Case Study: Progressive funder seeks to accelerate climate action throughout the organisation

How a funder built shared systemic understanding across teams, mapping intersections with existing work and empowering individuals to drive climate-conscious improvements in their own areas.

The client

Esmeé Fairbairn Foundation is one of the UK’s largest independent funders. In
In the company’s stated aim “to improve our natural world, secure a fairer future and strengthen the bonds in communities in the UK”, they released £52.9m of funding in 2025.

The challenge

EFF were looking to accelerate work on their cross cutting commitment to addressing the causes and impacts of climate change across the organisation and looked to use the Climate Fresk tool to help get everyone on the same page.

Our approach

We worked with project leads to better understand the culture and dynamics within the organisation and designed a session based around their needs at this stage on their journey.

The results

Colleagues built the big picture of the climate crisis and explored how each team and funding stream intersects with the crisis and where their work could leverage greater impact. We mapped this visually for the first time and captured a range of ideas from quick wins to bigger cultural questions, as well as what next. 

One participant reported it was a, “really energetic and engaged session. The slow reveal is a great mechanism for explaining the interrelationship between climate and equity.” Another added, “the facilitators were great, helped to keep the energy up and us engaged.”

Lessons Learned

Working together revealed valuable lessons learned, primarily highlighting the many intersections between existing work and climate initiatives, some of which were not fully recognised between departments.

Future-Proofing

The hard work invested in embedding this knowledge has dispersed responsibility across the organisation, encouraging each individual and team to interrogate their own areas of work, ask pertinent questions and suggest process improvements.  

Other recommendations

 When the whole organisation has increased their level of systemic understanding, each conversation thereafter is more impactful. Not everyone in the team was able to join this session. We offer engaging online workshops, which are more accessible to those who couldn’t make it in person.
We are pleased to share that the following year we delivered an online session to further EFF staff.

What they had to say