Growing human capacities for climate resilience

 

Most of us are not prepared to live in a world of climate instability. As heatwaves, floods, and storm surges keep on intensifying, communities, organisations and companies will have to adapt to unavoidable climate change impacts, while addressing the root causes of climate vulnerability.

At One Resilient Earth, we believe that growing climate resilience cannot rely on science and technology alone. It calls for a deep personal and societal transformation. This is critical if we aim to go beyond emergency responses and intend to lay the foundations for thriving in a world of climate instability.

Growing climate resilience requires new knowledge, but also new ways of learning, collaborating and leading. It asks us to remain engaged in times of uncertainty and loss; to think and act across disciplines, cultures, and knowledge systems; to imagine different futures; and to strengthen the relationships that sustain both people and ecosystems.

Our mission is to nurture human capacities to thrive in a chaotic climate, so that people and organisations can respond to climate change impacts with creativity, responsibility, and care.

Those capacities comprise emotional resilience, creativity, collaboration, futures thinking and the ability to work across cultures and knowledge systems.

 

 

What we do

 

We design learning experiences that help change-makers integrate the knowledge, skills and capacities needed to strengthen climate resilience in their own contexts.

Such change-makers are sustainability leaders and professionals including in the creative and education fields, committed citizens and community organizers, as well as aspiring climate leaders.

Our work focuses on four areas:

• Supporting emotional wellbeing, through climate emotions circles and learning experiences on climate anxiety, grief and trauma.
• Equipping (aspiring) change-makers with practical knowledge, tools and capacities to strengthen climate resilience through online and in-person workshops, transformative learning journeys, and retreats.
• Building communities of practice, where people learn from one another, collaborate across disciplines and support each other over time.
• Transforming climate resilience action and education, by exploring approaches that are participatory, relational and fuel individual and collective transformation.

Over the past six years, our programmes have been co-created with our learners, scientists, traditional ecological knowledge holders, artists, innovators, mental health practitioners and grassroots leaders. They are collaborative, embodied and designed to help participants move from understanding climate resilience to practising it.

We mobilize new technologies when impactful, and value art as a powerful channel for transformation.

How we collaborate with other organisations

 

We partner with universities, NGOs, foundations, public institutions and businesses to grow the human capacities needed for climate resilience.

Whether through keynote talks, workshops, multi-session learning journeys or co-designed programmes, we help teams and communities navigate complexity, build stronger collaboration and develop new ways of responding to climate change impacts.

Every programme is tailored to the needs of our partners while drawing on approaches developed through years of international research and practice.

For examples of our collaborative projects, click here.

 

What our impact is

 

Since 2020, we have been exploring and practicing impactful formats for transformative climate resilience learning.

Together with our partners, we have:

• engaged more than 2,000 young change-makers through free workshops and learning journeys;
• trained more than 1,300 sustainability professionals, educators and creatives;
• built an international learning community of more than 1,250 members;
• achieved a 100% recommendation rate among surveyed participants in our learning journeys, online courses and retreats;
• indirectly reached hundreds of thousands of people through the educators, artists, music festivals, institutions and organisations we have supported.

We continue to experiment, learn and collaborate with researchers, practitioners, artists and communities to explore how climate resilience can contribute to more just, regenerative and flourishing futures.

If you are interested in collaborating, supporting our work or developing a learning programme for your organisation, we would love to hear from you at [email protected].

For more details, including testimonies of our learners, check our annual reports (2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021 and 2020).

Who we are

Laureline Simon

Laureline Simon (she/her) has been working on climate change mitigation and adaptation at the international level since 2006. At the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat, she supported the setting up of the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples’ platform, as well as knowledge management programmes on climate change adaptation. She also coordinated Resilience Frontiers, an inter-UN agencies collective intelligence process on long-term resilience, exploring emerging technology and sustainability. She started her career with the women-led Indian NGO SEWA, where she learnt a lot about community-based resilience. She draws inspiration from nature and her two children, who help her take better care of the Earth. Laureline is the founder and executive director of One Resilient Earth.

Gwendoline Ducros

Gwendoline Ducros (she/her) studied environmental change at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (the Netherlands) after a bachelor’s degree in economics, and studied abroad at the University of Kansas (US). Her desire to pursue work in climate change was ignited while performing conservation work in nature reserves in Australia. She is passionate about exploring and building climate resilience, and helping raise awareness of the impacts of the climate crisis on mental wellbeing. Based in Denmark, she supports One Resilient Earth with project coordination and research.

Colleta Kihumba

Colleta Kihumba (she/her) studied law at the University of Nairobi, and later at the Kenya School of Law. She has a keen interest in supporting transformative climate resilience, through education, policy advocacy, and community engagement. Her desire for environmental work is rooted in a diverse background in Environmental & Natural Resources Law, as well as, participation in sustainability-focused initiatives, including COP-1 of the Minamata Convention on Mercury. These experiences have strengthened her commitment to promoting sustainable and just solutions to global ecological challenges. Colleta supports One Resilient Earth with community management and communications.

Jakob Wondra

Jakob Wondra (he/him) studied sustainability science at Lund University (Sweden) and Leuphana University (Germany). His research focused on holistic transformation processes towards sustainability, with an emphasis on artistic and contemplative practices. He founded Fluid Festival, an art and music festival, believing in the power of creative communities and self-organisation. Based in Berlin, Jakob is currently working on building regional organic food supply chains and supports One Resilient Earth in researching, designing and facilitating learning journeys on climate resilience and creative action.

Autumn Trainor

Autumn Trainor (they/she) is a mental wellbeing and climate justice advocate, researcher, activist from Mi’kma’ki and residing in Tiohtià:ke (Montreal, Canada). They have been active in the climate and social justice movements for over a decade. They have taken the knowledge they have gained from their studies and activism, and are working to raise awareness of the effects of the climate crisis on mental wellbeing. They hope to help foster a better understanding and expression of our emotions and enable a healthy progression to regenerative cultures through art-making and care. Autumn supports One Resilient Earth with Climate Circles and with research on mental health and climate change.

 

Shefali Mehta

Dr. Shefali Mehta (she/her) is an economist, statistician and coach who supports individuals and communities in reaching their full potential.  She founded and leads Open Rivers Consulting Associates, a science & technology and management consulting firm that emphasizes the environment and holistic wellness.  Dr. Mehta most recently served as Deputy Under Secretary of Research, Education and Economics and Acting Chief Scientist of USDA. She previously served across a variety of private, public and non-profit sectors including McKinsey, Syngenta, and the National Corn Grower’s Soil Health Partnership. Dr. Mehta earned her PhD in Agricultural and Applied Economics, MS in Statistics from the University of Minnesota, and MPhil in Economics from Cambridge University.  She advises One Resilient Earth on strategy and operations.

Sadya Ndoko 

Sadya Ndoko (she/her) is an independent consultant on climate change and sustainable development at Rhizomes Lab, and co-founder of Sanouvlé, a Caribbean advocacy organization promoting participatory and inclusive governance. With over fifteen years of experience in climate change adaptation policy and international climate negotiations, including eight years with the United Nations Climate Secretariat, she supports governments in developing and implementing national and subnational adaptation plans. In parallel, she leads awareness-raising initiatives, including the writing of a Caribbean-based comic book that explores themes of climate resilience and ecological change in the region. Sadya supports and advises One Resilient Earth on climate resilience science and collective action.

Kira Cooper

Dr. Kira Cooper (she/her) is a researcher examining the nexus of inner and outer dimensions of sustainability. Her work investigates how inner transformations can serve as leverage points for systemic change. Through ongoing intercultural collaborations, she is co-creating accessible pedagogical tools and experimental practices that cultivate affective, cognitive, and relational capacities in service of collective wellbeing. In addition to her research, Kira teaches university courses on navigating uncertainty, chaos, and paradox in a rapidly changing world, including at Algoma University in Canada. Kira leads research on inner/outer transformation processes at One Resilient Earth.

Loes Damhof

Loes Damhof (she/her) was elected Lecturer of the Year 2016 of all higher education in The Netherlands for her innovative practices and passion for teaching at Hanze University. As part of the UNESCO Chair on Futures Literacy in Higher Education, she consults and trains staff of UN organizations, NGOs and corporations on Futures Literacy as a capability to make better informed decisions. As a Futures Literacy Expert, she designs, develops and facilitates Futures Literacy Labs that raise fundamental questions on gender equality, migration, climate change and technology. Currently she is building The Emergence Academy; new school for new activism, that fosters a new attitude towards complexity, uncertainty and the future. Loes supports and advises One Resilient Earth on educational projects.

Leslie Davenport

Leslie Davenport (she/her) works as a Climate Psychology educator and consultant, integrating social science insights into relevant resources for organizations often exploring the intersectionality of climate, economics, and policy. She helped shape the document by the American Psychological Association, EcoAmerica and Climate for Health: “Mental Health and Our Changing Climate: Impacts, Implications, and Guidance.” She is the author of four books, including Emotional Resiliency in the Era of Climate Change and All the Feelings Under the Sun: How to Deal with Climate Change, and serves as an advisor for the climate nonprofits Project InsideOut and the CO2 Foundation. She is on faculty with the Department of Professional Psychology and Health at the California Institute of Integral Studies. Leslie advises One Resilient Earth on the topic of climate change and mental health.

Who our supporters and partners are

We are grateful for the support as well as for past and present collaboration opportunities with the following organizations and networks:

Where we work

We work all around the world with a network of inspiring people and partner organizations. One Resilient Earth is registered as a non-profit organization (i.e. gGmbH) in Germany. As of now, the team, volunteers and advisors are based in Europe and North-America.

In Berlin, we operate from Medulla, a co-working and co-creation space designed to turn shared agency into collective resilience.

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Art by Pierre-Emilio Gandini