ACRE
The Alliance for a Climate Resilient Earth (ACRE) unites the strength of our member organizations through strategic communications and advocacy for an action agenda. ACRE is the collective voice for the alliance of member organizations in private industry, civil society, and academia. We create public private partnerships and encourage collaboration and innovation between our member organizations
Climate-related disasters, spurred on by rising emissions, are growing in frequency, severity, and scale, reaching ominous and unprecedented proportions around the world. Cities and countries are experiencing the devastating impacts of hurricanes, floods, wildfires, droughts, sea level rise, and extreme weather events. Lives, property, houses, infrastructure, ecosystems, and livelihoods are endangered. People are demanding actions to safeguard them from these rising risks. No leader in government or the private sector can afford to stand aloof from these threats and dangers. Epic disasters, damages, and losses will define the 21st century unless the world embraces the principles of climate resilience.
The challenge to build climate resilience is too large for any one organization, company, or government. It is a civilizational task. When brought together for a grand, common endeavor, the private sector, civil society, and academia have the capacity and global reach to mobilize the economic and organizational power, the financial might, and the stream of innovations and breakthroughs that are essential to build a climate resilient world. Through collaboration, synergies, and a shared sense of corporate and planetary responsibility, they can write the agenda for climate resilience. As ACRE member organizations, they represent the vanguard of a new era for climate action.
Since neither governments nor the private sector can win without helping each other, ACRE is dedicated to the public/ private partnership approach for climate diplomacy. When world leaders created the historic Sustainable Development Goals, they chose partnerships as the proven method for success. ACRE member organizations need the enabling power of governments and governments need the skills and capacities of ACRE member organizations. International cooperation, trust, and multilateralism can create partnerships that are genuine, durable, and far-seeing.
Stan Bronson
Julie Kae
Jan Hartke, Chairman
Chris Walker
Elise Zoli
Areas of Focus
Climate resilience should be a top priority for the world, on par with mitigation, because it is the action agenda that underpins each of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. As the private sector and civil society advocate for climate resilience, ACRE will create working groups and partner with national governments, cities and states, and intergovernmental organizations to leverage support for vulnerable populations, showcase innovative projects, and build the future we want.
Infrastructure & Supply Chains
We are building the cities of the future now. It is imperative that infrastructure is built to last, sustainable, and resilient over the life cycle of every project in the built environment.
Finance & Investment
Capital needs to be mobilized on a scale never before seen to achieve the future we want. Only by focusing on investment, lending, finance and risk transfer gaps can we overcome the barriers to a climate resilient world.
Insurance & Reinsurance
Climate-related disasters are striking with unprecedented damages and losses. The past record is no longer a reliable guide to the destructive forces that are unleashed. Insurance and reinsurance will need to keep up with the new waves of uncertainty that rising emissions are causing.
Security & Culture of Preparedness
Scientists have warned of a cascade of disasters ranging from super hurricanes to epic floods, wildfires and droughts, sea level rise and extreme weather events. These threats and their fiscal impacts have become a matter of national security to every country in the world. Resilience must become part of a nation’s character.
Natural Infrastructure
The free ecological services that come from nature are often denigrated because they are not factored into the GDP. Just as engineers and developers need to build the hard infrastructure, the life support systems of the planet will need to be resilient and sustainably managed.
Energy
Global energy use is exploding, yet 1.2 billion people have no access to electricity. The disruptions caused by climate disasters can turn the lights out on modern civilization. Breakthroughs in science, advancements in technology, and investments in energy efficiency and grid reform will be needed as energy systems are transformed to meet resilience and sustainability standards.
Food & Agriculture
As much as 40% of the food in developing countries is wasted and acreage per person is diminishing. Improvements in storage, watershed stabilization, restoration of degraded land, and climate smart agriculture with digital platforms can build resilience into agricultural systems and feed a hungry world.
Water & Sanitation
Aquifers for irrigation are drying up, rivers are already burdened by pollution and overuse, rainfall is increasingly unreliable due to climate change, and water systems are often unable to capitalize on economies of scale. Water-stressed countries are proliferating. Integrating the principles of a circular economy and better water management are urgently needed.
Initiatives & Action
ACRE is working with engineering organizations to develop innovative criteria and rigorous standards for resilient and sustainable infrastructure that will withstand the climate-related and other convergent threats that are likely to occur over the life cycle of the projects.
Governments at all levels are engaged in the climate challenge. In accordance with UN Sustainable Development Goals, ACRE will establish public/ private partnerships as its organizational approach.
To improve the ability of organizations to collaborate, ACRE is deploying SustainChain™, a software platform developed by the US Coalition on Sustainability for the SDGs. The platform uses artificial intelligence to match and support joint action across organizations. We are developing an enhanced version focused on resilience.
At the heart of the alliance is the absolute necessity for constant innovation to sweep across the full spectrum of climate resilience. The purpose of ACRE is not to build back to a fragile status quo, but to use the creativity of our member organizations to shift to a higher level of societal well-being.
Member Initiatives
Qlik is a leading technology company providing data management software to over 50,000 global clients. Qlik is partnering with ACRE to drive best in class data measurement and knowledge-sharing across members and initiatives. Qlik and ACRE are developing a series of member tools and public dashboards to monitor and measure progress towards climate resiliency objectives and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
The demand for healthy, safe, climate resilient, green buildings are growing swiftly, particularly as the deaths from pandemics and the disasters of climate change touch the buildings where people work and live. Developers are increasingly finding it advantageous to build to a higher standard to protect people, property, and livelihoods.
ACRE supports sustainable investing in infrastructure and other climate resilient portfolios, blended financing for multilateral development banks, and the adoption of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria as a standard practice across the institutional investors’ industry within five years. Risk/return profiles should be in line with long-term goals.
Food security depends on innovations in agriculture. Prevention of food waste through proper storage is step one. The digital platform that has revolutionized much of society and will be extended across the agricultural landscape needs to be introduced in a way that sustains small farmers, increases productivity, conserves water, integrates trees, and enriches the soil.
As the risks from climate change continue to grow, business leaders, financial institutions, and government policy makers need tools that can help them incorporate climate risk and its uncertainties into future planning decisions. By identifying key risk areas, the Climate Risk Vulnerability Index (CORVI) enables government policy makers, public and private investors, and the insurance industry to better understand the linkages and drive funding into areas of greatest concern.
Nature-based solutions provide the indispensable foundation for our economic systems. Climate impacts on ecosystems are complex and varied, but the interlocking nature of these systems is best defined through the lens of ecological economics. Biodiversity, forests, coastal resources, air and water, and climate interactions are essential parts of any successful plan.
Membership
ACRE is a member-driven organization focused on delivering upon the goals of sustainable development and climate action. Through collaboration, synergies, and a shared sense of corporate and planetary responsibility, ACRE and its members will write the agenda for climate resilience. Members bring their individual efforts and global expertise to the ACRE organization and receive in return the value of a great global partnership in ACRE. We are stronger together.
AECOM
Alliance to Save Energy
Ambata Capital, LLC
American Renewable Energy Institute – AREI, Inc.
American Society of Civil Engineers
American Water Resources Association
Association of Energy Services Professionals
Bren School, University of California, Santa Barbara
Capital Markets Partnership
CDM Smith
Center for Climate Strategies
Chen Moore and Associates
Climate Resilience Consulting
Climate XChange
Columbia University
Conservation International
Crane Institute of Sustainability (Intentional Endowments Network)
curtin&heefner, llc
Earth Council
Eklund Hanlon LLC
Esri
Florida Earth Foundation
Florida Institute for Built Environment Resilience
Forterra, Inc.
Fuqua School of Business, Duke University
GIST.Earth LLC
Global EverGreening Alliance
Global Green
GlobalWaterWorks
Grphne America LLC
IHE Delft Institute for Water Education
Innovator Capital Limited
Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation, University of Waterloo
Integrative Health Policy Consortium
International WELL Building Institute
IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature)
Johnson Controls
LIFE, Inc.
Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, The University
Marsh & McLennan Companies
Miami-Dade County, FL Office of Resilience
Mott MacDonald
NASA-HQ
National Council for Science and the Environment
National Renewable Energy
Laboratory (NREL)
Natrx, Inc.
NTELX, Inc.
One Concern
One Water Academy
Pacific Gas and Electric Company
PopTech Institute
Prescient360 Group, LLC.
ProNatura International and Earth Capital
Qlik
RAND Gulf States Policy Institute
Sandia National Laboratory
SBG Technology Solutions, Inc.
Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy
Stantec
Stimson Center
Strategy of Things
Sustainable and Resilient Resources Roundtable
Sustainable Design Group
Synergetico Consulting
Ten Across, ASU
Terra Global Capital, LLC
The GPC Group
The Jahn Research Group
The Ohio State University
The Stella Group, Ltd.
The George Washington University GWU’s Environment & Energy Management Inst
The Urban Land Institute
The Water Council
Transportation Choices for Sustainable Communities Research and Policy Institute
United Nations Disaster Risk Reduction Private Sector Advisory Group ARISE / MD Sands Consulting Solutions LLC
University of Delaware
University of Hawaii
US DOE National Energy Technology Laboratory
Ventana Systems, Inc.
Water Foundry
Water Science Associates
Wharton Initiative for Global Environmental Leadership (IGEL) – The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
Wood
Contact
Membership Interest
- Kathryn Howard
- [email protected]
Support & Other Inquiries
- Sarah Savoy
- [email protected]