Climate adaptation is local. Genius is everywhere.
Climate adaptation is local. Genius is everywhere.
Innovation can be shared.
Innovation can be shared.
Collaboration is at the heart of climate adaptation.
The challenges we face are too complex for any one organization or industry to disrupt. Innovative solutions require us to work across disciplines and domains – aggregating intelligence and power in order to develop, apply and scale solutions to the problems that impact every single one of us.
We must think holistically.
We must act systemically.
Great ideas are rarely formed in isolation.
How Do We Help?
Support Innovation
For community-based organizations with limited time and staff, we provide the coaching and mentoring to assemble problem-solving teams, create alliances with nontraditional partners, and develop funding for effective solutions – especially when familiar strategies don’t seem to work.
Share Learning
We support our partners, writers and thought leaders in sharing novel solutions that other communities can learn, replicate and adapt. Through our Tools and Insights page we present innovative strategies and synthesize them into practical, open source “how-to” manuals that others can put to use immediately.
Facilitate Community
We facilitate connections and exchanges between practitioners with a common interest in climate adaptation – whether they are seeking guidance from peers and experts, requesting partnerships, offering volunteer skills and time, or comparing and improving practices.
We work at the local level.
The longer we rely only on top-down, national and international approaches to save us, the less likely we are to thrive in the places we call home.
V&W Labs is focused on serving innovators and organizations who work at the local level: a place where the dangers are clear and present – and where ideation and failure are immediate and tangible.
It’s a special place where new strategies can be adjusted in real life before being adopted by others.
10%
Less than 10% of international climate funds go to local communities most directly impacted by climate change.
63%
Some 63% of Americans say climate change is currently affecting their local community either a great deal or some.
If conventional strategies worked, the problems would be solved.
In recent decades thousands, if not millions, of small-scale efforts have been launched and tested. But most have not been innovated upon, adapted and replicated.
Competing for resources, keeping secrets, and developing solutions in a vacuum: what got us here won’t get us where we need to be.
We work with organizations and social entrepreneurs who see the value in doing things differently – who are willing to share their successes and failures widely so others can learn from them and adapt their ideas to suit their own communities.
Sharing is caring – particularly when it comes to climate change.
