2025 Skoll World Forum Part 1
2025 Skoll World Forum Part 2
2025 Skoll World Forum Part 3
2025 Skoll World Forum Part 4
By Alliance for Sustainability President Terry Gips
Is there hope in a world that has seemingly gone mad? Yes! I found it in the form of 1,500 brave, bold social innovators at the April 1-4 Skoll World Forum in Oxford, UK.
It didn’t matter which workshop session I attended, there were presenters and audiences filled with unsung sheroes and heroes, as Maya Angelou would say. They’re working at the grassroots level to bring about fundamental systems change, from climate and health to AI and democracy.
Knowing they’re dedicated people hard at work every day creating a healthy, just and thriving world under some of the most dire circumstances inspires me to do more. And their efforts make it easier for me to sleep at night. Here’s why from just one of the sessions that will take you into the world of sustainable solutions storytelling from Indonesia to Brazil.
Advancing Climate Action through Solutions Storytelling
This was the title of a session facilitated by courageous leaders Ambika Samarthya-Howard, Chief Innovation Officer at the Solutions Journalism Network, and Daniel Nardin from Amazonia Vox (“Voice of the Amazon”) in Brazil. They’re working with the Solutions Insights Lab for Advancing Climate Action, which is an initiative of Solutions Journalism Network.
They’re promoting an innovative approach to reporting. Instead of focusing on the problem, their tagline is, “When it comes to social change, start with what’s working.” They have been doing work with the Skoll Foundation on “What’s Working: Solving the World’s Most Pressing Problems”, which uncovers insights from global efforts implementing solutions. It features hundreds of uplifting stories about individuals and groups bringing about impactful change.
They’re also working with the Rockefeller Foundation which is supporting a partnership between the Lab and the Wellbeing Economy Alliance. It finds, connects and tells the enlivening stories of people working to envision the future of the “wellbeing economy”, an economy designed to serve people and the planet that prioritizes quality of life over economic exchange.
Innovative Public-Private-Nonprofit Collaboration for Good in Indonesia
Panelist Gita Syahrani, Head of Executive Board for Koalisi Ekonomi Membumi (KEM) (“Earth-Centered Economy Coalition”) in Indonesia, shared how 32 diverse groups were able to come together in common cause to create a strategic coalition in 2022 to build a responsible bioeconomy in Indonesia. It shows us what’s possible through a big vision and collaboration.
It emerged from Indonesia hosting the G20 in 2022. Various organizations and the Ministry of Investment collaborated to accelerate financing for sustainable businesses by developing Sustainable Investment Guidelines, which evolved into KEM. It aims to foster the growth of Indonesia’s nature-based innovation ecosystem.
What a concept! Businesses committed to sustainability with government and investors working to support them, all for the benefit of people and nature?! A true win-win-win-win-win. This is what the world needs now!
KEM strategically connects businesses, investors and governments to create high-value-added supply chains operated by sustainable businesses that significantly contribute to environmental protection, preservation and improved welfare in regions committed to sustainability. They show the power of a shared vision and collaboration in using laws and investment for social good and a thriving economy and planet.
As Syahrani shared, KEM serves as a “catalyst for collaboration, a bridge across value chains, a hub for knowledge, a builder of narratives, and a driver of policy innovation. KEM accelerates collective action to position the bioeconomy as a sustainable and impactful economic alternative for the nation.”
Creating a Model of Sustainability with Impact for the World
The result? There are now more than 100 businesses practicing sustainability and 100 governmental jurisdictions committed to sustainable development with at least $200 million of investment capital.
KEM clearly gets that it’s necessary but not sufficient to be environmental. They are a living example of the definition of sustainability developed by the Alliance for Sustainability 42 years ago: “Ecologically sound, economically viable, socially just and humane, embodying our highest values in terms of how we treat people, animals and the planet.” Thank you KEM. Please grow around the world!
A Greenpeace Campaigner Turned Sustainable Business Leader
Bustar Maltar, the big, burly articulate founder and CEO of EcoNusa, is a prime example of one of these successful business-oriented groups in Indonesia. Maltar worked 11 years for Greenpeace battling palm oil deforestation. He led its work with the Indonesian government and industry to implement the May 2011 moratorium on the conversion of forests.
He also led the Greenpeace International team in getting top multinational companies to align with global zero deforestation efforts in their supply chain. This resulted in around 75% of global-traded palm oil and 80% of Indonesia pulp and paper production to become deforestation-free products.
But he wanted to do more and create a viable alternative economic model through business. As he shared, “I began with what the community has, not forcing them to make things – spices, coconuts and wild-farmed shrimp.”
He founded EcoNusa in 2017 to protect Eastern Indonesia’s incredibly biodiverse forests from exploitative bad actors by establishing markets for pro-forest products. This helps local communities map their land boundaries and secure legal tenure. They identify companies violating regulations and push for their concessions to be revoked.
EcoNusa then encourages communities to sustainably harvest their crops with conservation practices. Through a large buyer cooperative, owned by both communities and EcoNusa, they ensure fair market access and better prices for local products.
He also founded a company, Forbunia, which is now a $2 million business with 11 indigenous communities as shareholders and professional management. It has 360,000 hectares under its stewardship, which is preventing a huge amount of carbon emissions.
Protecting the Heart of the Amazon Rainforest and Its People
Another important model comes from the 30-year old, Brazil-founded but now global Fundacion Avina. I like its fascinating mission: “Rooted in the global South, we impact the world through collaborative efforts that foster human dignity and care for the planet.” They’re working in 30 countries around the world on three critical pillars of sustainable development: Democratic Innovation, Climate Action and a Just, Regenerative Economy.
Their work is organized into six program areas: Water, Biomes, Climate, Democracies, Inclusive Circular Economy and Labor Innovation. They’ve created what they call a “unique work model (CollaborAction) in pursuit of impact-oriented objectives.”
They generate systemic changes by “promoting broadscale collaborative processes” through three different roles:
- Orchestrators bringing together social capital, synthesizing a unifying vision and establishing shared action agendas
- Guides proposing unique work models (CollaborAction), promoting innovation and contributing our experience
- Co-Investors contributing strategic resources and capital
Its Climate Action Director Juliana Strobel, shared how it is working in 22 Latin American countries to share climate solutions in the global South. It does this through South-South exchanges, geo-mapping of rainforest changes and support for a network of organizations.
Its collective advocacy activated judicial power to strike down a law that weakened environmental protections by loosening controls over logging. They’ve also empowered country-level climate adaptation planning, which is a key tool for building resilience and mitigating the climate risks faced by local territories, people and economies.
Another Model of Collective Action for Sustainability in the Amazon
Finally, another impactful model has been created by Brazil-based Conexsus. It “addresses the gaps that prevent the development of a forest-based economy by building bridges between community-based sustainable agriculture enterprises and diverse sources of support and capital.” It supports local enterprises with forest management and production training, business model and strategy support, access to appropriate financial tools, technical assistance for loan repayment and improved connections to markets.
Fabiola Zerbini, Executive Director of Conexus (Conexoes Sustentaveis), shared that Conexsus focuses on the “social bioeconomy…having life in nature at the center of the economy, but not only having the social portion.”
She added, “using the natural resources, the forest, the natural vegetation, and all the biodiversity, all the issues connected with nature as an asset for a new economic development model where people and nature now are integrated in a current, intelligent, and sustainable way.”
She explained that they begin by providing training and technical assistance giving them “their own capacity to manage their own business. Empowered and emancipated, the sooner the better, because the idea is to really help them to evolve in this sense.”
They then connect the cooperatives, associations and production groups. As she pointed out, “You need to activate an ecosystem of business, an ecosystem of governance in the territory where they are. Activating the ecosystem of business means building governance but also building economical interconnections between producers and buyers, producers and agri-industry cooperatives. Verticalized production, producers, and financials.”
One example she cited of their success was passing legislation that 30% of food in schools must be local. They not only achieved that but have now reached 60%!
Good Reasons for Hope
These Sheroes and Heroes working tirelessly for all of us remind me of the difference we can all make through Collaboraction! Let’s create the world of our dreams together!