Since our founding 25 years ago, Climate Solutions has believed strongly in the importance of the business community to drive solutions to the climate crisis. Since 1998, we have partnered with businesses in all sorts of ways. In the early 2000’s, we launched one of our first programs, Harvesting Clean Energy, to work with farmers, economic development professionals, and rural business leaders to promote clean energy development to boost the rural economy. A decade later, we started Business Leaders for Climate Solutions, which eventually mushroomed into a powerful network of more than 1,200 business leaders in Washington, Oregon, Montana, and Idaho advocating for strong climate and clean energy policies. And throughout our history we have stood side-by-side with leading businesses to pass the landmark policies that are now the law of the land in Oregon and Washington.
A few years ago, we felt the winds of change between the business and climate advocacy communities were shifting and that it was time for a fresh approach. We spent some time listening to businesses of all sizes and across many industries to learn what they felt they needed to do even more for equitable climate action. What we heard was clear. More and more businesses were saying essentially the same thing — we're committed and we want to do more, but making progress is very challenging, and we need help and want to learn from others.
With that learning, Climate Solutions and four fantastic partners — the Washington Build Back Black Alliance, Clean & Prosperous Washington, The Wave Foundation, and Oregon Businesses for Climate — decided to launch the Breaking Barriers Collaborative (BBC). Its purpose is to provide support to businesses that want to do more on climate and need support to do it. The BBC's founding organizations are planning a series of focused programs bringing together leading experts to accelerate climate progress with leading Northwest businesses.
We recently wrapped up our first program — a Fleet Decarbonization Accelerator — with tremendous success.
Nineteen organizations based in the Pacific Northwest, representing thousands of fleet vehicles of all sizes, invested time and effort to learn as a cohort about the technicalities of fleet decarbonization and create actionable plans to transition their fleets to clean energy.
Based on that success, we are doing it again. We are excited to announce our Fall 2023 cohort starting in early October! If you'd like to learn more, sign up here to be notified when enrollment forms, informational webinars, and key dates become available. If there are others that you think might be interested, please forward this along to them. We are deeply committed to assembling another great cohort this Fall.
From there, we expect to roll out new programs into 2024 and beyond. Next up is a cohort-model Accelerator focused on decarbonizing buildings.
For more information on the Breaking Barriers Collaborative, please visit our website or email us at accelerators@climatesolutions.org.
We are so excited about this next evolution of our work with Northwest businesses. Please let us know if you have any questions or have ideas for what more we can do.
This has been an incredible journey. Working with the inspiring group of people that participated in the first Accelerator gives us tremendous hope for what is ahead.
Below are some photos from the graduation events with some of the participants.
