Overview
At the Catalyst Group, our Climate Practice integrates closely with our Health and Livelihood practice areas to further our vision of creating “a thriving world powered by resilient communities and carbon-neutral systems.” We believe that we need to bridge systemic gaps in climate ecosystems and promote people-centric models at scale. We are committed to leveraging our three decades of experience, expertise, and relationships working for and with vulnerable communities like small and marginal farmers, sex workers, street vendors, etc.
Our Expertise
01.
People focus and reach:
With decades of experience working with vulnerable communities, we have a deep understanding of the socio-economic canvas of vulnerable communities. We believe in working for and with vulnerable communities. Our collaborative approach ensures that climate solutions are co-created with the people they directly impact, making our efforts more effective and sustainable. We work through communities and institutions, enabling collective agencies to navigate the complex climate ecosystem and empowering their role in shaping climate solutions. We directly reach 2 million vulnerable people and another 20 million through our partners across India.
02.
Multi-Sectoral Integration:
We go beyond a siloed approach by integrating our Climate Practice closely with Health, ESG and Livelihood practice areas. This holistic approach recognises that climate, health, and livelihoods are interconnected, and addressing one area often positively impacts the others. Our approach ensures a fair and equitable shift to sustainable practices, safeguarding community well-being.
03.
Innovation:
We design innovative, people-focused climate solutions that address the specific needs of vulnerable communities. Our ability to adapt and create tailored solutions is a key strength. We actively promote solutions worldwide, accelerating the adoption of sustainability practices. We have already built innovative tools and approaches to solve climate issues—in plastics, in environmental surveillance, and in regen agriculture—all amenable to scale. And ready to co-create new solutions.
04.
Range of assets we have built, which can be used for climate response
Our network of partners (Private sector, NGOs, Government, academic, and technology companies), our established community-focused tools (Know Your Resilience), established approaches (health and climate planning), and our coalitions and networks (Community Action Collab, Green Health Alliance, etc.) are all assets we will be able to leverage.
Our Approach
We work for and with vulnerable communities who are disproportionately affected by climate change - small and marginal farmers, Nano, Micro, and MSMEs, street vendors, and indigenous people. We focus on enhancing their resilience, ensuring they can recover from or adapt to climate-related disruptions without compromising their lives, livelihoods and long-term well-being.
How We Work
01.
Thought: We design innovative, people-focused climate-smart solutions and innovations to address the unique challenges faced by vulnerable communities.
02.
Action: We provide solutions, technical assistance, network building, and resource mobilisation to put our climate solutions into action.
03.
Transformation: Our goal is to create climate-resilient pathways and achieve Net Zero by working closely with a range of stakeholders in the ecosystem to improve policies and practices.
Three Sectors
Our initiatives primarily focus on the following sectors:
01.
Agriculture & Food Systems:
Challenges: Agricultural systems are on the front lines of climate change, both creating and affected by it, contributing significantly to water usage and livestock carbon emissions. With increased weather variability, shifting growing seasons, and changing precipitation patterns, small and marginal farmers are disproportionately affected. They are the backbone of a country’s agriculture, and climate change endangers both food security and livelihoods.
Our Approach: We work closely with small and marginal farmers to adopt climate-smart agricultural practices and sustainable farming techniques. We also support the creation of resilient food supply chains and value-added processes to reduce post-harvest losses. The practices that are promoted are planned in such a way that there is biodiversity conservation and resource regeneration.
For example, our work through the GREEN Foundation, which works at the intersection of food, energy, and health systems using regenerative models that integrate agricultural practices, sustainable land use, and rural communities, focuses on promoting regenerative agriculture practices by small-holder farmers through a combination of inputs, practices, financing, and market demand.
Our work through Vrutti which has a strong grassroots presence and works closely in the livelihoods sector, enhancing people’s well-being through knowledge, innovations and transformative actions. Mobilising and institutionalising (institutions and clusters) small producers in order to build their collective agency and supply chain sustainability. Vrutti strongly believes that ‘Sustainable Livelihood Approaches’ can be a great lever to address poverty, marginalisation and inclusive development.
02.
ESG (Environment, Social and Governance) Services:
Challenges: Industries and Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) are significant contributors to carbon emissions. It is vital to help them transition to more sustainable and low-carbon operations. While large companies are increasingly committed to and able to move in a net-zero direction, it is the MSMEs who will need support in the transition.
Our Approach: We assist MSMEs in implementing energy and water-efficient technologies, adopting circular business models, and moving towards Net Zero emissions.
For example:
Our work through Shoonya Net Zero Catalyst is a service that specialises in offering end-to-end Net Zero solutions to MSMEs and brands, enabling them to be globally competitive. Our comprehensive service offerings, including certification readiness, comprehensive audits, ESG reporting, plastic recycling, and carbon offsetting, optimise supply chains, resulting in cost savings and improved productivity.
Noble Plastics is an eco-social initiative that champions the effective use of apparel plastic waste while promoting the well-being of people and the planet. Commenced in 2018 along with apparel giants M&S India, the core business of Noble Plastics was to repurpose and recycle apparel plastics, including used hangers from 100+ stores in India, and sell them back to fashion companies.
Driving the Processing of Non-Recyclable, Dead End Plastics through Advanced Pyrolysis in partnership with APChemi—a process that converts non-recyclable, problem plastics from coastal cities into high-grade circular fuel that serves as a feedstock for petrochemicals and other entities to generate circular chemicals and hydrogen, among other products.
Our collaborative study with the University of Greenwich focused on “Reducing Ocean Plastics: Formative Research Leading to Intervention Planning in India." This research was aimed at advancing the current understanding of land-based and other sources of plastics entering Indian oceans, government and private sector responses, existing policies and programmes to address plastic waste in India, and potential solutions that can address the problem on the scale required, as well as ideas for the planning of specific interventions in specific hotspots.
The Catalyst Group also co-developed an article with Vihara on “PANDEMIC PLASTICS: The Upsurge of Single-Use Plastics During the COVID-19 Pandemic," which critically assessed the COVID plastic PPE crisis and charted out ways to effectively upcycle biomedical plastic waste for hospitals. Its publication is pending.
03.
Health system:
Challenges: Climate change has a profound impact on people’s well-being, as evidenced by the strain on our health system caused by the rising prevalence of illnesses (waterborne, vector-borne, and foodborne diseases) related to climate change (heat waves, storms, and floods). At the same time, people’s unsustainable behaviours, like high carbon emissions and deforestation, exacerbate the challenges faced by health systems worldwide.
Our Approach: We focus on developing circular health solutions that enhance the resilience of health ecosystems. This includes scaling solutions that reduce carbon, building resilience and readying communities for climate impact, and strengthening systems to cope with climate-led health emergencies. Our goal is to ensure access to quality healthcare services even in the face of climate-related disruptions.
Our work is through the Green Health Alliance (GHA), which addresses the health facilities becoming net zero (energy, water, and plastic focus), readying the populations to mitigate and adapt to climate change health issues (through local plans and preparations), and reading the health facilities to cope when there is a surge of demand due to climate emergencies.
Our work through Swasti, as the ‘health catalyst’ of the group, focuses on people-centric health and well-being, with vulnerable communities as key participants. Swasti champions the ‘One Health’ approach, which recognises that the health of people is interconnected with people, animals, plants, and our environment. The effects of climate change and human health are deeply intertwined, with Swasti working intricately at the intersection.
Comprehensive Integrated Health and Climate Change Response (CIHCR) Playbook Recognising the profound link between climate change and public health and requiring a collaborative response to interconnected issues, the CPHC Alliance (co-incubated by the Catalyst Group) co-authored the playbook, drawing from multi-sectoral expertise, learnings from the lived realities of communities at the last mile, and experience. The Playbook is the first of its kind in India and offers a practical approach to district stakeholders, policymakers, investors, and implementers to ensure that communities, particularly vulnerable, are able to enjoy good health and well-being and are protected and ready for the fallouts of drastic climate change.
Through the playbook, a systems approach is offered to integrate:
1. Fragmented health system and response
2. Disaster and climate preparedness
3. Multiple key stakeholder responsesIt also includes critical insight, useful frameworks, interesting examples from across the length and breadth of our nation and beyond, and working methods that span a range of topics, including governance, financing, technology, and more, leading to an easy-to-deploy ready-to-implement integrated district climate and health response.
Overall, our work in these target sectors is driven by a commitment to building resilience, reducing carbon emissions, and creating sustainable pathways for vulnerable communities. Through a combination of innovative solutions, technical support, and partnerships, we aim to make a substantial positive impact in these critical areas while advancing our vision of a thriving world powered by resilient communities and carbon-neutral systems.
For example: