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Live Workstreams

The Lab’s work is underway with three practical workstreams, exploring opportunities and needs across the areas of tax, investment practices, and rights of nature work.

These workstreams were agreed as part of a collaborative planning process in 2023, with the group then forming smaller groups based on the areas that they wanted to commit time and funding to. 

Each workstream consists of a mix of funders (some participating in more than one workstream), a Lab facilitator, strategic partners and guest speakers. Each workstream is developing plans in a way best suited to that work, and we are already seeing exciting areas of action and support emerge. Find out more about each workstream below. 

We will begin a new cycle of workstreams later in 2024/2025, extending existing workstreams, inviting new funders to join them, while also exploring what new workstreams to begin.

Evolving the tax system to serve life Going beyond ESG Supporting the rights of nature movement Workstream pipeline

Forming workstreams

A goal of the Lab is to develop a ‘portfolio’ of workstreams that together support greater shifts towards economies that protect and regenerate all of life. Of course, many areas of work are needed and we cannot do them all at once, so we developed a set of coordinates to help the Lab’s group prioritise areas of work:

  • Is it bold and ambitious?
  • Is it the right fit for this group and this moment in time?
  • Can it inspire action in many different places?
  • Does it embrace connections more than siloes?
  • Is it something that no one can do alone?
  • Does it have the potential to heal relationships (to ourselves, to nature, to the past)?

Excitingly, with the help of a facilitator and guided by the principles of the Lab, each workstream we selected is now making good progress.

Evolving the tax system to serve life

This workstream is focused on exploring the points of confluence between the tax system and the climate and nature emergencies. It seeks to identify ways in which the power of the tax system can evolve to act in service of life.

It emerged from a recognition that the current tax system is both powerful and flawed: it is a key source of funding for any government-led initiatives on climate and nature and a massively powerful shaper of narratives about the economy. But often it incentivises actions that are harmful to life. The group is exploring 5 broad areas where it may be able to deploy its power in service to life:

  • Supporting the deepening of connections between the existing network of actors engaged with this topic
  • Supporting those actors to convert their existing policy recommendations and analysis into political reality
  • Supporting a shift in the public discourse towards greater government investment in climate and nature
  • Supporting amendments to taxes or tax breaks that are key to nature and climate impacts
  • Supporting legislative change to incorporate nature and climate into all tax decision-making

To find out more about this workstream, get in touch with hannah@tealco.org

Going beyond ESG

This workstream explores and acts on the misalignment between how organisations make grants and how they invest. We seek to encourage an ecosystem of transparency, to shorten the learning curve for other philanthropists, and for charitable foundations to join us in putting all of our capital – endowments, as well as grants – to work in service to life.

Existing frameworks around ethical investment of charitable endowments are demonstrably inadequate for achieving our commitments on social and environmental justice. However demand is building for both education and investment standards that align with the values of UK-based charitable foundations. Four potential intervention points where this group can influence a shift in investment practice by their peers are:

  • Making the current ecosystem of changemakers visible to the wider philanthropic community
  • Making an urgent and compelling case for peer organisation, highlighting best practice and shortening the learning curve
  • Calling for greater transparency in the investment process
    Supporting potential regulatory shifts by coordinating with existing projects

To find out more about this workstream, contact stella@bio-leadership.org

Supporting the rights of nature movement

This workstream sets out to support the rights of nature movement to grow, knowing that giving nature back its rights will transform the way our economy functions – and how society views nature.

A group of six catalyst funders are working together to support a growing national and international movement that’s at an exciting point of development, and we can see that with some help, significant changes may come to how nature can be protected through legally binding mechanisms.

So far, the work has included inviting groundbreaking projects to help us identify different levels of possible support for the movement. We’ve mapped potential areas of change, from supporting specific legal technical changes to helping place-based projects that put nature at the heart of development, and shifting cultural narratives to support connection with and care for nature.

We’re excited to have identified some first steps in helping this movement to grow, starting with a gathering to help the Rights of Nature movement see a bigger picture together. We plan to support initiatives emerging from that gathering using the principles of the Lab to encourage more systemic forms of impact.

To find out more, contact andres@bio-leadership.org

Workstream pipeline

We have a ‘pipeline’ of potential new workstreams, including:

  • Developing a charitable investment vehicle or platform to support broader regenerative development in South Wales
  • Developing a community-fund based on feminine leadership principles
  • Supporting and helping the development of a Nature-Led Neighbourhoods idea already spearheaded by catalyst funder, Wates Family Enterprise Trust
  • Developing a platform to support the development of a movement advocating for strong just transition policy proposals in the UK
  • Working more closely with a city, town or region, to deepen a place-based approach in service to life

If you’re interested in joining one, or have other potential workstreams in mind, please get in touch.

Join

The Earth Funding Lab is a virtual campus for funders to come together and work in new ways. It’s open to all types and sizes of funding entities, from individual philanthropists to foundations, although the participants must have decision-making power about grant making.

Learn more