What is the Climate Change Learning Group?
At Azavea, we’ve woven climate initiatives into the identity of our business. As one of the greatest threats to our planet’s future, climate change is something that unites and motivates our team. Recent hires at Azavea overwhelmingly cite climate work as a key motivator for joining the organization. For these reasons, climate-related environmental problems remain at the center of Azavea’s mission, and this focus informs many of the projects that our team chooses to take on.
Furthermore, educational and fulfilling opportunities are a priority for the entire company. The formulation of our Climate Change Learning Group (CCLG) in early 2022 provides the space for Azaveans to learn about relevant issues relating to climate change while centering the climate crisis as a priority in Azavea’s business model. The CCLG is a recurring opportunity for members of the Azavea team to meet biweekly and learn about relevant issues. Those findings can then be applied to inform every side of the business.
The CCLG represents every side of the Azavea team and includes project managers, business development/marketing team members, data analysts, machine learning engineers, software engineers, and UX designers. Applying climate knowledge to all of our internal skill sets is critical as we work to amplify the impact our organization can have on the climate movement.
Why prioritize climate education for our team?
An opportunity for our team to apply its geospatial expertise to make the largest possible positive impact on the planet.
Azavea is a technically specialized organization with a heavy focus on skill sets such as machine learning on geospatial imagery, remote sensing, user discovery/design, and the creation of smart and intuitive decision support tools. With these skills already in place, the CCLG augments our geospatial expertise with further climate resilience learning to build even better applications. Our work with The US Forest Service to generate the Wildfire Hazard Map demonstrates this concept in action. By creating a map designed to increase public awareness surrounding wildfire risks and mitigation strategies, our work transformed risk modeling data into a valuable tool to fight the climate crisis.
An additional layer of accountability as we work to monitor and improve our company’s impact on the environment.
Azavea is a certified B-Corporation, a distinction that demonstrates our commitment to employees and the planet. The credentials we maintain to retain this status are a simple and effective way to monitor our impact year-over-year. By ensuring that our employees are up-to-date on the latest climate news, we can be confident that we are on track to adopt cutting edge climate-related practices internally.
An opportunity to connect with other like-minded organizations tackling climate to find the use cases where we can make the largest impact.
To find these like-minded organizations, members of our CCLG have joined ASAP: the American Society of Adaptation Professionals. Our team is excited to learn from other like-minded professionals as we work together to make a positive change in the face of the climate crisis.
Driving impact through partnerships
Azavea recognizes the urgency surrounding the climate crisis. While we are proud to have contributed to many climate mitigation and adaptation projects, we look forward to employing the CCLG to increase the percentage of our work connected to climate resilience-focused projects.
We look to build more partnerships like the ones we have with Stroud Research Center and Headwaters Economics. These relationships produced Model my Watershed, an accessible, professional-grade stormwater runoff and water quality modeling package, and a stormwater risk tracking application for vulnerable populations.
These existing climate-focused partnerships represent a unique opportunity: with an increased focus on climate work, the CCLG will allow us to increase the impact and effectiveness of the relationships we already have with organizations building climate-related applications. For example, this could potentially manifest in the form of expanding a current project after learning new climate mitigation strategies from other professionals in the field that further informs our existing work.
Through the CCLG, we plan to increase our climate portfolio and demonstrate to like-minded organizations that we have the passion and expertise to be the perfect partner in climate-related issues. Interested in connecting with us? Contact us now – we’d love to chat.