Building and Bridging as One for the Earth - Notes from the Climate Bridges strategy meeting

About a month after our Summer retreat, Climate Bridges reconvened in Geneva on August 22 for a focused strategy day designed to turn shared insight into coordinated action. The core team, along with partners, members, and colleagues came together with a clear intention: to strengthen our ecosystem so it can catalyze the Well-Being Economy through collaborative, regenerative leadership.

Our north star

Being One with the Earth for the Well-Being Economy guides everything we do. We create spaces for deep collaboration—where people and organizations connect heart-to-heart around a common purpose. By nurturing a community of practitioners and allies, we unlock the power of collective action and increase the resilience of the climate and sustainability movement.

How we work

Our approach is as important as our outcomes. We build bridges by linking inner and outer transformation—acting with love, compassion, and care for people and planet. Concretely, this means an ecosystem-based model: a small core team sows seeds and tends the soil so diverse initiatives can flourish. We convene, connect, and support; we amplify what already works; and we cultivate conditions for positive ripple effects—the butterfly effects that extend well beyond our immediate network. We strive to model regenerative leadership, so that doing the work is not only impactful but also rewarding, rejuvenating and nourishing.

What we aligned on

The day produced a shared understanding of where to focus and how to move together with clarity:

• Ecosystem priorities: concentrate our collective energy where bridges unlock outsized impact; support initiatives that strengthen collaboration, inclusion, and learning across sectors and geographies.

• Roles & stewardship: clarify who holds what (coordination, partnerships, facilitation, comms), and how members can step into leadership.

Priorities for the months ahead include (but are not restricted to)

• 10 October — Be One Mentoring Cohort 4.0: Launch with WEF Global Shapers and youth climate leaders in India, expanding intergenerational leadership and peer support.

• 14–17 October — FAO World Food Forum, Rome: Support the ALEP Leadership Program, co-created with Real Food Systems, elevating systems-leadership in food and climate.

• 17 November — COP30, Brazil: Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative for the Green & Blue Economies, a high-level event with the High-Level Champions, Amazon Finance Network, IDB, the World Bank, and partners—advancing finance that serves people and planet.

Stronger together

This strategy day was a reminder that we are One team, One family, One ecosystem—and that our collective ability to listen, connect, and act with care is our greatest leverage. With gratitude to Elaine France for facilitating this deeply impactful session and to Elise Buckle, Khulan Berger, Valerie Kvita,  Karlee Schnyder, Amelia Peach Troya, Veronica Nicolas Blain, Thilini Liyanage, Prajacti Jawdekar, Alphée Lacroix, and Axel Ungurian for leadership, facilitation, and expert inputs—as well as to every member who shows up to build bridges for a thriving future.

Bridges are built in collectives. If you want to contribute, host a dialogue, or bring your initiative into the ecosystem, we’d love to hear from you. Let’s keep working as One for the Earth.