A2 – Part 2: Many complex terms are being thrown around by organizations without deep conversation of these technical topics like systems change, climate justice, just transitions, etc. I have found that organizations discuss and act on some features, but not all. For example, systems change focuses on inter-relationships, which many companies acknowledge, but I find less conversation on power dynamics. Similarly, for just transitions, I see less conversation on racial/tribal/caste equity or using an intersectionality lens (resulting in limited customer segmentation). Things get further complicated when you are asked to measure these designs; how do you measure systems change? What qualitative methods can give you robust data on changes in the community on norms? Opportunities open up when you bring in experts and hold training on these topics; learn by doing collaboratively and measure unintended negative impacts.
Some resources to address the challenges listed here: 1. Here’s a good primer that we have been using to explain systems thinking to our partners as we push/coax/nudge them to think broadly about measuring impact on ecosystems.
2. We have been using these systems lens evaluation principles - example here; and this DCED framework in our work.
3. We have also used the qualitative methodology outcome harvesting - when we are unsure who or what is creating the impact in the system (“working backward”). Or contribution analysis.
4. This NextBillion post from other organizations was a good read on measuring ecosystem-level impact through systems thinking.
5. This includes key principles for just transitions.
Q3. The Digital Opportunity Trust Climate Program exemplifies the transformative power of youth-led initiatives in addressing climate change at both local and global levels. Supported by the Cisco Foundation, the program empowers young leaders in regions like Tanzania and Lebanon with comprehensive training in climate science, justice, participatory action research, and digital storytelling. These Climate Champions collaborate with their communities to develop sustainable solutions tailored to local challenges, such as mangrove planting in Zanzibar to prevent coastal erosion and water source protection in Arusha to address deforestation and pollution. In Lebanon, workshops inspired innovative solutions to tackle issues like plastic waste and deforestation. By integrating global expertise with grassroots action, the program has engaged over 600 community members and fostered impactful, scalable solutions that enhance climate resilience. As a beacon of youth-led creativity and collaboration, the DOT Climate Program inspires a global movement for sustainability and invites partnerships to expand its reach and impact worldwide. https://dotrust.org/
Q2: There is a huge opportunity to provide much needed services to a very large number of people worldwide. Globally, 2.68 billion people are living in inadequate housing. These are 2.68 billion people who need access to technical assistance, skills, and financing to make their homes more resilient.
To address this immense need, Build Change engages with local building material producers and construction workers to increase capacity and build skills for resilient home building methods and materials. Engaging with and upskilling the local workforce builds the local economy, increases sustainability of climate action strategies, and delivers on resilience needs.
Of course this is not without its challenges. Many of these households earn very little, operate in the informal sector, and are easily exploited by or left out of the opportunities presented by the private market. This is a challenge for businesses: to cater to this market in a way that is inclusive, just and equitable while at the same time meeting their bottom line. This is often made possible through the existence of an enabling policy framework that can support the housing value chain in some meaningful ways, whether that be through the inclusion of retrofitting guidelines and allowances in housing policy and subsidy programs, providing financial incentives for the use of local building materials, simplified regularization processes, or the provision of some kind of tenure security.
Q3: In addition to the collaborations already mentioned, Build Change has had experience training local women to be construction workers and building producers, and supporting these local tradesmen and women to build their capacities and enterprises to reach more people.
In Indonesia, our team led efforts to increase availability of and demand for better brick making processes and better quality, more resilient bricks for 240 small and medium enterprises through Build Change’s Improving Brickmakers Capacity in Better Building Material Program. This project not only supported capacity building for local SMEs, but also reduced the vulnerability of local brick-making enterprises to predatory lending practices in Aceh and West Sumatra. BC provided support to trained brickmaker SMEs to establish the Bata Jaya Cooperative (KBJ) and provided technical and business assistance to the cooperative. Over 22 million resilient bricks were produced by the SMEs with over 5 million being sold by KBJ. These bricks were used in the construction of over 2,000 resilient homes and buildings in West Sumatra. To achieve this, the local Build Change team worked with municipal governments to establish and enforce resilience-oriented standards for bricks used in house constructions.
The challenges vary from the type of company, the nature of its supply chain and operating context. As the risks of generalisation, below has been my key observations on the key challenges based on the experience in working within the extractive sector. These are:
• The finances required to invest in climate-resilient infrastructure, renewable energy, or innovative solutions can be expensive. The challenge is not the technically solutions but it’s getting the internal buy-in within organisations to direct the investment is about balancing competing priorities.
• Demonstrating the value proposition for investing in these efforts is hard to quantify vs the initial capex costs. Having worked for pro-profit organisation, initiatives about climate resilience requires a paradigm shift in how value creation and protection is understood and articulated.
• Navigating the evolving regulatory landscape on climate policies across regions is complex.
• Complex and complicated supply chains make system wide transitions challenging.
• In a much needed effort to professionalise the climate action space, we have also created lots of jargon that tends to complicate and confuse the average folk.
Opportunities:
The evolving political landscape is within certain regions incentivising efforts for climate justice and increasing financing accessibility (although slowly progressing but nonetheless heading in the right direction in certain countries)
Supports the long-term sustainability for the organisation. Transitioning to renewable energy and optimising resources has been shown to reduce operational costs and mitigate risks. Within the mining sector water usage and energy is high costs and profitability is improved by moving to renewables.
There is a lot of resources available now more than ever to support organisation understand this landscape and play their role
For The Partnership Collective, inspiring collaborations should be evidence-based by both project participants and social, economic and environmental impact data. We don’t see a lot of this around - an inspiring collaboration would be one that verifies reports of impact on-the-ground with project participants and key stakeholders like community members and vulnerable groups.
We hear and talk a lot about scale and replication, especially the added challenge to do this in a cost effective way. For us, scale and replication is about embedding initiatives into business models to change what business as usual looks like. When businesses have done this, then there is the opportunity to inspire others to do the same. We recognise that this is going to cost core business operations more, but these are the shifts that need to take place to drive change at the rate , the scale and value distribution that is urgently needed.
A collaboration that inspires us is Latitud R
This multisectoral alliance ( Avina Foundation, Latin American Network of Waste Pickers, Coca-Cola Foundation, PepsiCo, Dow, Nestlé, IDB, and IDB Lab), launched 13 years ago, has strengthened more than 40,000 grassroots recyclers from over 500 organizations across 17 countries. They have recovered more than 800,000 tons of recyclable material and generated systemic changes through regulatory improvements in 6 countries.
Building on these achievements, the partners of this platform have decided to renew our commitment for a new four-year implementation phase, driving new high-impact investments directly to local actors
A note on the crucial role of young people…
We recently surveyed development & humanitarian colleagues in 16 countries across Asia & East & South Africa to find out what climate change projects they are running; such as hydroponics, water management, agroforestry etc.
One of the highlights was discovering that local young people aged 15-24 were directly involved in delivering 50% of our climate change adaptation projects (as part of project team, not just participants).
I love the immediate improvements these young people make for their families & communities, but also that we are growing a new generation of workforce with practical green skills which the whole world will need now & in the future as climate effects intensify.
Qu 3 In our recent report we profile the Clean Cookstoves Alliance which i think remains an inspiring example of trying to build a market and deliver national energy strategies with low income populations front and centre. Here is some detail from the report:
In 2010, the Clean Cooking Alliance (CCA) was established with support of the UN Foundation, with the aim of providing universal access to clean cooking solutions by 2030. More than 400 million people have benefitted from clean cooking since the organisation’s inception. Partnerships with governments, private sector investors, NGOs and local communities continue to be an essential means of building a functioning market that can scale innovative solutions, attract substantial investments, and integrate clean cooking into national energy strategies.
The majority of funding has traditionally been through donor governments, but private investors and companies are increasingly stepping up. Both Engie and Safaricom have invested in businesses that are part of the CCA to develop innovative business models, including pay-as-you-go systems that make clean cooking solutions more accessible to low-income households. Through its Venture Catalyst Programme, CCA has completed 83 projects with 27 small- and medium-sized companies, including Burn Manufacturing, which has become a highly successful operation based in Kenya.
Supporting the growth of a high-integrity voluntary carbon market will help lower costs for clean cooking solutions in rural areas, which is still a big hurdle. It is also important to find alignments with multinational corporations that rely on workers in agricultural supply chains. An example is Twinings, who, in partnership with the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office’s Work and Opportunities for Women programme, is co-funding the piloting of the Sistema BioDigesters among smallholder tea farmers in Kenya. There are opportunities for companies to meet their nature and biodiversity targets by supporting clean cooking (and thereby, for example, preventing habitat loss through forest degredation).
Q. 3
In Kenya, the Kenya Climate Innovation Center (KCIC) is a powerful example of supporting climate-focused businesses. They provide entrepreneurs with technical guidance, access to equipment, and resources to develop and scale their innovations. This hands-on support helps businesses overcome challenges like limited expertise or lack of tools, allowing them to create impactful climate solutions.
Somo Africa is another inspiring organization. They focus on helping people from low-income areas especially women who have been so overlooked to start and grow climate-friendly businesses. By providing funding, mentorship, and training in business management, Somo ensures these entrepreneurs can turn their ideas into real solutions with tangible impacts . They empower people who might not otherwise have the resources to address climate challenges while also improving their communities’ livelihoods.
To grow these efforts, it’s important to focus on making sure vulnerable communities have equal opportunities to participate in and benefit from climate solutions. Organizations like KCIC and Somo show how providing resources, knowledge, and financial support can uplift underrepresented groups. To scale these efforts, we need more partnerships that prioritize fairness and inclusivity, ensuring no one is left behind in the fight against climate change. Sharing success stories, increasing funding for similar initiatives, and creating policies that encourage inclusive innovation can amplify their impact globally.
All actors are equally important to make climate justice measures effective, from individuals to NGOs and big companies. It is a daunting task no doubt, but perhaps the first step to gaining this trust is increased transparency, then the possibility and opportunity for all these actors to exchange and be heard on the solutions that they could bring each other and lastly to stick to this commitments and keep up the good practices. It is no easy task, but I believe it is required to make more significant strides upon such a pressing issue.
I’ve been thinking about youth and young people as a recurring theme through this discussion and we’re seeing more and more projects focusing on youth ambassadors and leaders in general. I feel like there’s 3 parts to this 1) raising awareness and capacity of young people to respond to the climate crisis 2) empowering them as leaders (and fostering environments which are ready to listen and respond to them and 3) considering the emotional burden and added work of living through the climate crisis and yet also being responsible for adaptation and continuing mitigation
By incorporating the agency of your beneficiaries to help spread your climate solution once an initial implementation phase is complete. Build it in from the get go so that a solutions can be consciously scaled. For us clean energy is leveraged into economic and educational access needed for developmental health and prosperity, this is how communities can be genuinely resilient and self sufficiency
I think a major key to scaling impactful initiatives is cultivating more collaborations between businesses and larger entities like governments/major development organizations/funders. There are plenty of innovative solutions and thriving businesses that could make a major impact at scale - but time is not on their side, and most will never reach that point. Tapping into the existing networks/infrastructure/funding of larger entities can shorten the pathway to scale. But there needs to be greater awareness of what’s working on the ground, among these larger government and development sector entities, and a greater willingness to give businesses a meaningful seat at the table. This is a topic Simon Sommer at the Jacobs Foundation and Dina Ghobashy at Microsoft discussed in a recent NextBillion article: https://nextbillion.net/rethinking-approach-multilateral-collaboration-time-to-give-philanthropic-private-sectors-equal-seat-at-table/ - a priority that’s definitely worth further discussion and action.
The Resilience Fund for Women in Global Value Chains is one of the most innovative collective action initiatives with 10 corporate investors in this pooled fund. It is not an “environmental fund.” As I said, it is building on trust based models of philanthropy that shifts power and see solutions being developed by women leaders in the community. So it provides women-led organizations – about 60 so far, mainly in Bangladesh, India, Cambodia and Vietnam.
The focus is on women’s health, safety and economic resilience. But since the Fund launched in 2021, we found that our grantee-partners are all dealing with climate change – and are often leading on resilience and adaption. So because of the reality that climate change is already having major impact, the Fund is addressing climate because our grantee-partners are dealing it.
The Fund is unique because we are creating a community, a network, that brings together many different sectors – business, philanthropy, women’s funds, grassroots organizations and INGOs. Corporate investors are not passive, but participate in safe spaces for learning and sharing across sectors. And the major learnings are on climate.
This is one model not just for investing in community organizations that will take the lead on climate adaptation at the local level, but also for being engaged in new ways – real dialogue.
What our partners are urging is that companies and donors support the long-term resilience and sustainability of organizations by:
Policies and protocols to address climate change, as well as collective reflections on how these affect women’s rights and gender equality;
Fostering spaces for learning and knowledge exchange on such areas as:
Policies and protocols to address climate change, as well as collective reflections on how these affect women’s rights and gender equality
Approaches to creating alternative livelihood options for women and/or supporting their economic resilience;
Awareness-raising activities – methods and ways in which to further awareness among women and vulnerable groups to enhance their ability to adapt and create resilience.
This is one scale-able, high impact model, among many note above.
Humanity Insured is a good example of a collaboration by the insurance industry finding a way to work together and not compete. LinkedIn Login, Sign in | LinkedIn