Cleaner air, healthier buildings: How Carbon Reform is modernizing indoor environments for health and efficiency

Cleaner air, healthier buildings: How Carbon Reform is modernizing indoor environments for health and efficiency

As climate change accelerates, the need to make buildings more sustainable, energy-efficient, and healthier has never been clearer. While many climate tech solutions focus on reducing outdoor emissions, there’s a growing recognition that indoor air quality is also a growing issue. Americans spend about 90% of their time indoors, where pollutants like CO₂ and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) can accumulate, making indoor air up to five times more polluted than outdoor air. Poor indoor air…

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Financing regenerative agriculture: a pathway to healthier soil, cleaner water, and climate resilience

Financing regenerative agriculture: a pathway to healthier soil, cleaner water, and climate resilience

Meet four Cisco Foundation partners working to support farmers’ transition to regenerative practices to improve resiliency and mitigate the climate crisis. As the world faces the impacts of climate change, such as soil degradation, biodiversity die-off, and water pollution, regenerative agriculture has emerged as a pathway to restore our relationship with the earth and the food it provides us. Regenerative agriculture practices like cover cropping, no-till farming, and crop rotation help restore organic matter in…

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How technology is being used to help support environmental conservation

How technology is being used to help support environmental conservation

A new study in the scientific journal Science shows that environmental conservation is needed to help slow and potentially reverse biodiversity loss, “They found that more than half of the time, conservation actions had a net positive effect but did not necessarily stop biodiversity decline. This work shows that multiple types of conservation actions are usually beneficial and are needed to curb the loss of biodiversity.”  World Nature Conservation Day offers a moment to reflect…

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Sustainability 101: What is a resilient ecosystem?

Sustainability 101: What is a resilient ecosystem?

Do you feel a bit lost when people refer to certain environmental sustainability topics and aren’t sure where to start when it comes to learning more? Sustainability 101 is a blog series that you can turn to for information about different environmental terms that may come up at work, during discussions with friends, and even at your annual holiday gathering. “Biodiversity forms the web of life that we depend on for so many things –…

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Innovative Financing for Amazon Region Preservation and Restoration

Innovative Financing for Amazon Region Preservation and Restoration

This is the third blog in our three-part series about Cisco Foundation partner organizations working in the Amazon and South America region. You can read the other two, and more Climate Impact & Regeneration blogs here! This series introduces you to eight Cisco Foundation partner organizations working to support the preservation and protection of the Amazon basin through three main avenues, all of which are deeply entangled and in tandem, serving to promote enduring environmental protection…

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Promoting Sustainable Livelihoods in South America and the Amazon

Promoting Sustainable Livelihoods in South America and the Amazon

This is the second blog in our three-part series about Cisco Foundation climate grantees working in the Amazon and South America region. You can read our first blog, about how Cisco Foundation Grantees prioritize Indigenous leadership to protect the Amazon Basin. This series will introduce you to eight Cisco Foundation Climate Impact & Regeneration grantees working to support preservation and protection of the Amazon basin through three main avenues, all of which are deeply entangled…

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Cisco Foundation Grantees prioritize Indigenous leadership to protect the Amazon Basin

Cisco Foundation Grantees prioritize Indigenous leadership to protect the Amazon Basin

This is the first of our three-part series on Cisco Foundation grantees working in the Amazon and South America region. This series will introduce you to eight Cisco Foundation Climate Impact & Regeneration grantees working to support preservation and protection of the Amazon basin through three main avenues, all of which are deeply entangled and in tandem serve to promote enduring environmental protection and preservation: Prioritizing Indigenous Sovereignty, Promoting Sustainable Livelihood Opportunities, and Scaling Innovative…

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Investing in Africa's Clean Energy Transition

Investing in Africa's Clean Energy Transition

Our conviction in Africa’s vast potential is part of what fuels the climate investment strategy of the Cisco Foundation. Among our vision, we see the transition to clean energy not just as a necessity, but as a catalyst for inclusive growth and digital innovation. And through the Cisco Foundation’s $100 million Climate Commitment, we are investing wholeheartedly in this vision. Our recent investments into early-stage climate ventures SHYFT Power Solutions and Jaza Energy, following our…

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Healthy forests: Tribal forestry and science innovations for disaster reduction

Healthy forests: Tribal forestry and science innovations for disaster reduction

Cisco Foundation grant partner Vibrant Planet Data Commons harmonizes cutting-edge science, open-source data, and Tribal Forestry to reduce the risk and severity of wildfires while speeding the pace of forest restoration. Forests are a vital part of a healthy planet: they store carbon, regulate the water cycle, produce oxygen, prevent erosion, and are among the most biodiverse places in the world. Forests are also important for us as humans: economically,physically, and even spiritually. There are…

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Beyond the climate jargon: Reflections from climate conference season 2023

Beyond the climate jargon: Reflections from climate conference season 2023

For professionals of many sectors, fall is the season for a marathon of conferences, panels, webinars and events. For the climate sector, this is no exception and Climate Week NYC kicked it off with a bigger-than-ever crowd, next it was VERGE in San Jose, culminating to COP28. The development of many conversations and discussions in this space, more than usual, left me feeling hopeful. Hopeful because it felt that an overwhelming number of climate conversations…

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