Climate Change and Environment

To protect people and the planet, we urgently need to prepare for and adapt to existing and projected impacts of climate change. Climate adaptation helps us to protect our existing resources. It can save lives and reduce the long-term costs of responding to climate hazards. It also helps to build more resilient societies and communities, capable of absorbing shock and continually evolving in a changing world. Our approach helps clients to navigate challenges to adaptation, discover and implement solutions, and support more resilient and sustainable societies.

Given the nature of the climate challenge, and the scale of change required for our current economic and social systems to adapt, there is an urgent need for stronger and more integrated strategies and action across actors and organisations at country, regional and global levels. Our work helps clients to build their organisational capacity to drive more effective climate action, interrogating strategy, developing and refining theories of change and embedding robust MEL systems into their programming. We also evaluate the impact of their interventions, providing evidence-based learning to inform their strategies, ambitions and programming.

An approach that takes human diversity as its starting point is better equipped to deepen our understanding of how actions impact communities, and build alliances for climate action at scale and pace. Our work helps clients to recognise the co-benefits that this approach can bring, identifying the sector and country specific barriers and enablers to a green, just transition. We have conducted global and national level research, assured fund-level approaches, convened discussions and developed country case studies to share examples of equitable and just climate action across sectors and countries.

Oceans, land, forests and biodiversity are being fundamentally and often irreversibly affected by climate change. Preserving life on land and in the ocean – along with the ecosystem services this provides – is critical. Using evidence-based analysis to derive knowledge and insights, we help our clients to integrate nature into their strategic approach by recognising how nature affects and is affected by the work they do. We have conducted global-level portfolio analyses of funding for oceans, forests and biodiversity as well as project specific assessments, to identify actionable recommendations to improve programming for nature renewal.

Climate change increases vulnerability and drives fragility. While the effects of climate change are highly context specific, disadvantaged and low-income communities will be hit hardest by impacts. This negatively impacts livelihoods and food security and can drive increased migration and displacement. While climate change can function as a threat multiplier and amplify the risk of conflict, conflict-affected societies are also less able to tackle the adverse effects of climate change. We work at the forefront of the climate-conflict nexus, providing knowledge and insights to help our clients understand and respond to the interdependencies between climate, fragility, displacement and conflict.

Carbon mitigation and green growth are related approaches that can reduce adverse climate impacts and promote a safer, cleaner, greener planet. We need to both reduce greenhouse gas emissions and shift to a green growth model if we are to stay in a safe operating space for humanity. Almost all countries around the world, and many companies, are committed to cutting their carbon emissions. As the world shifts away from fossil fuel dependence and towards a greener growth model we need to pilot, innovate, replicate, take innovations to scale and keep learning. Our approach helps clients to measure and monitor their progress, to test new approaches and to learn as they do this.

Sustainable cities play an important role in reducing carbon emissions and conserving our natural resources. In many countries, rapid urbanisation is fuelling national development ambitions but risks overexploitation of natural resources and can be unplanned and uncoordinated, leading to negative development and environmental outcomes, and increased vulnerability for the urban poor. We work with governments, multilateral agencies and foundations to better understand how their policies and programmes can support the development of cleaner, healthier cities. Our sustainable cities work focuses on clean air, sustainable transport, green infrastructure, urban agriculture and renewable energy.

The urgency and scale of the climate crisis requires an unprecedented transformation of our global economy. The volumes of finance going into climate mitigation and adaptation must increase many times over, and quickly, to support a systemic transition to a low carbon and climate resilient world. We support our clients with high quality research and evaluation and provide practical advice to inform and influence policy, practice and public debate on climate finance. We are a trusted partner to international organisations, donors, multilateral funds and foundations, working collaboratively with our clients to promote the effective use of scaled-up finance to meet the climate challenge.