy advocacy. We influenced the City to provide measurable data on carbon emissions, pass municipal support confirmations and zoning amendments in support of Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS), consider risks of incineration, increase opportunities for greenspace stewardship, and implement stronger metrics for trees in the new Zoning By-law. Totalling 26 public delegations, 2 CAFES petitions, 4 more join petitions, and 15 Caucus meetings, we are steadily strengthening our credibility and feel this was our most impactful year yet for our advocacy work.
Alongside our slate of wonderful community volunteers, we planted 80 new trees on public land, gave out 75 trees for planting on private property, and distributed over 500 plants in support of native biodiversity. We hosted and co-hosted 18 events, and tabled at another 19.
CAFES held productive engaged discussions on environment and climate issues with Mayor Mark Sutcliffe several times in 2025 at the Mayor's Roundtable on the Environment alongside our colleagues Ecology Ottawa and the Ottawa Riverkeeper.
Thank you to all our donors, supporters and volunteers who make all this work possible.
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On Thursday, March 26 2026, the CAFES Ottawa team was pleased to participate in and help facilitate David Suzuki and Tara Cullis' Stronger Together Tour. CAFES was able to secure invitations for a large number of the local leaders in our member organizations, filling almost half of the attendance!
Grand Chief Verna Polson of the Algonquin Anishinabe Nation opened the event and mayor Mark Sutcliffe gave welcoming remarks. An eminent panel then engaged on the topic of how our communities need to adapt and become climate resilient. We heard from Tara Cullis, David Suzuki, Dr. Mili Roy, Andrea Telfer, and Julia Robinson.
The message of this tour is that more severe weather events, which are a direct result of climate change, are now a reality that we have to face. The way to build resilience is through a stronger community built on community connectedness, social networking and emergency preparedness. To this end, the floor was opened to all participants to share what they and their organizations are doing, and their calls to action. A Stronger Together Whatsapp group for the Ottawa area was also shared, for anyone to join.
After a quick lunch break, the attendees participated in a role playing game called Resilientville, created by Community Resilience to Extreme Weather (CREW) to demonstrate the importance of social networking and prior-planning in preparation for a community response to an emergency event. CAFES staff and board members participated in a training and served as table facilitators. If you/your local organization would like to run a Resilientville session in Ottawa for your members please contact Mitzi at info@cafesottawa.ca.
It was incredibly special to be able to hear David Suzuki speak in person - a life-long memory for many of us who grew up listening to his inspiring messages and science-based climate activism! David celebrated his 90th birthday in Ottawa last week.
On March 7th, we had a very successful third iteration of the Climate & Your Cash workshop in Orléans, co-hosted by the Convent Glen Orleans Wood (CGOW) Environment Committee, the Greater Avalon Community Association (GACA), the Glebe Community Association, and CAFES Ottawa. It was an engaging session that provided participants with practical guidance on values-based sustainable investing and how residents can better protect their homes from climate-related risks.
This bilingual session was moderated by Chantal Boudreau of the CGOW Environment Committee. Participants heard from community speakers with lived experience aligning their finances with their values (Angela Plante and Jeremy Colbeck), and then they heard from experts: Nicolas Demeulenaere of Desjardins Wealth Management shared actionable approaches to climate-conscious investing, and Liv Gauthier of Co-Operators Insurance highlighted how insurance can support climate resilience. Local organizations including Ottawa Renewable Energy Co-operative (OREC) and Ottawa Community Land Trust then showcased community-based investment opportunities with real local impact. (If you would like to access the powerpoint presentations and other related sustainable investment resources please see here)
Following the Orléans event, attendees were invited to complete a survey, with 22 of 35 participants responding—a strong 63% response rate that reflects high engagement. Of those respondents, 86% (19 out of 22) found the session helpful, and over 60% (14 out of 22) indicated they were considering changes to their investments as a result.
Across the full Climate & Your Cash series in the Glebe, Kanata, and Orléans, the impact was even more striking: 57 out of 60 respondents found the events helpful, and 70% reported they were considering shifting their investments after attending.
These results highlight the real, measurable impact of the Climate & Your Cash series. CAFES Ottawa is proud to offer programming that equips Ottawa residents with the knowledge and confidence to align their financial decisions with their values.
A big thank you to the Convent Glen Orleans Wood (CGOW) Environment Committee, the Greater Avalon Community Association (GACA), the Glebe Community Association, and the City of Ottawa’s Community Environmental Projects Grant Program (CEPGP) for making this series possible. A huge thank you to the speakers for an informative session presented in an engaging way, to the volunteers, and to everyone who attended and contributed to such meaningful conversations.
Climate & Your Cash: Glebe (November 30, 2025)- Highlights
Climate & Your Cash: Glebe (November 30, 2025)- Full Length
In this month's Climate CAFES column on CKCU FM, Angela interviewed Kate Weekes about her album, Rideau Roots. Kate Weekes is a wilderness guide and award-winning songwriter originally from Smiths Falls. In May 2022, she and a small collective of musicians and spoken word artists embarked on a unique canoe-based music residency, paddling the Rideau Canal from Kingston to Ottawa. The journey sparked a body of collaborative creative work later shaped into Rideau Roots.
During the interview, Angela asked Kate Weeks: "What role do you think projects like this contribute to spreading that care [for the natural environment]around?" Kate responded by saying, "It is easier for us to care about something if we get to know it - we become invested in it and want to protect it. By traveling along the waterway, you develop a different relationship with it than you would from looking at it from the shore or the windows of our cars."
Learn more about Kate Weekes and her album, Rideau Roots.
The next Climate CAFES column with Angela will be on April 13th. Be sure to tune in to CKCU FM 93.1 at 8am!
CKCU FM 93.1 is a campus-based community radio station at Carleton University dedicated to diversity, alternative content and independent voices in the Ottawa-Gatineau area.
CAFES attended the CPAWS-OV National Capital Greenbelt Forum on February 21st, 2026 from 1-5 pm at the Canadian Museum of Nature, which was superbly organized and brought together a wide variety of community associations, environmental organizations, farmers, scientists and other groups to collaborate towards advocating for stronger protections for the National Capital Greenbelt.
We learned that earlier efforts to promote our greenbelt to the status of 'National Urban Park Status' have not attained any traction with Parks Canada. Currently there is an important opportunity to promote greenbelt stewardship through the National Capital Commission's Greenbelt Master Plan renewal exercise. There was lots of good engagement and information sharing through talks and collaborative discussions, culminating in the aim to create a Greenbelt Coalition.
Find out more about the National Capital Greenbelt Campaign on the CPAWS website. Sign up for the CPAWS-OV newsletter to keep in the know about updates on the campaign and to find out how you can get involved!
What a night! On Friday, January 9th, 2026, the CAFES Roots for the Sky concert fundraiser came back to the Red Bird live stage for another sold out show!
We had wonderful musical performances from Brother Bones and friends, Maria Hawkins, celtic duo MacIssac and MacKenzie, John Sobol and Vince Halfhide. Thank you to all who came out to support these wonderful artists as well as the work we do at CAFES. Your participation helped to kick off our climate and environmental work for 2026, and we can't wait to see what more this year has in store.
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On January 17th, CAFES joined OSEAN, the Hunt Club Community Association (HCCA) and a number of local organizations for an Open House Panel event at the Hunt Club Riverside Park Community Center to discuss the ecological benefits of the McCarthy Forest, Meadows and River areas.
In 2025, these lands were re-zoned to "Developmental Reserve" in the City's draft new Zoning By-law at the request of the land owner, the National Capital Commission (NCC). The intent was to pre-zone the lands now so they would be ready for future development. This re-zoning was made quietly without much public knowledge, resulting in swift action and advocacy in the fall and winter of 2025 from local environmental and community groups, including the OSEAN and the HCCA, who quickly mobilized in support of these prized greenspaces in urban Ottawa.
On December 17th, River Ward Councillor Riley Brockington brought forth a successful motion addressing this issue when the final draft of the new Zoning By-law was tabled at the Planning and Housing and ARAC Committee. The motion, passed by a vote of 11-4, reverts the lands to a more protective zoning designation (that was originally proposed by the city in the first draft of the zoning by-law). The final Zoning By-law will come to City Council on Wed January 28th.
At the event on January 17th, speakers from the Poet’s Pathway, Greenspace Alliance, Ottawa Field Naturalists Club, OSEAN, HCCA, Councillor Riley Brockington, and CAFES' Angela Keller-Herzog spoke about the value and significance of the spaces that are being proposed for re-zoning by the NCC. Each organization also set up information tables and spoke to attendees during the open house about the important work they are doing.
The event included a magical sunset river walk led by Ottawa Field Naturalists Owen Clarkin and Jakob Müeller, to educate community members about this wonderful, high quality greenspace while highlighting the many rare plant and wildlife species that can be found there. The day was extremely well attended, with 70 attendees at the open house and 15 participating in the walk. CAFES was thrilled to be a part of it!
You can learn more about the event from the OSEAN website as well as further background information on the re-zoning.
CAFES, in partnership with Invest Ottawa, facilitated an excellent and extremely well-attended Lunch and Learn event on Thursday, January 29th, 2026 from 11am-2pm at Bayview Yards!
Residents from across Ottawa who were interested in learning more about Ottawa’s electric future enjoyed outstanding talks from experts and industry leaders on the future state of our electricity grid, peak load management and battery energy storage. A huge thank you to speakers Michael Barnard (TFIE Strategy), Dr. Kristen Schell (Carleton Engineering) and Devashish Paul (BluWave-ai), as well as CAFES' own Executive Director, Angela Keller-Herzog, who moderated the session.
Want to read more? Check out 'From peak load to public health: What Batteries are already doing for power grids', an article by one of the event speakers, Michael Barnard, which dives into what he spoke about on Thursday.
See us in action below! Please contact info@cafesottawa.ca if you would like to access the powerpoint presentations.
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On November 30th and December 12th, we hosted two excellent Climate & Your Cash workshops in the Glebe and in Kanata in partnership with the Glebe Community Association Environment Committee. These workshops helped participants align their finances with their values through divestment from fossil fuels and investment in sustainable alternatives.
At both events, the audience was incredibly engaged as we heard from residents with lived experience divesting their finances, National Bank Financial's Adnan Shaikh on climate-aware investing strategies, and Shift Action's Cheryl Randall on the Canadian Pension Plan's investments. Local organizations—Ottawa Renewable Energy Co-operative (OREC), Housing Forever Bonds, and Co-operators Insurance Agency—also presented alternative investment products with positive impact on local communities.
CBC All in a Day reporter Stu Mills came to the Kanata event for a radio segment on "How to stay green with financial investments." Listen to the recording here!
The Climate & Your Cash series is not over yet! Look out for our next workshop in Orleans this February!
Thank you to the GCA Environment Committee, Kanata North Business Association, City of Ottawa CEPGP, and all our speakers for making these events possible!
