New Initiative Aims to Enable Decision-Makers to Accelerate Transformational Change
November 18, 2022
ARLINGTON, Va (November 18, 2022) – Partnering with Conservation International, and with funding provided by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), Systems Change Lab is developing a centralized tracking platform where transformations across systems are monitored on a regular basis, providing the first complete picture of progress toward necessary transitions. This new initiative aims to enable decision-makers to accelerate the necessary transformational changes, such as how we power industries, build cities, govern societies and conserve nature.
The world is facing a series of crises, from climate change and rapid biodiversity loss to economic disparity and injustice. Creating a prosperous future for people and the planet will require a new path — a path that transforms our global systems to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, halt biodiversity loss and ensure a just transition along the way. While many have been working toward this new path for decades, actions to date have failed to create change at the necessary pace or scale.
The project has three primary components: monitoring the transformational change across key systems, learning and sharing the ingredients for change and mobilizing action for systems change.
During this two-year project, Systems Change Lab aims to track and accelerate transformational change across systems, including power, transport, the built environment, industry, land use, agriculture and management of the world’s freshwater and ocean. Cross-cutting transformations of economic and social systems will focus on how the world measures economic well-being, delivers basic services, sustainably produces and consumes goods, equitably distributes the costs and benefits of change, finances these transformations and governs the global commons.
This project spans both climate and nature, aligning closely with the GEF’s biodiversity, climate change and land degradation goals. By engaging decision-makers and sharing the key targets and actions needed to enable biodiversity protection, Systems Change Lab will underscore the importance of biodiversity in economic and policy planning. Focusing on actions to prevent warming above 1.5ºC, Systems Change Lab will indirectly integrate mitigation concerns into the national planning and development agenda.
Systems Change Lab will also create enabling environments to support the scaling up and mainstreaming of sustainable land management by translating the necessary transformations into actionable targets. Tracking these targets and other drivers of change will then equip decision-makers with key information.
While Systems Change Lab aims to progress toward many of the GEF 7 core indicators — from mitigating emissions to protecting or restoring land and marine areas — the initiative plans to specifically address 15,000 beneficiaries over a two-year period and half of whom will be women.
System Change Lab’s data platform serves as a virtual situation room for the world’s fight against climate change, biodiversity loss and inequity. Alongside partners and stakeholders, the project will accelerate crucial systems change and a better world for all.
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About Conservation International: Conservation International protects nature for the benefit of humanity. Through science, policy, fieldwork and finance, we spotlight and secure the most important places in nature for the climate, for biodiversity and for people. With offices in 30 countries and projects in more than 100 countries, Conservation International partners with governments, companies, civil society, Indigenous peoples and local communities to help people and nature thrive together. Go to Conservation.org for more, and follow our work on Conservation News, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Instagram and YouTube.
About the Global Environment Facility: The Global Environment Facility is the world’s largest funder of biodiversity protection, nature restoration, climate change response, and pollution reduction in developing countries. It finances international environmental conventions and country-driven initiatives that generate global benefits. The GEF partnership connects 184 member governments with civil society, Indigenous Peoples, and the private sector, and works closely with other environmental financiers for efficiency and impact. To date, the GEF has provided more than $22 billion in grants and blended finance and mobilized another $120 billion in co-financing for more than 5,000 national and regional projects, plus 27,000 community ventures through its Small Grants Programme.
About Systems Change Lab: Systems Change Lab is a collaborative initiative convened by World Resources Institute and Bezos Earth Fund. Systems Change Lab supports the UN Climate Change High-Level Champions and works with key partners and funders including Climate Action Tracker (a project of NewClimate Institute and Climate Analytics), ClimateWorks Foundation, the Global Environment Facility, Just Climate, Mission Possible Partnership, Systemiq, the University of Exeter and the University of Tokyo’s Center for Global Commons, among others. Systems Change Lab is a component of the Global Commons Alliance.
