Focus area
Program Design
Supporting institutions to innovate in climate and sustainability.
What we do
Research and analysis decision-makers can act on
Whether your organization is establishing a new office, building new initiatives, or iterating on existing programs, we provide meaningful research and analysis for decision-makers to act.
Capabilities
Five ways we plug in
Peer Benchmarking
Learn from leading institutions and identify trends to advance climate and sustainability in your organization.
Organizational Design
Building and structuring staff, systems, and policies for success.
Strategy Alignment
Pulling decentralized efforts under one strategy across units.
Program Management
Reviewing materials, managing data, and stewarding program requirements.
Program Build-Out
Ideation, scoping, evaluation, and project management support for new initiatives.
Convening industry, academia, and government innovators in climate and sustainability
Updraft assisted an organization to help design and deliver its contribution to a regional climate convening: a full day of plenaries and fireside chats bringing together corporate sustainability executives, utility and state energy leadership, investors, researchers, and elected officials.
Updraft served on the advisory planning committee alongside organizational leadership and a cleantech partner. We helped shape the day's programming, across session development and event installations with hundreds of attendees.
What we supported
- Program scoping and session selection
- Venue and convening-space planning across the day's installments
- Speaker identification and outreach
- Coordination across the host institutions, partner organizations, and speaker teams
- Briefing materials, question sets, response focus areas, and session guides for panelists and moderators
Sessions developed
- A moderated conversation with senior elected officials on state climate and energy policy priorities
- A plenary on the resource footprint of artificial intelligence, examining grid demand, clean power procurement, water use, and data center buildout with speakers spanning state energy policy, utility planning, academic research, and industry
- A plenary on how corporate sustainability leaders are holding course through a shifting regulatory and political landscape, with chief sustainability officers and advisory leads from global consumer and technology brands
- A fireside chat on capital markets and the climate economy, exploring how investment timescales and strategies can shape the pace of the energy transition
Creating an easy-to-navigate sustainability hub
We helped a public university to launch a new sustainability website covering its recently established sustainability office along with education, research, campus operations, partnerships, news, events, and ways to get involved.
Sustainability work is happening in hundreds of units and programs across the institution, much of it undocumented in any central place. We inventoried that activity; identified the programs, initiatives, and recognitions to surface; and organized thousands of individual efforts into a structure visitors can navigate smoothly.
What we supported
- Site architecture and page design
- Content drafting across all sections
- Inventory of campus units, programs, and institutional recognition
The result
A single hub that gives students, faculty, staff, and external partners one place to find sustainability work across the institution, the resources behind it, and a clear path to getting involved.
Aligning leadership across a decentralized institution
Updraft helped a large university design a full-day retreat for its sustainability leadership. The university's sustainability work spans research, academics, campus operations, industry partnerships, community engagement, advancement, student programs, and communications, and the teams leading this work rarely have the chance to connect all together.
The retreat was structured to give each team space to share its current work and near-term priorities, and to spot overlap and opportunities for collaboration between their portfolios. Interdisciplinary teams made up of staff from different units connected through interactive workshops to outline a clear path toward shared, long-term goals.
What we supported
- Retreat design and agenda across functional areas
- Session and interactive workshop development
- Facilitation materials and prompts for cross-portfolio discussion
The result
20+ staff participated across research, academics, operations, partnerships, community engagement, advancement, student programs, and communications.
The day gave the group a shared view of the university's sustainability portfolio, common long-term goals, and near-term deliverables.
Get in touch
Some work can't wait.
Tell us what you're trying to accomplish, and we'll tell you honestly whether we're the right partner.
Start a conversation