Building a Climate Smart Economy

The Catalyst Climate Funders Collaborative invites all climate, economic development, policy, and advocacy funders to join CA FWD and Resources Legacy Fund for a conversation about how we can reimagine climate leadership through economic prosperity.

In this webinar, we will explore what is needed for an economy-wide transition that drives sustainable and inclusive economic growth, cuts daily costs, and creates businesses in every region.

California has an opportunity to step forward as a model for climate action, as the architect of a new climate-smart economy. A climate-smart economy is one that delivers a broadly-shared prosperity, economic resilience, and local community benefits. Where climate policy solutions are fundamentally aligned with the global scale of the climate crisis —not merely delivering greenhouse gas emissions reductions within the state.

The conversation will also explore opportunities for an 18-month effort, through the inauguration of the next California governor in 2027, to grow and align a broad coalition around key principles and goals fundamental to delivering a climate-smart economy. This will include a detailed and implementable policy playbook focused on both near-and longer-term opportunities.

To help ground the conversation, participants are encouraged to review the following materials in advance:

California Climate-Smart Economy Initiative

Reimagining Climate Leadership Through Economic Prosperity

About the Climate Funder Collaborative Series

The Climate Funders Collaborative supports funder learning and collaboration to promote healthy, equitable, and sustainable communities in the Baja, Imperial and San Diego Region. The Climate Funders Collaborative focuses on building funder knowledge in a supportive, interactive, and generative environment to collectively learn and enable action on critical climate-related issues.

The Climate Funders Collaborative is open to all funders currently supporting efforts to build healthy, equitable, and sustainable in the region.

Target Audience

This event is open to funders only. If you are interested in Catalyst membership, please contact Aline Racic.

Catalyst is committed to making our events accessible to everyone. Please let us know how we can help you fully participate by contacting Michele Silverthorn. 

Speakers

Matt Armsby | Executive VP, Resources Legacy Fund

Matt drives RLF’s programmatic strategy including California programs and deliver of high-integrity fiscal sponsorship services. Matt has been at RLF since 2012, serving as its interim president, general counsel, and vice president for policy. Before joining RLF, Matt was an environmental law and policy fellow and clinical attorney at Stanford Law School’s Environmental Law Clinic and was an Early Career Legal Fellow at the Center for Ocean Solutions. Matt is a graduate of Stanford Law School and Vanderbilt University.

Christiana DeBenedict | Director of Impact Strategy, Prebys Foundation

Christiana DeBenedict served as Senior Director of Environmental Initiatives at San Diego Foundation (SDF) and oversaw a portfolio of environment initiatives that supported our most vulnerable communities facing air and water pollution, climate change impacts and lack of access to green spaces. Since 2021, Christiana has managed SDF’s Climate and Outdoor Initiatives; led the establishment of the Binational Resilience Initiative; and co-founded the Climate Funders Collaborative (San Diego / Baja / Imperial). She oversees the Environment team that is serving as lead grant administrator for a Transformative Climate Communities grant of $29.5 million to advance community-driven climate projects benefiting the historic central barrios of San Diego.

Nuin-Tara Key | COO, CA FWD

Nuin-Tara Key is the Chief Operating Officer at California Forward. In this role, she supports the overall strategy and development of programs across the organization. She has nearly 20 years of experience in climate adaptation and mitigation policy, climate finance, urban and regional planning, and social and environmental equity.

Prior to joining CA FWD, Nuin-Tara served as a Senior Advisor and Consultant, including working with Resilient Cities Catalyst (RCC) to stand up the Mediterranean Climate Action Partnership (MCAP) and support implementation of the California Resilience Partnership (CRP). She served as Director of the North America Public Sector Practice in the Climate and Resilience Hub (CRH) at WTW, a global risk and insurance firm, working with public sector clients to better manage climate risks and guide the transition to a net zero economy.