While today's organization was created by two companies whose influence includes world markets and international architecture and engineering, and while their projects involve working with groups and companies that may not be environmentally minded, The Resilience Shift is dedicated to creating more environmentally conscious building practices and helping to promote climate change solutions that will be sustainable as the shifting pressures of climate change begin to take its toll on humanity. They understand that the damage has already been done while maintaining that the way we've been doing things is no longer the way we can continue to do them if we want to promote real change and save ourselves and the Earth. The Resilience Shift is also working to promote new ways of thinking about problems by providing grants to engineers and scientists looking to create a resilient future and to cultivate existing local ideas to study their efficacy for larger-scale projects. In short, they're trying to find better ways for us to do things that don't harm the environment and last longer so that we spend less energy and materials over the long-term, thus creating a cleaner and safer world for all.
Created by two companies, Lloyd's Register Foundation and ARUP, The Resilience Shift began its mission in 2016; though, I didn't find them until 2019 which is when I first signed up to start receiving their newsletters. I think at the time there was a lot of activism going on regarding climate change, and I likely learned about them through one of many stories I was reading at the time. While I don't keep up with them as much as I used to (their work is more written for those working in the industry rather than for people like me,) from time to time, I will still find a story that catches my eye and excites me about the future of our planet. They understand that climate change isn't just the responsibility of one country but rather all of them and have worked to ensure that they have international partners in their endeavors. It's a fine line to walk considering many of our political and ideological differences, but if we don't work with the rest of the world, the problem of climate change can't and won't be solved. Fortunately, creating better ways of building and planning can forgo many of these political and ideological divides as every nation has need of such things. (This also, once again, cements in my mind the ability of science to create partnerships across the world--and that is important. It's an in-road that can forge pathways to discuss those more thorny subjects of humanitarian rights, biological warfare deterrence, the abolishment of nuclear weapons, and so many other things.)
The Resilience Shift also offers tools, holds conferences, and has, to date, dispersed more than 40 grants totaling over £2 million. And the blog, combined with their YouTube channel continues to document and support their mission, which they state as:
The Resilience Shift is a catalyst for positive change. Our mission is to help ensure the safety and continuity of the critical infrastructure and services that make our lives possible. From water and transportation through to communications and energy, it is essential to everything we do. We’re working globally to help define this and provide pathways from theory to practice.
This thinking underpins the founding of the Resilience Shift initiative. We are not just a think tank, not just a grant-making body, and not just a convening network. Our impact is achieved through a proactive approach combining all three of these.
One of their latest projects is to create a best-practices for implementing resiliency into ideas, thus making them last longer and have more value or sustain value over that longer time scale. Likewise, the offered guidance will be both environmentally friendly and consider our changing climate while seeking to minimize further impacts upon it. But with almost every idea ranging from building new things to creating new ways of getting things from one place to another, this sounds like a lot to digest. I've included their latest video which better explains their intentions.
As you can see, The Resilience Shift is trying to find better ways of doing things to help protect our environment, slow the effects (and perhaps reverse them,) of man-made climate change, and build things that are going to last longer and weather changes more efficiently. They're forward-thinking and future-looking, and that is why today I believe they are a cause worth celebrating.
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