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The Pacific Northwest features a growing climate ecosystem and the Pacific Northwest (PNW) Climate Week offered an ideal opportunity to share and showcase the diversity of opportunities and participants, at more than 50 events across Vancouver.  

As the leading City Sponsor for the second consecutive year, the Centre for Climate and Business Solutions (CCBS) at UBC Sauder School of Business was proud to host four of those events, bringing together community builders, entrepreneurs, investors, researchers, technologists, and climate leaders. 

While each event focused on a different topic, a common theme emerged: BC's greatest climate advantage is a connected ecosystem of people ready to collaborate, innovate and take action. 

Climate Action Begins with Community 

What better way to kick off a week of climate conversation than taking a simple action. A Community Run helped participants to come together to connect, share ideas, and build new relationships. The event also reinforced an idea that resurfaced throughout the week: community itself is climate infrastructure. 

Participants running together on a Vancouver sidewalk during the opening Community Run.

Before ideas become companies, policies, technologies, or investments, they start with conversations. Strong communities are built on trust, and a shared willingness to support one another. The climate community that showed up throughout the week demonstrated the value of creating spaces where those connections can happen. Even on the sidewalks of Vancouver, wearing running shoes. 

Community building continued with The Unreasonable People, an evening of Japanese Pecha Kucha-style talks and an audience Q&A moderated by CCBS Executive Director Kookai Chaimahawong. Six leaders from across BC's climate and impact ecosystem—Elizabeth Gamble (Profoundry), Kim Hallwood (Hallwood Sustainability and former Head of Sustainability at HSBC), Keith Ippel (Spring Activator and Spring Impact Capital), Katrina Shum (ChopValue), Brad Liski (Tru Earth), and Aish Mann (Tanah Air Project)—shared personal stories of challenging assumptions, building movements and creating change from unlikely starting points. 

Impact leaders and moderator Kookai Chaimahawong on stage for "The Unreasonable People" session.

Their stories spanned topics such as entrepreneurship, sustainable finance, community building, impact investing, circular economy innovation, and climate leadership. Despite their different paths, a common thread emerged: none of these leaders got there alone. 

Elizabeth Gamble spoke about the power of bringing unlikely allies together around shared goals. Aish Mann highlighted the importance of creating belonging for newcomers entering the climate space. Keith Ippel reflected on building the networks that help entrepreneurs turn ideas into impact, while Kim Hallwood spoke about the partnerships needed to shift capital toward sustainability. Katrina Shum encouraged attendees to never stop asking "what if?" and shared how community-centered innovation has shaped her career. Brad Liski demonstrated how being "unreasonable" enough to challenge entrenched industries helped build Tru Earth into a movement for eliminating single-use plastic packaging. 

Each speaker credited the mentors, collaborators, and communities that helped them navigate uncertainty—a reminder that climate progress depends on more than technology or capital. Success also  depends on people who create opportunities, open doors, build bridges and help others. 

As Elizabeth Gamble noted, meaningful progress requires bringing people into the room, even those who may not agree with one another. Climate action advances when communities are willing to have difficult conversations, challenge assumptions, and work toward shared outcomes. 

Building the Infrastructure for Climate Solutions 

Community alone is not enough. Solving climate challenges also requires the technologies, systems, and infrastructures that enable solutions to scale. 

At the Claude for Climate: Ideas Jam, CCBS invited members of the audience already using artificial intelligence (AI) in their climate work to share their real-world applications and lessons learned from the field. The session was highly participatory and an opportunity for engaged learning. 

Attendees participating in the Claude for Climate: Ideas Jam session.

Qingshi Tu (UBC) demonstrated how AI can make climate concepts more accessible through interactive educational tools. Menka Ahlawat shared how PNW Climate Week is using AI to help track emissions across the week. Neil Meza discussed helping a small sustainability team at Universidad Católica del Norte in Chile do more with limited resources, while Marianne Pemberton shared applications for climate finance and sustainability reporting at the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC). Annika Lewis and Matthew Hall of Northbound then took the audience from idea to implementation, with a live demonstration of how to build a climate-focused AI workflow. 

The conversation also explored the tensions that come with these tools, including AI’s energy and resource demands. Rather than treating AI as a silver bullet, attendees focused on how the technology can be used thoughtfully to accelerate climate work while acknowledging its trade-offs.

The audience engaged during the carbon management event.

A high-level discussion on the topic of carbon rounded out the week’s events. Building the Silicon Valley of Carbon in BC featured a Carbon Management 101 primer, company showcases, and a panel discussion with leaders from NorthX Climate Tech, Svante, Carbon Engineering, and Arca. 

Chantelle Carden of NorthX Climate Tech opened the evening by explaining the role of carbon management in a broader decarbonization strategy. Carbon removal, she emphasized, is not a substitute for reducing emissions, but a necessary complement for addressing those that cannot be eliminated entirely. 

A compelling idea emerged from the conversation: carbon dioxide can be understood as a waste management challenge. 

Society has long invested in infrastructure to manage the by-products of human activity. We build landfills for solid waste, wastewater treatment systems to protect waterways, and public infrastructure to ensure safe drinking water. As many speakers argued, carbon pollution requires a similar mindset. 

Much of the climate conversation focuses on reducing emissions at the source. But even under the most ambitious net-zero pathways, some emissions will remain, including from sectors critical to the energy transition itself. Addressing climate change therefore requires both reducing what we emit and managing the carbon already accumulating in the atmosphere. 

One analogy that resonated throughout the evening compared climate action to a bathtub. As Carden explained, emissions reductions help turn down the tap, while carbon removal creates the drain. Both are necessary. 

Panelists discussing carbon management strategies on stage.

The panel discussion, moderated by Chaimahawong and featuring Paul Needham (Arca), Anna Stukas (Carbon Engineering), and Richard Laliberté (Svante), explored what it would take for BC to become a globally significant hub for carbon management. The speakers agreed that the province already has many of the ingredients needed to lead, including clean electricity, technical talent, research institutions, and a growing climate-tech sector. 

The ultimate takeaway: A stronger ecosystem through connection 

While the topics varied, the underlying message of CCBS’s PNW Climate Week contributions remained consistent: climate progress happens when people, ideas, and infrastructure come together. 

Attendees networking and sharing knowledge during the event.

Relationships, knowledge sharing, challenges to conventional thinking and shared efforts all move promising ideas toward action. BC's climate ecosystem is not strong because of any single organization or sector. It is strong because of the growing network of people willing to learn from one another, support one another, and build together.

Participants connecting outdoors in a relaxed setting.

That shared spirit drove PNW Climate Week. Participants came to appreciate that the people, ideas, and technologies needed to drive climate action are already here. The opportunity now is to continue connecting them, scaling solutions and turning possibility into progress.