Elizabeth Sawin speaks on Multisolving in New Podcast
—Multisolving Institute Founder and Director Elizabeth Sawin spoke with Najia Shaukat Lupson, host of the Entangled World podcast. Entangled World explores our interrelated, existential social, economic, ecological, and technological challenges, their underlying drivers, and how a more beautiful world might emerge.
FLOWER App – Now Available
—FLOWER is now available in a new online app format to foster cross-sector collaborations that protect the climate. By allowing groups to visualize up to 8 co-benefits and the equity implications of each, FLOWER promotes multi-dimensional thinking. It helps investors, policymakers, educators, and civil society groups ensure that climate action benefits equity, jobs, health, and well-being. FLOWER was released for public use during the 2024 Climate Week NYC events. In the recording below, the designer will showcase FLOWER’s features and share examples of how FLOWER is being used to improve thinking, partnerships, and action.
FLOWER Spotlight – Eduardo Fracassi
—Meet Eduardo Fracassi, a professor at the Instituto Tecnológico de Buenos Aires (ITBA) in Argentina and a Multisolver. He works mainly throughout Latin America and has facilitated more than 360 events to date as an EN-ROADS ambassador. FLOWER has been instrumental in presenting his research on a very specific climate policy – raising the manufacturer minimum thermostat setting on all the air conditioners in Argentina from 18ºC (64.4ºF) to 25ºC (77ºF). His team’s research suggested that this change equates to a 14% increase in energy savings or $29.5 billion — the equivalent of Paraguay’s GDP at the time.
Webinar – FLOWER Immersive
—This webinar introduces the FLOWER tool adapted in an online version with a focus on equity as a pillar of Multisolving.
Viewers will learn:
Webinar – The Multisolving Way
—This webinar introduces multisolving and the Multisolving Way. People will learn:
Webinar – FLOWER: Visualizing Solutions for Equity, Climate, and Health
—This interactive webinar introduces FLOWER, which stands for Framework for Long-term, Whole-system, Equity-based Reflection. In the webinar recording Join us to network alongside people with similar interests, learn about FLOWER and the ways it can support your work, and gain insights about the potential multisolving holds to create systems change.
We especially encourage people working across multiple silos in communities, non-profits, businesses, or government to use FLOWER. This includes community leaders, teachers, and systems thinkers. However, the webinar is open to all interested in utilizing the tool.
Healey-Driscoll Administration Launches Climate Science Advisory Panel; Dr. Sawin named as panelist
—Massachusetts Governor Healey and Lieutenant Governor Driscoll launched a Climate Science Advisory Panel through the new Massachusetts Office of Climate Science (OCS). Multisolving Institute Director and Founder Dr. Elizabeth Sawin has been named to serve as a panelist.
“The creation of the Climate Science Advisory Panel will be a tremendous resource as we integrate climate action into every agency in state government,” said Climate Chief Melissa Hoffer. “We must commit to following the latest scientific findings and expand our whole-of-government approach to tackle future extreme climate events. The guidance provided by these experts will ensure that we have the latest data to promote public awareness of climate change and to make the best decisions for our communities.”
Read the full press release here.
The post Healey-Driscoll Administration Launches Climate Science Advisory Panel; Dr. Sawin named as panelist appeared first on Multisolving Institute.
Multisolving: Making Systems Whole, Healthy, and Sustainable
—Imagine the future we could build if we could effectively work across borders between nations, issue areas, jurisdictions, and departments. We could be much better prepared for the future, especially when it comes to climate change and equity.
Multisolving solutions come from achieving meaningful results across sectors. From Malaysia to Canada, we can see that coming together and collaborating across the lines that, too often, artificially divide us can accelerate progress and help us reach multiple goals at once.
Multisolving for Resilience: RITA Summit Recap
—On August, 7th Multisolving Institute Director Beth Sawin joined a panel on Community, Reciprocity, and Sustainability at the Loka Initiative’s Resilience in the Anthropocene [RITA] Summit. She spoke about four principles that can build resilience to environmental shocks in communities. We share her remarks below:
I have four principles for building community resilience I’d like to offer today. I’ll get to those four quickly, but first— two pieces of background so they make more sense. I live in Vermont, and we have been getting slammed with climate change impacts. Some have made the national news, but the disasters are ongoing.
Picture a small mountainous state, with settlements in river valleys, especially for less affluent Vermonters. Then picture a very rainy June, waterlogged soils. Then picture in one weekend in early July, six to nine inches of rain in just a few days — that’s when four to five inches is normal for the whole month. That’s the flooding that made national news. We’ve had storm after storm since then, including one that dropped another six inches on part of the state. It rained all night last night.
In my thoughts, you’ll hear this reality in Vermont but please know I’m offering the specifics to illustrate general principles that I believe apply everywhere. So please listen, beyond the specifics, for what these examples might mean for your place.
Multisolving: How Do You Know It When You See It?
—Multisolvers work at all scales and across many sectors. Yet they have four practices in common.
Disaster Recovery Efforts Can Serve More than One Goal
—This opinion piece from Dr. Sawin stems from the devastating July 2023 floods that took place in Vermont.
“A multisolving recovery would ensure that every dollar and every hour of investment serves more than one goal,” Sawin said. “It would design for the future that’s coming, not the past we once knew. It would expand the idea of recovery to include nature and community, as well as bridges and roads.”
Elizabeth Sawin speaks on multisolving in two new podcasts
—In two new podcasts, Multisolving Institute Founder and Director Elizabeth Sawin talks multisolving and system thinking. Read below to learn more.
Climate Leadership and Multisolving: A Conversation With Katharine Wilkinson of The All We Can Save Project
—Join Multisolving Institute Founder and Director Beth Sawin on Thurs., July 28 at 12pm ET for a conversation with Katharine Wilkinson, Co-Founder and Executive Director of the The All We Can Save Project. Grounded in Dr. Wilkinson’s expertise in and vision of a leaderful and feminist climate movement, the conversation will explore the ways in which the climate crisis is also a leadership crisis. What type of leadership is needed today? How can we each find our unique contribution?
Racial Equity and Multisolving: A Conversation With Nathaniel Smith of Partnership for Southern Equity
—Join Multisolving Institute Founder and Director Beth Sawin on Wed., May 4th at 12pm ET for a conversation with Nathaniel Smith, who serves as Founder and Chief Equity Officer of the Partnership for Southern Equity (PSE). PSE advances policies and institutional actions that promote racial equity and shared prosperity for all in metropolitan Atlanta and the American South. Nathaniel is also a member of the Multisolving Institute Advisory Board.
In the webinar we will explore Nathaniel’s definition of racial equity, why racial equity must be a central focus of multisolving, and learn more about PSE’s approach to advancing racial equity in health, energy, economic opportunity, and land use. This webinar is the first in Multisolving Institute’s series of conversations about multisolving with leaders in the US and internationally.
Read below to learn more about Nathaniel Smith and the work of PSE.