Our first ever Climate Action Initiative (CAI), which ran from June 2021-May 2022 brought together a diverse group of 18 local, regional, and global TEDxGlasgow partners to accelerate climate change in unison. The United Nations SecretaryGeneral António Guterres called 2021, “a make-or-break year” for climate change. A year when Glasgow hosted the most pivotal ‘make-or-break’ event for humankind and our planet, COP26.

Our CAI partners are organisations that otherwise may never have talked, shared knowledge or worked together. Facilitated by the TEDxGlasgow team, the CAI platform created a collaborative space for people to connect, from businesses and public organisations, covering global brands and local partnerships across diverse sectors, including communications, transport, food and drink, power generation, consultancy, local and national governments.

As we launch our 2022 theme and next CAI, Dr Liz Wilks, European Director at Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) Sinar Mas, our CAI corporate partner and one of the largest pulp, paper, and packaging companies in the world, highlights how CAI and TEDxGlasgow partners created a platform to share best practices, discuss and act on the missing part of the equation: a ground up effort to enable the next generation to act on climate change.

Enabled by the CAI and TEDxGlasgow, APP will collaborate with Glasgow Caledonian University’s (GCU) on its Climate Justice Programme Advisory Group that feeds into the Masters in Climate Justice, creating employment and career opportunities in climate justice.

Commenting on the CAI facilitated by TEDxGlasgow, Dr Liz Wilks said,

“In the breakout sessions and working with TEDxGlasgow partners, it has enabled APP to share that there is more to landscape management initiatives than simply forestry management. It goes way beyond zero deforestation or ‘deforestation free’. To achieve any of this, communities need to be involved as they are central to any solution. Empowering them and working with them within the landscape is crucial to achieve this and I think this has been a key message.

Commenting on what our 2021 theme “Make or Break” means to APP, Dr Wilks added,

“We are keen to be partners with TEDxGlasgow and organisations such as GCU because we’re only one actor in a huge stage in Indonesia and globally. We cannot do this on our own. We discovered very early on that it’s one thing to manage our own areas and supply chain but to create greater impact, we needed to operate on a landscape level with different actors within it, and often times outside of it too. “I think the importance of having brand involvement in the supply chain vertically, is quite critical because that does raise awareness.

It’s important to find solutions together both on the ground and across the supply chain, and not to do so is in my opinion not an option. We need to find adaptive and resilient climate change solutions for both business community and planetary needs all together.”

Looking to the future, APP has signed up to the 2022 CAI with TEDxGlasgow. Dr Wilks elaborated on this:

“I think it’s important to note that we started in the first year, but this collaboration is more than just a one-off one-year commitment. It’s important to connect with different industries regularly if we are going to have systemic change both in thinking and on the ground.

As we take stock and look towards COP27, the CAI and TEDxGlasgow has enabled APP to collaborate in GCU’s Masters in Climate Justice. This is just the beginning. In unison, we have discovered a serious drive to make the changes needed to push the vital social and humanitarian aspects of climate change forward. Climate mitigation and adaptation is in our hands. We need to act fast and together, to scale up initiatives to stop the world from heating up.

Find out more on becoming a TEDxGlasgow partner here.