We know women have an outsized role in the AI transition. Not just as builders and users of AI, but as investors, regulators, and thought leaders shaping it.

This is specifically true in the intersection of AI and sustainability, as women hold unique roles in shaping the AI transition and making sure its equitable and green. Good for people and planet in other words.

The results from Climate Collective’s first Women in Climate Cohort speak for themselves:

• Key outcomes:

  • 95% of participants would recommend the program.

  • 82% of participants are already applying AI knowledge and skills acquired in their daily work.

  • 81% point increase in participant risk awareness perception

  • 73 % point increase in participants’ confidence using AI Tools

  • 58% point increase in the daily usage of AI tools and adoption

• Made up by 42 senior women leaders working across decarbonization, voluntary carbon markets, nature and biodiversity, climate finance, resilient communities and sustainable development.

• Participants entered with a mix of curiosity and caution about AI. Concerns around its environmental footprints and how it might weaken cognition were the two most common concerns.

• By the end of the three-month program, 100% left feeling confident using AI tools (up from just 27%), and 95% felt confident navigating AI's risks (up from 14%). Key outcomes:

  • 95% of participants would recommend the program.

  • 82% of participants are already applying AI knowledge and skills acquired in their daily work.

  • 58% point increase in the daily usage of AI tools and adoption

• Participants have gone on to launch new AI-powered workflows, sustainable AI initiatives, and investor coalitions. They have secured new jobs, promotions and visibility. They are actively shaping how AI is transforming their organizations and sectors.

We’re grateful to our partners Arm and High Tide Foundation for supporting the first cohort of this program Spring 2026.

Interested in joining the next Cohort?

You’re in luck: the Women in Climate program will launch its second cohort on August 25th. The cohort is filling up fast and the profiles signing up are looking sharp.

We still have a couple of slots left in if this experience speaks to you.

Sign up here.

New ideas, Program launches and Partnership updates

Here are two ideas we’re starting to build partnerships around:

• We're launching a research sprint to build the first sector-specific evidence base on GenAI adoption in climate and nature nonprofits as early data on sector-agnostic AI use/impact/ROI shows our sector doesn't fit the mold of generic nonprofit AI use. Want to partner or fund this work? Get in touch.

• Together with Conservation Collective we’re building out the first step towards a ‘train-the-trainer’ model of our proven AI for Earth Curriculum, curating a mini-bootcamp for a cohort made up by leaders of 22 national conservation foundation, all members of the Conservation Collective network. Want to partner or fund this work? Get in touch.

We started tweaking these ideas during London Climate Action Week in June. The week gave us an excuse to team up with existing and new partners, curating dynamic rooms and covering topics that matter.

Here is a snapshot from our busy week in London:

• We joined FinchEarth’s Awards Dinner as hosts of the Energy Innovation table. Serena and Patrick have achieved something really impactful with their community. The room was buzzing with pitches, solutions and partnership ideas. A perfect way to kick off the week.

• Together with High Tide Foundation and the VCM+ Coalition we hosted a workshop on AI and Carbon Markets. This is part of a body of work exploring the role of AI in strengthening integrity and quality of carbon markets, assessing what role Governance should play in this highly complex and global market.

  • Climate Collective is building AI capacity among the VCM+ Fellows, a 12-month fellowship program announced in London.

• We hosted a celebratory breakfast for the first cohort of AI for Earth: Women in Climate at Mildred’s in Soho, meeting cohort participants in person for the first time and celebrating their achievements.

• We helped judge the ‘Klarna Climate Heroes Award’, and were happy to see Vibrant Planet and founder Allison Wolff receive the award for their work on digital infrastructure to strengthens wildfire resilience.

• We joined Klarna, Milkywire and Tech to the Rescue at a panel to discuss how to unlock AI opportunities for resilience, a program our CEO has been advising for the last year.

• We moderated a panel for Climate Policy Radar’s fifth anniversary, celebrating their mandate to drive transparency and actionable data across the ecosystem.

• We joined GitHub and their sustainability team for a dinner on how open source tooling can unlock new partnerships and impact.

• We hosted a climate tech Nightcap with Super Organism VC, chatting with natureTech founders, celebrate their successes and unpacking their needs.

• Together with EY and the Schwab Foundation, we hosted a Nature House roundtable on unlocking the nature AI gap, discussions feeding into a larger partnership platform.

• We joined Google’s Nightcap, learning about their ambitious programs for AI adoption and positive handprints for climate and nature.

• We moderated a lunch at Goals House, hosted by Tim Christophersen of Salesforce to talk large scale restoration and the economy.

Here are things we’re thinking about:

• Wharton researchers argue that Kahneman's classic dual-system model of cognition (fast intuition vs. slow deliberation) is outdated because it assumes all thinking happens inside the human mind, a premise no longer true given how pervasively people now think alongside AI. Their new Tri-System Theory, tested with over 1,300 participants, proposes a third mode of cognition shaped by AI engagement that now influences human decision-making as much as intuition or deliberation do.

• Google’s ATLAS study (Activity, Task, Landscape, and Adoption Study) analyzed nearly 15 million anonymized user interactions across Gemini products to reveal that AI adoption is widespread across professions, but usage remains shallow and collaborative rather than fully automated.

• The 2026 Nonprofit AI Adoption Report finds 92% of nonprofits use AI for day-to-day tasks like drafting emails, but only 7% report it driving major strategic impact. Researchers call this gap the "efficiency plateau", widespread ad-hoc use with little institutional integration.

• Blackbaude’s stages of AI maturity and how to bridge the AI Effectiveness Gap (i.e the effectiveness, infrastructure, data and transparency gap)

• Project Evident's latest report on How Nonprofits Are Using AI, finds that AI use is most common around Personalized Support, Service Coordination, and Health & Education Screenings.

• The Atlantic’s latest piece highlighting that ‘What will differentiate people is not how smart they are but thier relationship to mental effort’.

Wishing you a great rest of the summer.

Our team is juggling timezones, vacation plans, family drama and other standard ingredients to make up great summer memories. Hope you’re filling your cup too.

I’m seeing nonprofit leaders rush and take shortcuts, instead of pausing to reflect on how this transition will redefine their roles, mandates and operations. Are we trading what’s uniquely human about our work, for the promise of optimization?

We’re in the midst of a profound change to society, while the climate and nature crisis continue to escalate. Having spent the last 20 years across sustainability and tech I’m energized by the prospect of AI as a once-in-a- generation chance to course correct. As it’s reshaping every aspect of business and society, it can help us see, act and scale sustainability solutions better.

But a rushed scarcity mindset is not just unhelpful, it’s distracting. I’m already seeing how fear of falling behind is distracting the climate and nature community. Most orgs are stressed about catching up (to whom?), and are forgetting that we have two important -interlinked - roles to play: making sure AI’s own environmental footprint is managed AND directing its handprints towards positive planetary outcomes.

This is not the time to rush, cut corners and overcommit. Its a time to build agency in the organizations doing critical climate and nature work. Unpack what this technology can do, what it should do, and what it should not be allowed to do. The organizations I’m seeing taking the lead are focusing on what’s uniquely human, giving time and space for experimentation, and are leading with respect and curiosity.

The same goes for funders backing frontline sustainability teams. The most intuitive and agile funders are not asking ‘how many staff are using AI daily’ - but asking whether their grantees and portfolio companies have what they need to use AI well.

The data is uncomfortable

Most conversations about AI adoption in our sector start with a celebration of how many people are using it (similar to token maxxing in the private sector I guess). Look closer and the picture shifts. 92% of nonprofit staff are using AI without formal training or organizational guidelines. Only 7% of organizations report it has made a real difference to their work. Two-thirds of nonprofits we talk to have zero budget for AI training.

Access isn’t the problem. The tools are already in your team’s hands, whether you sanctioned them or not. What’s missing is fluency. Without it, AI becomes a faster typewriter. Makes emails read more polished. Same outputs in less time but with none of the lift to conservation outcomes, scientific rigor, or the climate transition that the moment is asking for. And with a growing sense of overload and unfulfillment among staff. That’s the difference between using AI, and using it well.

The second-biggest barrier we hear about is trust. Organizations are increasingly distrustful that this technology will serve people and planet well. That lack of trust is rational. AI has a real environmental footprint, real bias, and real governance risks. None of those problems goes away because you draft a policy or buy licenses for your team. They get addressed when the people using AI understand it well enough to make responsible choices. Building AI fluency cultivates a culture that gives them the agency to mitigate the footprints and green the handprints. In parallel.

“Climate Collective’s AI for Earth course takes a clear-eyed look at the real risks of AI while also offering practical ways to use these tools more responsibly.”

– Richard Pearshouse, Human Rights Watch

That’s what fluency is. And it’s the lack of it that is leaving so many of our peers disillusioned and frustrated with AI.

Why Klarna and Milkywire chose differently

Last September, Klarna and Milkywire made a choice that more donors should be making. Both have been backing some of the world’s most impactful conservation organizations for years. The kind of grantees who win Earth Awards, restore critical reefs, defend Indigenous land rights, hold governments accountable on climate.

Rather than asking those grantees to figure AI out on their own, they asked a different question: what would actually help them use AI well? The answer was fluency. So they partnered with us at Climate Collective to give their grantees access to the AI for Earth program, a five-month, hands-on AI fluency program for fourteen leading conservation organizations.

Klarna and Milkywire had supported these conservation organizations for years. Anna Samuelsson, who leads this work at Milkywire, put it this way:

“Many of our long-term partners face real barriers to adopting AI: identifying where it’s actually useful, building the skills to use it well, and learning to use it responsibly. The case for supporting our portfolio to build this capability was obvious to us. It’s a critical skill in today’s world that can supercharge the impact we have together.”

After five months: across fourteen organizations, participant confidence in using AI for daily work moved from 2.1 to 4.3 out of 5. A 105% surge. 92% of participants shared what they learned with colleagues, in some cases reaching teams of more than 60 staff. Funding fourteen organizations built capability across hundreds, and impact for many thousands.

“This was the most important training I have taken in my 20 years in the sector.”

– Michael Hofmann, Rare

What fluency actually does

Fluency is what happens when a team understands AI well enough to make it useful for their actual work, beyond doing the same tasks faster. It’s more about culture and curiosity than tools. It’s about asking the right questions, exploring the implications and finding time and resources to experiment. In many cases fluency is the catalyst for reimagining workstreams and programs entirely. It’s slow at first. It rewards persistence and a healthy skepticism. It’s centered in human agency, not in the techstack.

I’ll be honest about how this looks in practice. Even at Climate Collective, we spent months using Gemini as a glorified Google search and email polisher before we figured out how to embed AI into our workflows properly. In early 2025, I outsourced so much of my linkedIn writing that I forgot what topics I had covered - and have since stopped using AI almost entirely for my thought leadership. Fluency is about judgement, and it takes time. That’s the point.

What’s striking, looking across our cohort, is what fluency lets people stop doing.

• Science teams at Blue Alliance who used to spend eight hours per site on reef health reports now spend two, and they are back doing fieldwork across more than 108 Marine Protected Areas.

• The two-person communications team at Buglife is no longer absorbed by social media production, but are growing their audience like never before.

• A small team at the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative is producing daily science communications in under 30 minutes a week instead of monthly.

These are conservation experts getting their time back, with AI doing what it’s good at and humans doing what they’re trained for.

“The AI for Earth program turned me from an AI denier to a true believer.”

– Angelique Brathwaite, Blue Alliance

It also lets people start doing things they couldn’t do before.

• EarthAcre’s team built an AI agent to identify high-impact corporate funding prospects, hundreds of research hours collapsed into something they can run themselves. It became the primary driver for hitting a $300,000 fundraising goal.

• David Meyers at Conservation Finance Alliance built a multi-language tool that makes complex financial frameworks accessible to conservationists in their own languages, designed deliberately to take the environmental questions about AI seriously rather than paper over them.

None of these stories are about productivity. They’re about what becomes possible when an organization’s people can shape how AI shows up in their work, instead of being shaped by it. That’s agency, and it’s what’s worth funding.

Why this is important for funders

The pattern Klarna and Milkywire have shown is replicable. Fund the people you already believe in, give them the fluency to use AI well, and watch the capability spread inside their organizations - and beyond. Fourteen grantees become hundreds of fluent staff. Thousands of impacted partners. The multiplier is real.

If you fund climate or nature organizations, the question worth asking your portfolio is straightforward: how many of your grantees have the AI fluency to free up time for strategy, deepen execution, or unlock new resources? If the honest answer is “I don’t know,” or “probably none,” that’s where the leverage is.

Done well, AI fluency is regenerative. It frees up time and budget that would otherwise be spent on admin and first drafts, and lets organizations redeploy that capacity to what only humans can do: senior judgment, complex strategy, and yes, walks in nature when the team needs them. People AND planet, in the most practical sense of the phrase.

What we learned about doing it well

For funders building their own programs, or organizations designing their internal AI approach, here’s what’s working across our many cohorts:

Experiment across tools, not in one stack. Don’t lock your team into a single platform before they understand what each is good for. Cross-tool fluency makes troubleshooting easier and reduces dependency on any one provider’s choices.

Make experimentation a scheduled, shared activity. Asking people to find time on their own to play with AI rarely works. Doing it together, in scheduled sessions with peers, takes the performance pressure off and makes the learning stick.

Group participants by mandate or function. The cross-pollination between, say, three conservation fundraising leads, or three communications teams from biodiversity nonprofits, is half the value. People learn faster from peers solving the same problems they are.

Respect the people who don’t want to become developers. Not everyone needs to build AI agents. Honor the colleagues who want to inform what others build, and let them opt out of the technical layer without making them feel left behind.

The ask

This is the moment to build agency in the organizations doing the work that matters most. AI is not a race, it’s a capability shift, and the organizations that move from fear to fluency are using it to do work they couldn’t do before, with sharper strategy, deeper expertise, and more time for the kind of senior judgment that only humans bring. They will also have the knowledge and confidence to influence how AI impacts society, and be the ones that directs ‘how AI might benefit people and planet’.

For donors and impact investors: ask your grantees what they need. Ask whether AI fluency is part of it. Most of them will say yes.

For the organizations on the frontlines of climate and nature work: this is your opportunity to do things you haven’t been able to do before. But it comes with a unique responsibility to do it responsibly AND sustainably. We’re here to help.

Luiza Jarovsky puts it plainly: “AI literacy will provide a baseline for supporting education, equality, democratic participation, and social integration in a period of mass AI automation.” I’d go one step further: for our sector, AI literacy is a prerequisite for ensuring the AI transition operates within planetary boundaries.

Figuring out how AI makes sense for yourself is the first step. The next is offering this catalytic tool to the people and groups your own impact depends on: your team, your cross-functional partners, your grantees, the organizations on the frontlines of the work you fund or support.

I first used AI 10 years ago, managing energy sector reform projects at the World Bank. It wasn’t sexy (or approved by IT) and I couldn’t figure out if it was merely a smart sensor within complex infrastructure or a though-partner that could help me get insights faster. In the last year, AI has gone from a personal or organizational edge to a catalytic opportunity well beyond my own work. It feels more like a collective tide that, once harnessed, elevates the sector at large — or leaves large parts of it behind.

Climate Collective’s theory of change is straightforward:

1. Build AI fluency in as many green organizations and teams as possible, to expand green handprints.

2. Support systems change to ensure AI’s own environmental footprint is mitigated and regulated around.

More often than not, the first lever accelerates the second.

We’re scheduling fall AI for Earth cohorts now and actively looking for funders, corporates, and anchor organizations who want to bring this to their teams, grantees, or sector peers. If strengthening AI fluency would be useful for your own team, or your partners: get in touch.

What we’re seeing work - what results

As a society (economy?) we still don’t have a clear understanding of the value AI can offer. Tech giants chasing vanity metrics and humans gaming the system are two ills connected to this confusion.

We’ve worked with hundreds of organizations and are collecting data on what works, what results they are seeing and how to connect this to green KPIs (GHG saved, nature restored, etc). We’re also building out a robust library of tools and tactics to green AI - on individual, organizational and systems level.

In our last newsletter, we shared early productivity data from some of our partners. Here’s what’s come in since, with more texture:

• Strategic speed. A mid-size conservation nonprofit in LatAm developed strategic advocacy directions 5x faster — hours instead of days — using AI-assisted research and synthesis.

• Workload reduction. A US-headquartered corporate sustainability team observed a 30–40% reduction in administrative workload after building new tools specifically aimed at reducing team burnout.

• Time back in the field. Field staff are spending less time on reports and more time on data collection and community engagement. The shift isn’t marginal — for some teams it’s several hours a week, every week.

• Fundraising outcomes. Grant writers are producing first drafts faster and submitting more targeted applications. The result: more donors converted, higher hit rates on grant applications.

• 9-point ‘Action for Sustainable AI’: Over 10 weeks, 40 senior climate leaders built custom AI tools for their own workflows, moved from basic prompting to deep strategic research synthesis, and co-authored a 9-point ‘Action for Sustainable AI’ manifesto, concrete commitments they and others in the sector can act on. That level of ownership and agency is what AI fluency is actually about.

Entering our programs, most partners have no AI policy and staff have at most been offered a 60-minute recorded ‘chat bot’ instruction video as “AI training.” None hold AI-specific roles. They leave with skills, a peer community, and a shared framework for what responsible AI adoption looks like in their context.

Program updates

• AI x Nature Tech Accelerator — Spring 2026 cohort just launched. Climate Collective’s 6th Tech Accelerator, supported by long-term partners Salesforce and Arm, is backing an innovative cohort of nature-tech startups. Over ten weeks they’ll go deep on responsible AI, agentic workflows, and specialized climate and nature applications, wrapped in a boost of business skills. This is our most focused nature-tech cohort yet.

  • The teams are launching products and solutions, here are three examples:

    • Map Impact is a UK market leader in decision-grade nature and climate risk intelligence, supporting climate resilience across the financial, real estate, corporate, public and infrastructure sectors. Their tech was used in public alerts to manage the recent UK Heat Wave

    • Mandatory Biodiversity NetGain is now embedded in the planning system in England and requires developers to leave biodiversity in a measurably better state than they found it. Verna is a leading software provider that supports the creation of a regulated biodiversity credit market to wire nature recovery into the economy.

    • Fable Forestry is a drone-powered forest design and restoration starup, protecting people via forest health, using robotics to address the PFAS crisis and invasive species.

    • Kanop harnesses AI and satellite intelligence to de-risk nature-based investments, accelerate project development, and deliver precise climate and biodiversity impact measurements. Officially vetted by Verra as a Data Service Provider for VM0047.

• AI for Earth: Women in Climate — Spring cohort complete. Together with 40 incredible women leaders, we spent the last several months holding space to unpack AI opportunities, sustainability, ethical risks, and AI’s impact on our careers. Participants represented organizations on the frontlines of decarbonization, nature conservation, regulation, and corporate sustainability.

  • Every Thursday since February, we made room in packed agendas to listen deeply, lead with curiosity, reflect, and experiment. We learned a lot together.

Back by popular demand: Women in Climate - Fall cohort. Register early interest here.

Say hi during London Climate Action Week? We’re finalizing our fall AI for Earth Accelerator schedule (if interested, get in touch before slots are filled up) and putting the finishing touches on our London Climate Action Week programme. Would love to say hi if you’re around?

• Together with High Tide Foundation and VCM+ we’re convening to stategize for how AI can help strengthen carbon markets - from data and process integrity to integration of voluntary and regulated markets. Register here.

• Together with Schwab Foundation, WEF and EY we are bringing together social entrepreneurs, nature innovators, and the people who fund them to help to build the missing ecosystem for AI x Nature. Register here.

• Together we Salesforce we’re hosting a Women in AI breakfast, to celebrate the 40 climate leaders who just finished our program and talk about the importance of AI governance being equitable and green. Register here.

Partner with us in 2027

We’re building something that doesn’t work without organizational partners. Funding AI programs (vs a specific tool/pilot) isn’t common among climate and nature funders. And funding environmental programs isn’t common among AI funders.

We’re grateful for our existing partners who bridge these two interlinked worlds, recognizing that tech can be our most powerful multiplier and accelerant - but only if scaled sustainably.

There are three ways to get involved:

Fund a cohort. Sponsor AI for Earth programming for organizations in your portfolio, grantee network, or sector. We have a proven curriculum with the highest rating.

Bring it in-house. Work with us to design a bespoke AI fluency or transformation program for your own team. We’re already supporting Conservation International and WWF this way and can offer scaled solutions all the way to embedding an AI for Earth staff member directly into your journey.

Anchor our work. Join as a named partner unlocking our thought leadership and systems change work, funding dedicated research, advocacy or our fellows program - focused on a theme that matters to you.

We’re happy to talk through what makes sense for your context. Reach out to adam@climatecollective.org for more.

Stuff we’re thinking about

Less Babel, more Nehemiah. Pope Leo XIV’s recent encyclical Magnifica Humanitas names a tension many of us feel: AI concentrated in the hands of a few companies and individuals can’t produce broad societal benefit no matter how powerful it becomes. Nicholas Thompson (The Atlantic) captures the metaphor cleanly — our current AI trajectory looks like the Tower of Babel, a monument to self-assertion ending in scattering. What we need looks more like Nehemiah: rebuilding with shared responsibility. That framing is doing a lot of work for us right now. Read the encyclical →

Vanity metrics are the wrong north star. We’re fiercely tech-agnostic in AI for Earth. On purpose. Most commercial tools are larger than what our partners need, and partnerships that dictate which tools to use are less about building trust and value than about securing distribution. A recent Microsoft Work Trend Index finding stands out: across 29 measured factors, organizational environment explained 67% of the value organizations got from AI. The single strongest factor was organizational AI culture: 2.5x stronger than individual AI mindset. Rolling out AI transformation focused on pro-license access or mandating usage percentages is not how you build the next generation of AI-fluent nonprofits. I wrote more on this here.

Europe is at risk of repeating the US mistake. Tech companies are fumbling the social license to expand AI, and the EU appears to be sleepwalking into a similar scenario, with analytics suggesting 30–50% of planned AI projects face delays or cancellations. My recommendation: lead with trust and transparency. Sustainable AI development could supercharge European competitiveness and cement it as a green leader. But not if the public turns against it before we get going — and not if we leave the sector to self-regulate.

Thank you to our partners

None of this happens without you — your funding, your introductions, your public endorsements, and your willingness to open doors we can’t access alone.

Arm: AI for Earth: Women in Climate

Conservation International: AI for Earth: CI

High Tide Foundation: AI for Earth: Women in Climate; AI and Carbon Markets

International Finance Corporation: She Wins Climate Tech Accelerator

Klarna: AI for Earth: Winter Cohort

Milkywire: AI for Earth: Winter Cohort

Salesforce: AI x Nature Tech Accelerator

World Wildlife Fund US: AI for Earth: WWF

Our impact and recognition is your impact and recognition.

Questions, ideas, or want to talk about fall programming? anna@climatecollective.org

Building AI fluency - as a community!

Earlier this month, 40 senior women in sustainability roles across business, nonprofit, philanthropy and multilateral development joined our 6th edition of the AI for Earth program [AI for Earth: Women in Climate].

While direct-to-consumer programs are rare for us as a small nonprofit, we were motivated by requests from incredible women in our network - reaching out to ask for a program tailored to senior decision makers ready to level up, in community.

Now is the right time. For us and for them. After 18 months of AI fluency training, surveying and M&E at Climate Collective we’re seeing some robust patterns around learning journey, efficiency gains and frameworks that participants deploy right away. Today, we can design for outcomes from the start, with more clarity on what the best AI users do differently, and what tactics and tools are most useful for leveling up all staff of an organization.

It feels like we’re in an inflection point where AI fluency needs to be treated like critical infrastructure across our ecosystem. It is more than a personal or organizational edge; it is a collective tide that, once harnessed, elevates the sector at large.

Will we ever have a chance like this again? An opportunity to fundamentally redefine the trajectory of our entire sector?

Not surprisingly, the Women in Climate kick-off was full of energy and felt almost like a class reunion. Many participants have worked side by side for years or know each-other from the conference circuit - we all quickly realized how much we have in common.

I’m personally really grateful for the trust they have put in Climate Collective - to be their partner in a time of disruption and transition.

Productivity Gains from our Programs

Here are some productivity gains we’ve measured across participants after our programs:

• Confidence Leap: Participant confidence in using AI tools for daily work surged by 105%

• Multiplier Effects: 92% of participants shared their learnings with colleagues internally, reaching teams as large as 60+ staff members, indicating multiplication effects.

• Fundraising Speed: One organization achieved a 10x increase in proposal output and speed, which became the primary driver for meeting a $300,000 fundraising goal during the program.

• Reporting Efficiency: Ecological reporting time was slashed by 75%, moving from 8 hours per site to just 2 hours, allowing conservationists to spend less time on admin and more on core work.

• Strategic Speed: Strategic advocacy directions were developed 5x faster (hours instead of days) using AI-assisted research and synthesis.

• Content Volume Boost: One partner increased their science communication frequency from monthly to daily while spending less than 30 minutes a week.

• Workload Reduction: Organizations observed a 30–40% reduction in administrative workload from new tools, specifically aimed at reducing team burnout.

💫 If you are looking to upskill your team, your portfolio of grantees or can think of a group of organizations that need a boost - let us know.

We’re currently booking fall programs.

Our Growing Community of Supporters

We couldn’t do this without our incredible partners, and are grateful for your support, LinkedIn shoutouts, and public endorsements. Some of you open doors to rooms we can’t access alone, and introduce us to strategic partners we haven’t yet met.

Here is a shoutout to some of you, helping us expand our work:

• Klarna and Milkywire: [AI for Earth: Winter Cohort]

• High Tide Foundation and Arm: [AI for Earth: Women in Climate Cohort]

• International Finance Cooperation: [She Wins Climate Tech Accelerator]

• Salesforce and Arm: [AI x Nature Tech Accelerator]

• World Wildlife Foundation US: [AI for Earth: WWF]

• Conservation International: [AI for Earth: CI]

• High Tide Foundation: [AI and Carbon Markets]

Our impact and recognition is your impact and recognition.

The Power of In-Person Convenings - and Oceans, source of all life.

I had the opportunity to go deep (!) on all things Oceans at the ‘Villars Institute Ocean Forum’, in early March. The conversations left me with a mix of sadness, anxiety, wonder and inspiration.

I was reminded that all life requires water. That oceans feed the living systems that keeps us alive. But Sylvia Earle told us point blank that we’re currently killing our life support system.

Johan Rockstrom concluded one of this talks stating that “we have the last, best, chance there will ever be to take care of this planet”.

It’s not clear to me exactly how Climate Collective can leverage our community and tech expertise in service of oceans yet - but it’s something I’m actively thinking about.

If you’re doing the same - reach out and we’ll grab a virtual coffee.

A big thanks to Keith, Emma and the Villars Institute for including us!

💫 THE OPPORTUNITY

• Within our AI for Earth program, a powerful ecosystem is emerging.

• Our participants are building capstone tools that don't just solve problems—they redefine them.

• These use cases are vetted, road-tested, and already being shared among peers.

• We see a path to a standardized AI for Impact tech stack that can lift the entire sector, lowering costs and amplifying impact for thousands of organizations.

• We are looking for a partner who shares this vision and wants to experiment at the frontier with us.

• Is this you? Let’s talk.

A final thought.

Harvard Business Review just published new findings that resonate with what we’re seeing across the organizations and individuals we train:

-> AI adoption in large organizations (or small!) does not happen organically or evenly. Instead, driving use that is meaningful and creates value requires more deliberate intervention than simply making tools available to employees.

-> Rethink upskilling. Its more effective to help people build confidence in how to work with AI effectively within their specific job/role. Hands-on, application-based training with a peer-network / community / accountability buddy makes a measurable difference.

We see these tactics generate real lifts in knowledge retained, confidence in making good technology choices, understanding and mitigation of risks, transforming operations and delivering more impactful programs. And we now have the data to show it.

💫 18 months ago, I teamed up with my friend and former colleague Samhir Vasdev of Dev Design to create the most impactful AI training for sustainability leaders. 🌱 We call it [AI for Earth].

In a year when AI accelerated faster than our sector’s ability to govern or apply it well, we focused on helping climate and nature organizations move from reactive experimentation to confident, purposeful use of AI.

We..

…ran five high-impact programs, supporting 67 climate and nature organizations from 30 countries to integrate AI across their work and deepen their impact.

…partnered with ten exceptional funders: the Patrick J McGovern Foundation, Arm, Crusoe, UNDP, Conservation International, the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation, Salesforce, Klarna, and Milkywire.

…supported 25 female tech founders, as the implementation partner for the IFC’s She Wins Climate EURASIA Accelerator, a 9-month, equity-free accelerator for women-led climate-tech startups.

…brought together 100 climate and technology experts to advance the use of AI for nature conservation and biodiversity restoration at the AI Explores Summit during NY Climate Week.

…doubled down on our partnership with the World Bank’s CIVIC alliance, building AI fluency among 20 civil society organizations across LatAm and Africa, prototyping AI tools to support their climate justice mandates.

…convened two expert roundtables at the sidelines of London Climate Action Week (in partnership with Wellcome Trust, ERI and Goals House), and NY Climate Week (in partnership with Spotify, ERI and Doris Duke Foundation), bringing together researchers, technologists and corporate leaders to explore the opportunities AI presents to mitigate climate change.

…developed and launched an Indigenous People’s Data Framework with partners NaturaTechLAC and KinrayHub to strengthen data sovereignty and ethical practices across the nature data sector, launched at COP31 in Belem.

…backed nine AI-first climate startups, strengthening their Product Market Fit, facilitated customer introductions and matched them with future investors (in partnership with the Patrick J McGovern Foundation, Arm, Crusoe, UNDP).

…contributed to emerging practice and thought leadership in sectoral, national and international contexts, via opinion pieces, keynotes, panel discussions, podcasts and newsletters.

So what’s next for 2026?

1. We will continue to run our 3 successful programs:

• [AI for Earth]

  • Our core AI literacy program, designed for climate and nature organizations operating under increasing pressure to deliver amid shrinking sector resources.

    • 93% became more confident identifying AI opportunities within their organization

    • 100% would recommend the program to their peers

    • At the end of the program, 100% of respondents reported feeling comfortable using AI tools at work, up from 60% before the program.

      • This is genuinely the most important training I’ve ever participated in.”
        — Michael Hoffman, Rare

• [AI Tech Accelerators]

  • While the number of AI tools continues to grow, few are designed to accelerate climate and nature solutions, or are designed responsibly. We design explicitly for participation — recognizing persistent gender and representation gaps in AI innovation, and building selection and support processes to address them.

    • 100% of teams said participation was a good use of their time

    • 85% expect to apply the learning in their startups and would recommend the program to other founders

      • “I wish we had the tools and capabilities we learned in this accelerator before launching our company as it’s put us on a much stronger footing.” — Chad Gibbson, Neuralwatt

• Convening and Community

  • We convene leaders to explore the unresolved questions shaping AI’s role in climate and nature, and ignite action. As understanding and data continue to evolve in real time, we focus on curating small groups of decision-makers, with an emphasis on building trust and alignment among groups that rarely interact.

2. We will double down on what’s working.

   1. Partnering with Impact funds, philanthropies or development partners with a portfolio of grantees that they want to level up is a great match for our cohort-based community first programming.

   2. Doubling down on what’s uniquely human about our AI trainings and programming is the right thing do to, as the risk isn’t slow adoption anymore — but uneven, uncritical adoption that deepens existing power gaps.

3. We’ll continue to invest in ecosystem support, our growing community and strategic partnerships.

   1. Take a look at our calendar below - are there opportunities for us to team up?

February

Capstone project showcase for our current ‘AI for Earth’ cohort, supported by Klarna and Milkywire. If you’re curious to learn more about what they are building, follow along here.

Demo Day for the ‘She Wins Climate’ EURASIA cohort, supported by IFC. Introducing this group of 25 female founders to investors.

March

Launch of our next ‘AI for Earth’ cohort. This time we’re curating a community of Women in Climate in an effort to bridge the widening gender gap in building and using AI. We have a few slots left if you know a female powerhouse in Sustainability that could benefit from AI and a supportive community.

April

Launch of our next AI x Tech Accelerator, supported by Salesforce and Arm. This round will focus on ‘nature and communities’ and we’re looking for 1-2 partners to join us in advancing innovation in the intersection of Nature and AI.

Our CEO will join Climate Collective advisor Andrew Means at the Good Tech Summit in Washington DC, deliver a keynote and hosting a panel on ‘AI and Sustainability’. April 6-8. Will you be in town - if so, let’s book a coffee.

May

AI x Tech Accelerator Demo Day - Nature tech startups.

Capstone Project showcase for AI for Earth - Women in Climate

June

London Climate Action Week June 20-28

July

ITU, AI for Good Summit, Geneva

August

Team is OFF-line. Some of us will be fishing and island hopping in Maine..

A final thought.

Recent research from Harvard indicate that AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it. They found that AI use at work did not lead to more efficiency and productivity - but overwhelm and burnout.

To us, this is the difference between having AI skills and having AI fluency. Having AI fluency makes all the difference, and that’s what we’re building in our programs.

So, what’s the

difference between AI skills and AI fluency? One of our guest speakers and partners Tim Lockie of The Human Stack said it best:

• AI literacy is like learning Spanish vocabulary. You can order food. You can ask for directions. You know enough to survive.

• AI fluency is when you can negotiate a business deal, tell a joke, or write a love letter. You stop thinking about the words and start thinking about the meaning.

For nonprofits, that looks like this:

• Literacy: “Can I use ChatGPT to write a donor email?” (Yes.)

• Fluency: “Should I use AI for this donor email, and if so, how do I ensure it matches our voice while saving time for the whole team?” (That’s a fundamentally different question.)

If you want to build AI fluency across your team, organization or department. Let us know. We’re currently booking Fall 2026 cohorts: Adam@climatecollective.org

COP30 is officially on!

At Climate Collective we’re ready for the emotional rollercoaster that COP is.

Frustration, celebration, inspiration and hope, all blended together with blue-zone badges, panel fatigue, tech-issues and miles and miles of walking. This time with the healing sounds of the rainforest as the backdrop. Who could wish for more?

Already overwhelmed?

Here is a COP-free update from the frontlines of ‘Making tech work for Climate and Nature’ - Let’s dive in!

The debate about AI’s net usefulness to society is raging on with increasingly polarized positions. It’s no surprise perhaps that the conversation is just as intense when it comes to Ai’s environmental impact.

Over the last year Climate Collective have been running AI readiness trainings, in addition to our regular Tech Accelerator programming. It’s been humbling and inspiring to support some of the most impactful conservation organizations in the world, leading African civil society groups, and Latin American climate justice networks on their AI journey. We have learned a lot about what nonprofits think they need - and what they end up choosing when it comes to AI transition. No doubt are the possibilities exhilarating. We’re particularly excited about the idea of leveraging automation and augmentation, and eventually agentic AI, to design sustainability preferences from the start - make planetary aligned choices convenient or even invisible across products and services - see more in our whitepaper.

As with all these types of discussions, a lot of misleading claims and information are circulating. We keep referencing these three papers and their findings to bring clarity and structure to the conversation:

• Green and intelligent: the role of AI in the climate transition, by LSE and Systemiq’s paper, July 2025:

  • “Advancements in AI in power, transport and food consumption could reduce global emissions of greenhouse gases by 3.2 to 5.4 billion tonnes of carbon-dioxide-equivalent annually by 2035, (..) and outweigh increases from global power consumption of data centres and AI.”

• International Energy Agency’s Special Report, May 2025:

  • “The energy footprint of AI will be determined by its deployment in service of sustainability. Currently, there is no momentum for widespread adoption of AI for emissions reduction”.

• Earth Alignment Principles for AI by Gaffney et al, March 2025:

  • “Unless developed in line with planetary boundaries, AI will erode recent sustainability gains”

It’s clear that it will require a lot of coordination for regulation to move fast enough to mitigate AI’s inherent environmental footprints and incentivize green handprints.

This was a missed opportunity during New York Climate Week, as most AI-themed events during NY Climate Week (and there were MANY) focused more on ‘show-and-tell’ and less on ‘lifting the hood’. Across hundreds of events with AI in their title, most centered around a specific tool showcasing rather than a conversation around how to coordinate upskilling or manage rising environmental footprints of AI.

Climate Collective did our best to defy this trend - and are looking to repeat the AI Explorer Summit at San Francisco Climate Week. Join us this time?

🌍 CLIMATE COLLECTIVE HEADLINES

Together with International Finance Cooperation we launched a Tech Accelerator focused on Female Founders building Climate Tech in EURASIA: She Wins Climate. This incredible group of 25 founders have taken us by storm with their dedication and drive. They are being coached by Product-Market-Fit guru Peter Nocchiero of Alternate Futures, AI Readiness Expert Samhir Vasdev and will learn from a range of experts and mentors.

We gathered 100 climate and nature leaders during the AI EXPLORER SUMMIT. Together with long-term partners UNDP, World Bank and Conservation International, we convened around a more honest take on where and how AI can be helpful to sustainability outcomes, what ethical and environmental risk it poses and how nonprofits can get started on their AI Journey.

We hosted a room full of corporate sustainability peers during a round table on ‘AI as a Catalytic Climate Technology’ focused on how to leverage AI for ESG and corporate sustainability agendas while staying earth aligned. Overall, Climate Week was a smashing success for Climate Collective and friends.

We teamed up with new partners like Klarna, Spotify and Milkywire building intentional community, hosting honest conversations (over great food) and connecting over the once-in-a-generational opportunity that AI can be for people and planet.

Together with TechSalon’s Wayan Vota and The Sidebar’s Seth Cochran we hosted a conversation on AI’s footprint vs handprints, and implications for the growing digital divide between Global Majority and Minority. Discussion and reflections HERE.

• We published a whitepaper with our friends at Exponential Roadmap Initiative and Doconomy making the point that AI Agents can be the next climate influencers. We argue that by designing around planetary alignment from the start - in AI models, applications and programs - Agents will help reinforce positive ‘handprints’ from AI. The time to do this is now - and HERE is how.

• Climate Collectives London Roundtable on Responsible AI was featured in our partner Arm Inc’s Sustainability Report. Greening compute is a cornerstone of mitigating AI’s footprint and we’re proud to partner with the Arm Sustainability team on our Tech Accelerator work. A big congratulations to Arm for their FYE25 Highlights, reported in their latest Sustainability Report.

  • 76% emissions reduction against FYE20 baseline.

  • 100% renewable electricity since FYE23.

📣 COLLECTIVE WINS

• [The VERIFIED carbon market] Over the last year we have participated in the formation of the ‘Verified Carbon Market Initiative (VCM+). Led by the High Tide Foundation, ZOMALAB, and the Bezos Earth Fund, it represents an important next step in transforming the carbon market – advancing from today’s voluntary systems toward an equitable, transparent, and high-integrity verified carbon market (VCM+). HERE is more.

  • A contrasting view is offered by Lisa Sachs of Columbia Climate School, taking a swing against Carbon Markets as a distraction for real climate action. This post is gaining a lot of attention and is a good read regardless if you’re in camp VCM or not - don’t miss the rich discussion in the comments.

• [People-Centered AI for the win] Humanity AI Commits $500 Million to Build a People-Centered Future for AI. A broad coalition of philanthropic leaders support this five-year initiative dedicated to making sure people have a stake in the future of artificial intelligence (AI). Climate as a category is folded under ‘security’. The MacArthur Foundation has more HERE

• [The Deal of the Year?] Carbon Direct acquires Pachama, a win for carbon market integrity and the climate/nature tech sector overall. Pachama’s digital MRV capabilities bring transparency and rigor to forest carbon projects at a time when the market needs both. This is great news defying a sluggish climate M&A market.

• [Nature + Tech = Hope] Nature’s own solutions paired with technology advances that help us to see, act and scale better helps us stay in the race. World Resources Institute and Google just released a report titled “ Unlocking AI’s transformative potential to protect and restore nature” that reminds us that AI’s unique superpower is in processing vast amounts of information and identifying patterns invisible to the human eye. These capabilities hold the potential to make nature protection and restoration more accessible, affordable and effective for everyone.

🔗 THE TOOLBOX

• TOOL: We’ve been looking for tools to track datacenter build out and its energy consumption. Here are three we like:

  • Global Energy Monitor is a CA based nonprofit building an open guide to the world’s energy system

  • Cleanview tracks 10,000+ clean energy and data center projects, 500+ developers, and key market trends in real-time - and has a free trial,

  • Halcyon is a deep research software for energy professionals and offers deep technical insights and data.

• TAKE: Ethan Mollick - Samhir’s AI guru - offered this framework to those considering whether to upgrade to a paid genAI plan or stay on the free version. His Newsletter ‘One Useful Thing’ HERE.

• TRACT: Building AI literacy is a defining challenge in the future of education and the workforce. That also hits close to home, as many of us with kids are scratching our heads on how to protect and support them in their AI exposure. aiEDU just launched Version 2.0 of their AI Readiness Framework, a free guide to help educators, schools, and communities prepare students for success in an AI-powered world. This updated framework blends AI literacy with critical human skills like collaboration and problem-solving - we’ve already shared it with our kids schools.

We’re a little late so please enjoy this bumper special! A lot here…

This summer at Climate Collective, we’ve closed out our first AI x Green CIVIC Tech Accelerator in partnership with the World Bank Group, piloted our AI Literacy training for climate and nature organizations (AI x Earth) with Conservation International, onboarded two new corporate sponsors (more on that next month) and had time to enjoy summer travels (Portugal, Maine, Vancouver, Michigan).

With the help of the brilliant Jen Stebbing we’ve improved clarity in our communications. Better describing WHO we are:

• Climate Collective is a nonprofit that is accelerating the responsible use of technology to deliver climate and nature impact at scale

WHAT we do:

• We build capacity in nonprofits and civic organizations, back underrepresented tech-entrepreneurs, and convene cross-sector leaders to drive solutions that are equitable, scalable, and rooted in real-world impact) and

WHY we do this:

• Technology offers a once-in-a-generation opportunity to accelerate progress on climate and nature goals and address growing inequalities. But left to its own, AI might entrench the very problems we aim to solve. Climate Collective exists to ensure that the tools shaping our future are designed and deployed to serve people and the planet.

We are looking forward to a busy fall. Here are some highlights:

• Launching a new cohort for our AI for Earth program, helping nature organizations deepen their real-world impact with the use of open source AI tools

• Building business skills and AI fluency among female climate tech entrepreneurs in Eurasia, in partnership with IFC

• Recruiting naturetech entrepreneurs for our AI Tech Accelerator (see our AI x Climate program from this spring)

• And sprinting towards NY Climate Week where we are running 4 (!) events, ranging from the AI Explorers Summit for 100 climate and nature leaders, to action-oriented roundtables, intimate dinners and a vibrant TechSalon at the Sidebar.

Speaking of NYCW, we wanted to highlight the deepening of our partnership with the Exponential Roadmap Initiative (ERI). Back in June at London Climate Action Week, we brought leaders together with the ERI to start shaping a shared vision for how AI can supercharge climate and nature goals. The result: the beginnings of a roadmap for responsible adoption. This first conversation clarified a shared intent amongst participants across business, technology and climate communities for AI to be a force for emissions reduction and climate action. Next, we’re building on this dialogue in New York Climate Week with a focus on tipping points: the big shifts AI can unlock for climate and nature, and the practical tipping points for organizations and individuals trying to get there. We will try to answer - what will it take for corporate sustainability teams to make sure their AI work is ‘Earth Aligned’.

If you’re interested in joining this conversation, you can register interest HERE– capacity is limited with attendance curated to ensure leadership representation across geographies and sectors.

Thank you,

The Climate Collective team

🌍 CLIMATE COLLECTIVE HEADLINES 🌍

• Building AI fluency in Civil society is so important. This is why we’re hosting the first AI Explorers Summit hosted with TechChange, Conservation International and UNDP in New York this NYCW! Register HERE. Flier below.

• We just wrapped our first AI x Green CIVIC Tech Accelerator, in partnership with the CIVIC team in the World Bank! If you’re curious about what the teams are building, learn more about them HERE. Curious about the experience? Here are two quotes from participants:

  • “The course was a turning point for my work at FALA – inspiring, practical, and transformative. I left empowered, equipped, and already making real-world change.”

    • Thais Lazzeri, Founder, FALA (Brazil)

  • “This has been a richly rewarding experience, demystifying generative AI in a safe, non-judgmental environment. I highly recommend it to any mission-oriented founders and leaders wishing to get to grips with the tools of tomorrow, today.”

    • Yame Nkgowe, Founder, Africa Place & Equity Cities Foundation (Botswana)

• AI for Earth is our newest program for AI skills building, designed to deepen the impact of climate and nature nonprofits by building AI fluency for key roles and programs. It’s different from other AI-training programs in three ways:

  • It’s tech-agnostic, meaning we share a wide variety of AI models and tools, being transparent about their pros-and-cons.

  • It focuses on AI’s environmental footprint, helping community organizations and nonprofits understand the technology and its dependencies, and zoom in on the tipping points to mitigate harm.

  • While key elements will remain live (as our trainers are the best and participants insist that live is the most impactful delivery channel), we’re complementing our live-sessions with scaled programming using modern AI tools and techniques. It will be modularized, on demand, and considerate of global contexts and cultures.

• Speaking of results. We recently celebrated a milestone. Together with Dev Design we have trained more than 1,000 individuals, with an average approval rating of 96%. For our most recent Accelerator--which included 20 organizations and 40 individuals–the closing survey found that:

  • 100% of respondents recommend the program to their peers

  • 94% of respondents became more confident identifying AI use cases at their organization.

  • 80% of organizations deployed new AI use cases during the accelerator.

  • 100% of respondents were comfortable using AI tools after the program, compared to 60% before.

• We are not going to COP this year, but are supporting the launch of the first Indigenous Data Sovereignty Governance Framework with our partners Kinray Hub and NaturaTech launching in Brazil. The framework is designed as a practical, easy-to-apply tool with accessible standards. We’re currently seeking feedback on the draft framework ahead of COP-launch. Curious to learn more? WarīN K. Flores, founder, Kinray Hub will be speaking at Climate Collective’s inaugural AI Explorers Summit.

📣 COLLECTIVE WINS 📣

• Meet our new friends - Green Software Foundation. They sit at the intersection of AI development and sustainability. Read their Green AI Position Paper HERE from last year. Want to learn more about green software principles? Their webinar has been viewed over 100,000 times.

• Thank you Nick Martin, Tech Change, for this thread on AI Skills Development HERE

• This week OpenAI launched its 50M fund for non profits and mission focused organizations working to solve humanity’s hardest problems. The ethos: that we should listen to and learn from organizations already leading that work on the frontlines. Read Samhir’s take HERE on what we’re hoping for this program. The application window will close on October 8, 2025 and grants will be distributed by year’s end.

• Congratulations to Climate Collective Accelerator participants Savimbo, and long term community members Cercarbono and EcoRegistry - for launching the world’s first certified biodiversity credits on the international exchange emsurge! A massive breakthrough. More HERE

• Our friends at Cecil are back with another big dataset launch. Cecil is collaborating with the IBAT Alliance (Integrated Biodiversity Assessment Tool (IBAT)) to bring their datasets to the Cecil nature data platform for commercial use.

• Andrew Means, Climate Collective advisor, is suggesting the nonprofit sector should adopt a Platform Model instead of its traditional Service Model. Something we think about a lot. With our AI x Earth program we’re building a platform model, looking to serve thousands of nonprofits in the coming years. But it's a novel approach and we’re yet to secure sufficient funding to build out all functions. Andrews points out: “McKinsey found platform-model solutions achieve 10x the reach at 1/10th the cost. Yet most of us are still thinking service delivery.” Read more HERE.

🔗 THE TOOLBOX 🔗

• TOOL: Nonprofit AI Cookbook for OpenAI Jam Day: We love Decoded Futures guide to getting started with prompting ChatGPT for common nonprofit challenges HERE

• TAKE: Tey Bannerman on “Human in the Loop” and moving towards intentional systems “we mean to create” HERE

• TRACT: London School of Economics releases new research showing that AI could reduce global emissions annually by 3.2 to 5.4 billion tonnes of carbon-dioxide-equivalent by 2035 HERE

Happy August!

Last month Climate Collective participated in the AI for Good summit in Geneva. Hosted by The International Telecommunication Union (ITU), this annual moment is one of the few global platforms to shape the direction, regulation and adoption of AI for positive change.

As the summit’s climate programming was largely dominated by the energy and emissions conversation, we returned to one key question: How do we support AI adoption in the climate & nature sectors while global governance standards for emissions are still under development? Informed by our participation in Geneva and new learnings from the pilot of our AI X Green Civic Tech. Accelerator, we’ve shaped 3 recommendations to accelerate action with this question in mind:

1. Support efforts to create universal emissions standards for AI: We all know that AI has a significant carbon footprint, but quantifying and measuring the environmental footprint of AI is still a moving target. We support efforts, like the ITU’s recent report (linked in this month’s toolbox), that offer guidance.

2. Drive tech agnostic AI Literacy training and responsible adoption: Recognizing the paradox that climate organizations central to using AI for climate are the ones most concerned about AI use and its environmental footprint - it is crucial to develop foundational, tech-agnostic AI competencies within the groups we rely on for a livable planet. We cannot rely only on AI companies to resource such efforts.

3. Ensure that nature and climate leaders have a seat at the table: We had the pleasure of connecting with our colleagues from Conservation International and WWF in Geneva. Guiding participation from the nature and climate sectors in global AI development initiatives will help ensure that AI is guided and regulated by mission-driven, climate-focused organizations.

With these recommendations, we are now looking to NY Climate Week in September, where we will be launching the inaugural AI Explorers Summit with Conservation International and Tech.Change. We are also convening leaders around how to responsibly deploy AI in service of climate and nature goals.

If you will be in NY and/ or are interested in partnering with us please do reach out!

Thank you,

The Climate Collective team

🌍 CLIMATE COLLECTIVE HEADLINES 🌍

• The AI x Green CIVIC Tech Accelerator continues with lectures on Automation, building Gems, navigating LLMs and matching AI tools to comms and fundraising tasks. We’ve also hosted guest speakers like digital sustainability expert James Martin, ClimateTRACE and Earth Index champion Mikel Maron and James Zhang founder of Arboretica and NetzeroAI. Learn more about the participating changemakers HERE.

• We’ve deepened our partnership with the World Bank at CIVIC: The Civil Society and Social Innovation Alliance team, under the leadership of Aly Rahim. Here Aly articulates the importance of supporting CSOs in their digital transition.

• We’re launching our first AI Explorers Summit in September during NY Climate Week alongside Conservation International and Tech Change. The goal of the Summit is to make AI understandable, actionable, and responsible. We’re looking for Summit Partners to help us realize this work– reach out if you’re interested in getting involved!

📣 COLLECTIVE WINS 📣

• UNDP published the NDC Insights series HERE, a coordinated UN system wide effort to support developing countries in their preparation of new NDCs.

• Climate Collective’s founder, Anna Lerner, co-hosts the Co₂ming Clean podcast. In the most recent episode they question “Is REDD+ a Savior of Forests or Corporate Greenwashing in Disguise?”

• Calls for the ITU’s AI for Climate Innovation Factory 2025 live pitching session – 1st session are now open, more information HERE

🔗 THE TOOLBOX 🔗

• TOOL: We are excited by developments in earth observation AI. Read Anna’s commentary HERE to be directed to tools, initiatives and commentaries by Google, Pachama and Clay.

• TAKE: Asim Hussain, Executive Director at Green Software Foundation’s take on measuring AI energy consumption HERE

• TRACT: The ITU’s climate team released their recommendations for standardizing AI emission metrics this week: Measuring What Matters: How to Assess AI’s Environmental Impact HERE

Welcome to the second edition of Compass - we’re bringing reflections from recent gatherings, our Accelerator Climate-Cohort wrap-up, and a launch of an AI literacy training of 20 civil society orgs, in partnership with CIVIC, a World Bank Initiative. Let’s dive in.

Against the stark warning from our partners at UNDP that for the first time in 35-years humanity isn’t progressing, and the realization that we only have 1.5 years left of our carbon budget– LCAW was a timely opportunity to regroup as a sector and map a pathway forward.

Joining a panel organized by Exponential Roadmap Initiative and We Don’t Have Time - I was asked if AI is an exponential climate solution. While technology isn’t ever fully neutral - as it reflects the priorities and beliefs of its creators - I don’t think AI in itself is good or bad for climate. I would argue that leveraging AI with intent can make it one of our most important allies in the fight for a better planet.

Climate Collective’s LCAW was driven by this intent. Together with the Exponential Roadmap Initiative, we hosted a roundtable with 30 leaders across technology, corporate sustainability and the climate and nature community to question what it will take for AI to actually drive exponential impact across nature/ climate goals. Thank you also to Wellcome Trust, who sponsored this event. This was just the beginning and we’re looking forward to building on conversations during New York Climate Week in September. You can see a summary of this discussion HERE.

In addition to hosting our own conversation, we joined a Climate-KIC workshop on steering AI innovation and entrepreneurship toward climate outcomes, and a roundtable by Bridging Ventures and Confluence Philanthropy exploring how to safeguard humanity and reclaim agency in AI’s societal transformation.

Thanks to Climate Collective supporters and friends Arm, Salesforce, Google, KPMG, Deloitte, MIT, Stockholm Environmental Institute, GSMA and others for engaging thoughtfully and constructively.

Anna

Images from Climate Collective, Exponential Roadmap Initiative & Wellcome Trust’s LCAW roundtable

🌍 CLIMATE COLLECTIVE HEADLINES 🌍

• The first step in our AI Literacy for Earth program: Climate Collective launched its first AI Literacy program for Civic Society Organizations (CSOs) this month and in partnership with the World Bank’s CIVIC program! We’re supporting 20 CSOs and social innovators focused on climate challenge, helping them build AI literacy and accelerate responsible AI use for climate solutions -- with a focus on organizations closest to the problem. Stay tuned for updates here.

• Wrapping the 2025 AI Climate Accelerator: Last month we closed out the Spring 2025 cohort of the AI x Climate Accelerator with Founders’ Week, a celebration of the bold founders and teams who trusted us with their vision over the past 12 weeks. Reflecting on the experience, teams told us this was “exactly the right program at exactly the right time” in their journey, and that they “wished we had the tools we learned from this accelerator before we launched our company”! Learn more HERE!

• Shared Futures participation: Climate Collective showed up in D.C last month for the 'Building Shared Futures: AI as a Force for Creativity, Society, and Climate Resilience' event. Thank you to Vilas Dhar, our partners at The Patrick J. McGovern Foundation and Vivian Schiller at Aspen Digital for hosting, catch our highlights HERE.

---

📣 COLLECTIVE WINS 📣

• Klarna’s AI for Climate Resilience Program: This program is now live with the call for proposals officially open! The AI for Climate Resilience Program will support pioneering projects that harness artificial intelligence to help climate-vulnerable communities adapt and thrive.

• Our friends at Crusoe and Neuralwatt come together: Neuralwatt needed serious GPU compute and deep hardware access that was had cost-effectiveness, technical freedom, and climate alignment. Enter Crusoe– delighted to see these two meet our AI Accelerator!

• UNDP Funding Windows Technical Engagement Group: UNDP hosted a tactical funding session to explore how AI can accelerate nature and climate action—while ensuring equity, inclusion, and sustainability remain at the core.

• Stabiliti and Nattergal Ltd new partnership: Stabiliti and Nattergal Ltd are piloting a partnership, helping to power the future of biodiversity markets and support meaningful Nature restoration.

🛠️ THE TOOLBOX 🔗

• TOOL: Kolab: Collaboration Reimagined! We've been loving using this all-in-one tool for real-time, facilitated collaboration in our programs and trainings.

• TAKE: We love a coherent rant to enthusiastically nod our heads to, read Samhir Vasdev’s take on AI agents vaporware HERE

• TRACT: All of our work should be underpinned by the Earth Alignment Principle for AI, read this HERE. Reach out if you don’t have access and we can share a PDF. Thank you to Owen Gaffney, co founder, Exponential Roadmap Initiative, for coauthoring this work and sharing at our roundtable during LCAW.

If we’re recent friends, Climate Collective is an ecosystem of technology innovators and sustainability leaders accelerating technology solutions for a more liveable planet.

Why this newsletter, and why now?

• Get insight into what’s scaling. Our programs are growing, and it’s exciting! We're launching new initiatives designed to surface high-impact tech and AI use cases for climate and nature. You'll get a first look at emerging trends, ideas, and opportunities to get involved.

• Feel a little more connected. The Collective is also growing! This newsletter is a space to spotlight what’s happening beyond individual programs, across foundations, startups, civil society, and multilaterals.

• Stay ahead of the curve. We track policy shifts and tech breakthroughs, and share stories that help you make smarter, faster decisions in areas that matter to you.

To get us started, here is something I’ve been noodling on with our CC team and partners lately— so much that it has inspired a whole new program for us. Technology and data are rapidly transforming society and we know this holds an immense promise for advancing sustainability goals. For example, AI applications could achieve 79% of UN SDGs in key sectors like agriculture, water, energy, and transport, cutting global emissions by up to 4% by 2030.

But what about AI’s inherent carbon footprint? Earlier this spring, the International Energy Agency (IEA) released a special report on Energy & AI: “The energy footprint of AI will be determined by its deployment in service of sustainability.”

IEA goes on to conclude: “Currently, there is no momentum for widespread adoption of AI for emissions reduction.” But evidence shows that AI is not currently being used to its full potential by those on the frontlines of emissions reduction and climate action.

In reality, there are many barriers to adoption: trust, ethics, sustainability, knowhow... That’s why Climate Collective wants to focus on AI literacy– building a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the opportunity, alongside a trusted and tech-agnostic view of what is out there.

To help make the catalytic potential of AI available to more climate and nature organizations globally, we are launching AI Literacy for Earth this fall. Our bold goal is to train 10,000 nonprofit staff on AI Literacy by 2027.

We’re setting out to build that momentum. This summer, we’ll be driving conversations around AI Literacy for Earth at London Climate Action Week and the AI for Global Good Summit in Geneva. If our AI literacy [program/offering] is something you want to help us scale, we would love to chat in person at any of the above convenings or online. Please reach out: anna@climatecollective.org.

We hope you enjoy this monthly round-up!

Thank you,

Anna & Team Climate Collective

🌍 CLIMATE COLLECTIVE HEADLINES 🌍

New insights for climate tech. Founders from our SF Climate Week with Crusoe:

We had a blast co-hosting the AI x Climate x Energy Founder Breakfast with our friends at Crusoe. Founded in 2018, Crusoe is rethinking what's possible at the intersection of compute and climate.

What makes Crusoe’s approach different? ⚡ They transform stranded energy into power for data centers, reducing emissions and enabling critical computing for climate innovators. It’s a powerful reminder that technology can accelerate progress and reduce impact. The conversation, kicked off by Fiaz Mohamed from Crusoe, reflected their ethos: practical, thoughtful, and focused on real solutions.

One takeaway from Jack Policar, Head of Innovation, Climate Collective: Hard tech is having a moment. In a software-heavy city, the momentum building for energy and infrastructure solutions stood out.

A new AI Literacy Partnership with CIVIC: The Civil Society and Social Innovation Alliance to unlock the power of responsible deployment of AI.

Climate Collective is partnering with CIVIC: The Civil Society and Social Innovation Alliance to unlock the power of responsible AI adoption. In the coming months, the AI x Green CIVIC Tech Accelerator will support 20 civil society organizations and social innovators in building AI literacy and accelerating the use of AI-driven climate solutions, with a strong focus on organizations closest to the challenges on the ground.

Call To Action: Are you a nonprofit organization or do you know organizations who could benefit from participating? If so, please do reach out. We are calling on sector leaders to help us find the right participants.

See HERE for the program overview.

📣 COLLECTIVE WINS 📣

• Congratulations to the 15 teams just announced for Google's Nature x AI Accelerator for LATAM & NA, especially to Savimbo (Drea Burbank, Fernando Lezama) and Renoster (Saif Bhatti, Elias Ayrey (PhD))- longstanding Climate Collective community members ✨

• Cecil is partnering with Felt to make nature data more accessible. This partnership signals Cecil’s broader vision: a belief that all users should be free to connect their data to any destination HERE

• Open Forest Protocol has partnered with Kanop to enhance the accuracy and transparency of forest restoration monitoring. Read more HERE

• Congratulations to Cedar (Toucan)! The team has acquired the Neutral platform and welcomed its co-founders as part of the team. Together, they’re building AI-powered sustainability agents to help organizations automate data gathering, analysis, and reporting aligned with climate goals

• Sebastian Manhart of Carbonfuture just released “Decode EU Carbon Removal Policy in Six Days” a FREE training on CDR and EU– sign up HERE

• Climate Collective community member Riverse has raised €5M in an oversubscribed, pre-empted seed round!

• Qarlbo Biodiversity Completes First-Ever Voluntary Biodiversity Credit Sale in the US. The Swedish Biodiversity pioneers (who made the first corporate biodiversity credit sale to Swedish bank SEB last year) just announced a major milestone for biodiversity credit markets and a huge win for nature!

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🛠️ THE TOOLBOX 🔗

• TOOL: Buffer! We’ve recently been trying to streamline our LinkedIn content, creating a more collaborative environment for our small team to edit and share. Buffer has been a great and affordable assistant HERE (all tool recs are tried, tested, and unsponsored!)

• TAKE: Listen to CC’s founder and CEO on the CO2ming Clean podcast on “The Price of Net Zero: Why Carbon Markets Matter for CDR?” HERE

• TRACT: Heard of FrugalAI? France telecom giant Orange has championed this concept for a while and just released a white paper explaining exactly what frugal AI is; ways of making AI more frugal (quantization, distributed learning, reusability, etc); and what questions need to be answered to move it forward (source:https://lnkd.in/enEg5hUj). Shorthand HERE.