In Boulder, 28 participants tackled Climate Action and Resilience with Communities for Change (C4C) Boulder, with the aim of mobilizing the Boulder community to meet the city’s climate goals and serve as a model for other cities around the world. 

The burning of coal, oil and gas for energy is warming Earth’s atmosphere and changing our climate. As a result, we’ve seen more frequent and intense temperature extremes and destructive weather events. For the Boulder community, climate action is about resilience and transformation: they need to adapt to the climate changes that are already in motion, as well as reduce the emissions-heavy activities that drive future climate change. It is a great challenge but also a great opportunity to make Boulder better — to create a healthier, safer and more prosperous community.

The main outcome of the C4C journey was a 6-week prototyping process – “COLAboratory”, a space to experiment letting go of perfection and using the collective field to help build and co-create prototypes. The key benefits of this 6-week program are to help clarify and focus intentions, learn new leadership skills (Prototyping, deep listening, collaborative problem solving) and increase the likelihood of success of solutions.

“There was a lot of diversity in the room – from Google employees to government people. There was already so much we could learn from each other. It felt like the journey was both inward and outward... We also learned to not go to solutions too quickly.”