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Climate Month Event Takeaways Community Spotlight

It’s been a busy month for many of us here at Climate Designers between Earth Month, Los Angeles Climate Week, and San Francisco Climate Week. The central Climate Designers team hosted a few events, as well as many of our Chapters in other regions and cities.

Here are some highlights from our collective events this month, plus check out the new podcast season from our partner project Climify.
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Marc & Rachel’s Thinknado session during LA Climate Week

Rachel, LA Chapter co-lead, and I produced and facilitated a fun Thinknado workshop session during LA Climate Week. The workshop was part of a week-long event series she co-produced on the topic of food & sustainability.

The challenge was, How might we focus on using regenerative practices as inspiration for building more resilient communities?

Using the four-step process of Thinknado, groups came up with a variety of ideas for LA. They developed multiple ideas from access to fresh food to free transportation, community hubs to urban foraging groups. People loved the fast paced idea generation of the Thinknado session. Lots of laughs and hi-fives were shared!

If you live in LA, be sure to sign up for the LA chapter. They are producing three events in MAY.

— Marc O'Brien, Co-Founder & Rachel Cellinese, LA Chapter Lead
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​Live Doom & Bloom podcast event during SF Climate Week

Our lead Doom & Bloom editor, Holden Hardcastle, produced a full day of podcast recordings during SF Climate Week. We took the stage in the morning to record our next Doom & Bloom live.

Currently, our episodes are "brainstorming conversations" with members of the Climate Designers team. For this episode, I invited a long-time friend Katie Patrick to join me to unpack the question, "How do designers design for an uncertain future?"

We covered a lot of ground during our time on the mic. So much, that I'm revisiting the idea of the format and making some tweaks to the flow. As a designer creating a podcast for designers, I'm constantly thinking about how to make the listening experience better, especially when we are taking such a visual exercise like a brainstorm and turning it into an audio format.

Check out some of the previous episodes of the podcast here.

— Marc O'Brien, Co-Founder
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Boston Chapter Designathon, Prototype for the Planet​

For the last 6 months, the Boston Chapter of Climate Designers partnered with IxDF and UXGA to produce a designathon called Prototype for the Planet, where teams of designers came together to create solutions for real-world challenges.

Over the weekend of April 12th - 13th, the environmental non-profit Borderlands Restoration Network presented the challenge of increasing their financial sustainability, enhancing community engagement, and improving digital outreach to support their conservation work.

Teams came up with a lot of creative ideas, from a redesign of Borderlands website, to ways to adopt a tree, to a Borderlands Chrome Extension. You can check out the Project Gallery, to see what all the teams came up with.

This event was the proudest I’ve been as a Climate Designer Chapter Lead in how many people came together to support an under-resourced non-profit. We need more of these events that encourage designers to think about sustainability in their work. See more in my LinkedIn post about the event.

— Brett Duboff, Boston Chapter Lead
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Bay Area Pre-Climate Week Meetup

On April 17th I co-hosted a pre-SF Climate Week happy hour. I brought pens and paper to write down our schedules and get ready for the week ahead!

My biggest takeaway from this event is that it’s so valuable to offer a bit of structure to help everyone work through a common challenge (in our case, the overwhelming SF Climate Week event sign-up portal, with 600+ events to choose from) in a novel way (by making a paper schedule of the events you want to attend).

A group of Climatebase Fellows were meeting at the same time and place, so I picked a table next to them. I’m already chatting with the Climatebase Fellows team about planning a joint event this summer. See more in my LinkedIn post.​
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— Leslie Forman, Bay Area Chapter Lead

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Climify Season 5 Partner Spotlight

The new season of Climify dropped on April 23. Check it out everywhere you get your podcasts!

The new season of Climify explores the duality of climate action by addressing our collective hope for a sustainable future while acknowledging the skepticism, grief, and challenges that come with it. Listen to these six amazing guests discuss meaningful ways to maintain hope and also hold space for grief in our fight against climate change.

Episode 1. Anne Therese Gennari​

Episode 2. Jenny Morgan​

Episode 3. Kate O'Neill​

Episode 4. Cate Mingoya-LaFortune​

Episode 5. Cynthia Leung​

Episode 6. Dana R. Fisher​
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Question of the Month

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Opportunities

Current Design and Climate Jobs, Courses, and other Opportunities
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Jobs

​Digital Creative Designeer at Unravel Carbon. Remote, Japan.

​Graphic Designer at Wingtra. Remote, Belgrade.

​Freelance UI/Web Designers at Pyramid. Remote, Seattle, USA.

​Senior Designer, Brand Marketing (Freelance) at Lucid Motors. Remote, USA.

​Design System Intern at Kiva. Remote, USA.
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Courses, Fellowships, RFPs

​U School Presencing Series on April 17 - June 26th (drop ins OK)

​Mira Fellowship - apply by June 1st

​World Design Congress call for Papers & Posters - submit by May 31st

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Events

Upcoming Climate and Design Happenings
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Climate Designers Chapter & Hub Events

​Hope³ LA - FoodxClimate/Seeds of Hope/Climate Designers LA post Climate Week jam on May 15th

​Climate Designers LA & From Soil to Soul at Clarkia Flower Festival on May 17th
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Conferences and Workshops

​Estimating Digital Carbon Emissions on May 7th (online)

​By Design and By Disaster Conference on May 8th - 10th (Bolzano, IT)

​The Nottingham Tech for Good Festival on May 13th - 16th (Nottingham UK, online)

​Scaling Sustainability Innovation Conference on May 14 (Stanford, CA)

​Green IO New York on May 14th - 15th (NYC)

​Festival of Circular Economy on May 20th - 22nd (London UK, online)

​Hollywood Climate Summit on June 2nd - 4th (LA, CA)
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Free Online Events

​Sustainability Creatives Office Hours on May 6th

​Funding the future: What’s next for local climate solutions? with Grist on May 12th

​Navigating Sustainable Product Design: Challenges, Opportunities, and the Path Forward with the Sustainable Design Project on May 15th

​Nature-based solutions for climate-resilient cities with Stockholm Environmental Institute on May 22nd
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Inspiration

What we’re Reading/Watching/Listening to in Design and Climate
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📺 Al Gore’s Powerful Keynote at SF Climate Week 2025​
I loved how Al Gore framed his statements with, “Is it realistic to___?” during this talk. When watching this, I couldn’t help but come up with my own for the design community.

Is it realistic to keep designing within a system that pushes infinite growth on a finite planet?

Is it realistic for designers to work on sustainability projects without an understanding of the interconnectedness of our natural world?

Is it realistic for design schools to graduate new designers without preparing them for an uncertain future?

– Marc O.

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📚 Crafting a sustainable future: the role of designers in building responsible products and services and Designing for Sustainability: Leveraging your Role for Bigger Impact by Behnosh Najafi and Alexander Crease​
​Where does sustainability "fit" in the design process? In our two recent articles, Behnosh N. and I explore how we can use our leverage and experience as designers to integrate sustainability into the product design and development process. Read our two articles for some practical tips on how to start pushing your organization toward sustainable and climate-conscious product design. - Alex C.​
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​📚 2025 Environmental and Social Value of Design Report from Design Council​
​This report echoes what we've learned from surveys of the Climate Designers community; Designers want to create climate-positive work, but face significant barriers in doing so due to company/client buy-in, time, difficulty in assessing impact, plus other skills gaps. All the more reason why upskilling both the current and next generations of designers is essential to close these gaps and empower designers to re-think how we make literally everything in this world. There's a lot more detail in the report, check it out. - Natalie W.
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Keep this work going

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