climate-action
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One Small Network Teaches Corporate Colombia to Make Promises It Can Measure
It began as an international cooperation project and became the room where Colombian business turns ten UN principles into workshops, targets, reports and awkwardly useful conversations. The clever part is not the pledge - it is the machinery after the pledge.
Rethink Ireland’s big bet: good causes need good operations
Cash gets a social project started. Rethink Ireland adds the planning, people and practical support that help it grow - with government and private donors sharing the bill.
UN Global Compact Network USA puts the sustainability pledge to work
The U.S. network turns a CEO’s signature into emissions inventories, human-rights due diligence and peer learning. Its real test comes after the welcome letter.
Mohawk College Turned the Community College Into an R&D Partner - Here’s the Playbook
The Hamilton college found a sharper edge than adding more courses: let students solve live industry problems, let employers borrow the labs, and make applied research part of the education rather than a campus side project.
The Soap Bottle That Thinks It’s a Constitution
Dr. Bronner’s built a $209.8 million business around concentrated soap, crowded labels and a stubborn idea: the values should be inside the operating model, not parked in an ad campaign.
The World’s Most Ambitious Group Project Is Rewriting Its Operating Manual
At 80, the United Nations is part parliament, part emergency room and part global standards desk. Its new UN80 reform drive asks whether an institution built for 1945 can move at the speed - and survive the politics - of 2026.
New Belgium Brewing
A bicycle trip supplied the romance. Voodoo Ranger supplied the scale. Thirty-five years after its basement debut, New Belgium is testing whether craft-beer values can survive national reach, restless consumers and a change of ownership.
KEEN
KEEN is a privately held American outdoor footwear and accessories brand founded in 2003 and headquartered in Portland, Oregon. Best known for the toe-protecting Newport hybrid sandal, KEEN designs hiking boots, sandals, casual shoes and safety work footwear (KEEN Utility) that blend outdoor performance with a durability-first, low-impact ethos it calls 'Consciously Created.' The company has been PFAS-free since 2018, uses recycled and agricultural-waste materials, manufactures part of its line in the U.S., and channels giving through The KEEN Effect. It sells direct-to-consumer online and through retail partners worldwide.
CLIP
CLIP is a Brooklyn-based clean mobility company that makes a portable, tool-free device that clips onto a regular bicycle's front fork and turns it into an e-bike in seconds. Founded in 2018 by Som Ray and Clement de Alcala, the friction-drive motor weighs under 10 pounds, fits in a backpack, and provides pedal assistance up to 15 mph - positioning itself as a far cheaper, lighter alternative to buying a full e-bike. The company sells to consumers starting at $499 and is pushing a lower-cost model, BOLT, aimed at bike-share fleets and emerging markets.
Terraton
Terraton is a San Francisco climate-tech company that turns agricultural waste into biochar - a stable, carbon-rich material that locks away CO2 for centuries. It packages financing, hardware, and software into a 'biochar business in a box' so agribusinesses in emerging markets can launch carbon-removal facilities, while corporate buyers get verified, high-durability carbon credits delivered at scale. Backed by an $11.5M seed round co-led by Lowercarbon Capital and Gigascale Capital, Terraton already runs facilities in Ghana and Kenya.
Commons
Commons (formerly Joro) is an Oakland-based climate fintech that turns everyday spending into climate action. Its free mobile app links to users' cards to reveal the carbon footprint behind each purchase, rates brands to cut through greenwashing, and rewards people for buying better and less. Founded by Sanchali Pal, Commons has grown a community of over 450,000 members and raised roughly $14M from investors including Sequoia Capital, Amasia, and Jay-Z's Arrive.
Beth Gerstein
Beth Gerstein co-founded Brilliant Earth in 2005 after a personal search for an ethically sourced engagement ring turned up nothing worth buying. An engineer by training (Duke BS at 19, MIT MS, Stanford MBA), she built a company that now generates $422 million in annual revenue and trades on Nasdaq (BRLT). Brilliant Earth is the rare luxury brand that treats supply chain transparency as a marketing advantage rather than a compliance headache - offering Beyond Conflict Free diamonds with traceable origins, lab-grown stones, and recycled metals. Under Gerstein's leadership, the company has donated over $2 million through the Brilliant Earth Foundation, partnered with Dr. Jane Goodall on conservation collections, and expanded to 28+ showrooms while maintaining 14 consecutive quarters of profitability as a public company.
Sanchali Pal
Sanchali Pal is the Founder and CEO of Commons (formerly Joro), an Oakland-based climate action app that connects personal spending data to carbon footprints and rewards users for making sustainable choices. A Princeton and Harvard Business School alumna who spent six years tracking her own carbon footprint in a spreadsheet before building the app to scale that insight for everyone, she has grown Commons to 450,000+ community members, raised $14.7M including a $10M Series A backed by Sequoia Capital and Jay-Z's Arrive, earned a TIME100 Most Influential Companies listing, and is on a mission to prove that climate action and financial wellbeing are the same thing.