The Disproportionate Impacts of Environmental Challenges Working Group aims to help address some of the world’s most pressing environmental challenges and their outsized effects on marginalized communities.

Guided by the principles of humility, responsibility, respect and rigor, the Disproportionate Impacts of Environmental Challenges Working Group will support community efforts to mitigate or adapt to climate change impacts. The project is motivated by two core questions:

The project is motivated by two core questions:

• How can marginalized communities effectively mitigate or adapt to climate change impacts?
• How can we produce research that is meaningful, relevant, actionable, and rigorous?

In collaboration with community partners including Indigenous youth, community elders and knowledge keepers as well as scientists and engineers, the group will develop a model for participatory, transdisciplinary research that leverages both traditional ecological knowledge and scientific knowledge.

This model will guide the development of a collective knowledge base on environmental change and climate change experiences—a knowledge-sharing platform that fosters the collaborative development of approaches to mitigating or preventing the disproportionate impacts of environmental change. The central aim of this work is societal impact—not simply bridging divides within academia, but reaching outside of the academy to co-produce and apply knowledge. Learn more in our Buffett Brief on Disproportionate Impacts of Environmental Challenges, or explore more Buffett Briefs on our global working groups' research >>