Collaboration & Co-Creation

New Drawdown Initiative Targets Solutions for Our Interrelated Challenges

Drawdown Nexus aims to address our Gordian knot by fostering solutions that simultaneously advance sustainable development, protect biodiversity and mitigate climate change.

Published 1 month ago | About a 4 minute read

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The confluence of economic, environmental and health challenges society faces today feels overwhelming — especially since most of our efforts to address them have been myopic and piecemeal, at best.

Recognizing the inextricability of climate change and other existential threats, Project Drawdown has launched a new initiative to identify and advance technologies and practices that not only reduce the threat of climate change, but enhance human wellbeing and protect ecosystems at the same time.

Supported by initial funding from Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies and the Doris Duke Foundation, Drawdown Nexus aims to dramatically expand humanity’s capacity to advance sustainable development, protect biodiversity and mitigate climate change simultaneously.

“Solving climate change is essential to building a future we and our children can live with,” says Project Drawdown executive director Jonathan Foley. “But without simultaneously addressing biodiversity loss and human wellbeing, what kind of a future are we really saving? Drawdown Nexus will identify and coalesce action around much-needed ‘win-win-win’ opportunities to benefit people and our planet in multiple ways at the same time.”

Drawdown Nexus builds upon prior collaborations with universities, Natural Capital Insights and the embattled USAID. It aligns with a number of science assessments from IPBES and others that increasingly illustrate the imperative of tackling our most pressing, interrelated challenges — climate change, biodiversity loss and threats to human wellbeing — namely, water and food insecurity, and health risks such as infectious disease — together. But Drawdown says Nexus will build on these efforts by collaborating across levels of influence, from local to global, to create and disseminate tools for identifying and prioritizing the full spectrum of possible solutions.

“Improving people’s lives, protecting nature and stopping climate change are interwoven challenges. Solutions need to be interwoven, too,” says senior scientist Paul West, who is leading the Drawdown Nexus initiative. “A wide range of solutions — such as reducing food loss and waste, stopping deforestation and increasing access to affordable clean energy — can all provide triple wins. In many places, realizing these triple wins requires understanding which climate and biodiversity solutions — and where — can meet people’s needs quickly. We aim to develop tools to help drive action and accelerate progress to meet all three challenges.”

In a post on the launch of Drawdown Nexus, West — along with Drawdown scientist Yusuf Jameel and policy advisor Dan Jasper — elaborate:

“Despite the interconnected nature of these challenges, we have continued to address them in silos with separate policies, institutions and frameworks designed to tackle each one individually. But thinking, planning and acting in silos has gotten us where we are today.

“Thinking outside of silos reveals new approaches. Building back better often requires building back differently — focusing on solutions at the nexus of people, nature and climate. New infrastructure, building materials and community design can be more energy efficient and better equipped to handle and evacuate from disasters. Floodplain forests soak up flood waters. Mangroves can decrease the power of storm surges and adapt to rising sea levels. Natural habitats on steep hillsides can prevent mudslides.

“Moreover, these natural systems pull carbon dioxide from the air and store it in plants, animals and soils. Concrete, metal and earthen structures can reduce risks for people but have little benefit for nature or stopping climate change. They can even put communities at greater risk if the barriers fail and people have built up more in the high-risk areas. In contrast, solutions at the nexus of people, nature and climate can help build short- and long-term resilience for communities.”

An August 2024 study from Oregon State University highlighted another example, finding that a holistic approach to conservation of coastal areas that host surf breaks simultaneously strengthens protection of climate-critical carbon stocks while boosting socio-economic health of coastal communities.