Why Isn’t Philanthropy Betting on Front-line Climate Tech Solutions?

Native Renewables, founded by Suzanne Singer, PhD (center), is bringing affordable solar panel and storage systems to Hopi and Navajo households. Photo courtesy The Solutions Project.

When facing a problem as enormous and existential as climate change, it’s tempting to search for a shiny new silver bullet that ends the crisis and saves us all. We’re in an all-hands-on-deck moment, and even expensive and unproven high-tech solutions—like carbon removal and storage—can seem attractive.

But right now, communities adapting to life on the front lines of the climate crisis are already deploying smart technologies that are curbing emissions, building resilience and addressing other essential human needs, from clean water and breathable air to gainful careers. These technologies are ripe for scaling up, and can benefit communities across the country.

Philanthropy, for the most part, is ignoring these front-line innovators. Worse, there’s a tendency to pit technological approaches against environmental justice solutions. The truth is that a just transition to a clean energy economy can only happen if equity is a topline goal.

At The Solutions Project, we are betting in a big way on proven and practical solutions led by community groups on the front lines of the climate crisis—communities that are overwhelmingly redlined or excluded from investment, and made up mostly of people of color. Scaling these initiatives up is the safest climate tech bet you can make, and we invite the rest of the philanthropic community to join us.

Here are just a few stories from the front lines: 

• In South Carolina, the New Alpha Community Development Corporation installed solar-powered hydropanels, which use sunlight and air to make pure drinking water, on the predominantly Black church where it’s headquartered. The community has suffered from increasingly severe storms and repeated flooding that knocks out water and electricity and exacerbates water-quality problems. Hydropanels offer a clean-tech solution to an increasingly widespread problem, and because they’re mobile, they can also be moved into disaster areas to provide clean drinking water. But the pilot project at the church attracted zero targeted philanthropic dollars (outside of our grant). And so far, a plan to install more hydropanels and create a water-bottling business for community economic development isn’t funded, either.

• Arizona-based Native Renewables—led by a Navajo woman with a Ph.D. in engineering who worked in the prestigious National Laboratory system—designs and installs affordable solar energy and storage systems at the homes of Navajo and Hopi families. These families often live miles from the nearest power line, and have had to rely on burning wood, propane and kerosene. Native Renewables is training tribal members to work as installers, and they are bringing solar power to house after house. But the going is slow, and the need is great: In the Navajo Nation alone, about 15,000 homes have no electricity.

• In the city of Highland Park, Michigan, which is over 90% Black, the electric utility repossessed the city’s street lights, plunging neighborhoods into darkness. The community-led group Soulardarity responded by installing solar-powered street lights that don’t have to be connected to any utility. And because internet providers have not delivered reliable web access to Highland Park, the lights are also designed to enable community Wi-Fi. Soulardarity’s goal is to bring the entire city into the modern age of lighted streets and reliable internet access, which would cost a few million dollars. But as long as the project attracts only smaller donations from community members and funders, Soulardarity can only light up a block or two at a time.

These are just three grassroots organizations among dozens that are designing, adapting and implementing technological solutions in the course of their climate justice work. The Solutions Project knows from experience that funding this kind of front-line effort is an excellent investment in both people and the planet.

As an intermediary grantmaker, we work to meet the expressed technology needs of our front-line partners. In addition to making catalytic grants to grassroots organizations, we advise Aclima, whose hyperlocal air pollution measurements give front-line communities the data they need to access public dollars. We also partner with Jaden Smith’s nonprofit, 501CTHREE, to provide free, safe filtered water in Black, brown and Indigenous communities through the organization’s innovative Water Boxes. 

The juxtaposition of communities of color and polluting facilities didn’t just happen. These locations were chosen. It has always been easier and more profitable to put especially hazardous industries in places where people don’t have a lot of money, power, or connections — communities whose objections might not even be heard, let alone listened to. And of course, in communities where jobs are badly needed, the promise of employment, whether it pans out or not, can entice local government into overlooking dangers to some residents’ health or the environment. These communities have endured historic disinvestment and extreme harm, and now we must invest in them at scale and with intention.

Repairing the centuries of damage that environmental injustice has done isn’t just going to happen, either. It’s past time to prioritize climate solutions—including tech solutions—led by front-line communities. They have suffered most from our dirty energy economy, and they are already implementing solutions that work. They must move from the back of the line to the front as we transition to a clean energy economy.

Because it directs 40% of the benefits of federal climate programs to disadvantaged communities, the Biden/Harris administration’s Justice40 Initiative could accelerate the process. That’s why The Solutions Project is joining other nonprofits and funders to establish the Justice40 Accelerator, which will serve front-line communities as they apply for grants and bid for contracts as part of the Justice40 Initiative.

Even as we keep an eye out for technology that might change the climate equation on a grand scale, we believe in front-line groups that are already using technology to change the game on a smaller playing field, one community at a time. Philanthropy can learn a lot from these front-line organizations, and should ramp up funding to scale up their groundbreaking initiatives. If these climate solutions are already working in a Southern town, on a rural tribal reservation, and in a Rust Belt city, they can work anywhere.

Gloria Walton is president and CEO of The Solutions Project, a national nonprofit promoting climate justice through grantmaking and amplifying the stories of frontline community leaders in the media. The organization seeks to accelerate the transition to 100% clean energy and equitable access to healthy air, water, and soils by supporting climate justice organizations, especially those led by women of color.