It surprises many people to learn that the food we eat, the farms that grow it, and the landscapes we’ve cleared all contribute to climate change. And contribute in a big way.
Unfortunately, policymakers, business leaders, investors, and philanthropists often overlook this critical aspect of climate change. Moving forward, we must carefully weigh the food system’s impact on climate and develop a robust portfolio of solutions to address it.
Ted Otte is a strategist and operator focused on accelerating the adoption of climate solutions in the private sector. As senior manager of Drawdown Labs, Ted brings hands-on industry knowledge to the task of scaling the Drawdown Labs Business Coalition. Before joining Project Drawdown, Ted led partnerships and program management for Twitter’s in-house creative services team.
Can’t we just let our kids be kids and enjoy the innocence of childhood? Do we really need to talk about climate change with them?
Many professionals turn to LinkedIn when looking for career-related knowledge, insights, and connections. When it comes to climate solutions, that means they also may be turning to Project Drawdown. Our staff have helped LinkedIn identify key technologies, jobs, and businesses that advance climate solutions – information LinkedIn has used to develop information and insights for businesses, policymakers, and others. LinkedIn’s Sustainability Resources Hub also helps connect employees of businesses with Project Drawdown’s Job Function Action Guides, which offer concrete advice on how to amplify climate solutions in various occupations.
Students in Marc O’Brien’s Climate Designers class at the California College of the Arts don’t just learn climate design – they live it. Each semester’s cohort breaks into small groups focused on one of Project Drawdown’s climate solutions, then the groups create projects that amplify the innovations of companies working in that space. O’Brien also shares Drawdown Labs’ Job Function Action Guide for product designers as inspiration for those who want to bring climate action with them as they move from school into the workplace. And he’s now in the process of building an incubator focusing on climate industries inspired by Project Drawdown’s Climate Solutions Library.
Unless you're deeply involved in climate policy, you may not be aware that crucial international climate negotiations recently wrapped up in Bonn, Germany. These annual talks laid the groundwork for issues to be discussed at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan. Despite their importance for global climate action, however, these mid-point meetings don’t get nearly as much attention as they deserve.
In 2019, Bay Area data scientist Louis Potok was looking for an opportunity that not only would satisfy his entrepreneurial itch but also do good for the planet. When he came across a copy of Drawdown, the book, and saw refrigerant management at the top of the list of impactful climate actions, he knew he had found it. A year later he launched Recoolit, a company that captures and destroys refrigerants that otherwise would be released to the atmosphere during air conditioning maintenance and sells carbon credits corresponding to the reduced climate impact. Today Recoolit is reducing the atmospheric load of these particularly powerful greenhouse gases with a special focus on Indonesia and other countries where a warming climate is increasing demand for residential and commercial climate control.
The Drawdown Solutions Library is a valued resource for Stewart Investors, a private investment firm with US$20 billion in assets and a focus on companies in emerging economies. Funding areas amplified with guidance from Project Drawdown include metals recycling, plastics reduction, and improved fisheries management. “We use Project Drawdown to help us understand the role companies can play in climate solutions and we map investee companies to Project Drawdown’s collection of climate solutions, which if scaled up, can help to deliver the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C temperature goal,” the company reports. “Our focus is on whether the companies themselves are making a meaningful contribution to delivering the solutions.”