What is “climate restoration?”
Our Philosophy
Restoring the climate requires a paradigm shift. To help that shift, we are creating an ecosystem that supports climate restoration. Our work is focused on EDUCATION, ADVOCACY, and SOLUTIONS to restore the climate.
EDUCATION
Build, collaborate, and promote
We provide education through convenings, briefings, trainings, white papers, conference presentations, and outreach. Contact us if you would like to bring climate restoration education to your organization.
ADVOCACY
Activate a movement
We are building momentum for climate restoration through our youth leadership program, government policies and resolutions, multi-stakeholder partnerships, international bodies, and standards and oversight. You can join us by signing the petition for local governments, joining our Coalition or inviting your organization, company, or government to join the Task Force.
SOLUTIONS
Ignite innovation for solutions
We promote the research, development, and investment into climate restoration solutions through marketplace analysis, collaboration with our advocacy arm, and our Solutions Exchange. You can learn more by reading our white paper, and help us by contacting us if you know of promising carbon dioxide removal solutions that we may have missed.
Our Partners
Board of Directors
BOARD MEMBER & CO-FOUNDER
BOARD MEMBER & CHAIR OF PROGRAMS COMMITTEE
BOARD MEMBER
BOARD MEMBER
BOARD MEMBER & CHAIR OF EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
Nicole Gardner is a retired vice president of IBM’s Global Services and the co-author of a United Nations technology standard. She has launched and managed businesses at IBM and PwC ranging from $100M to $1.4B. Nicole was the first Chief Innovation Officer for IBM’s Global Services Public Sector and the first Human Capital Management practice leader. In her role with the United Nations, she collaborated with senior leaders across industries to forge a widely accepted global standard. She has served large commercial entities including Baxter Healthcare, ExxonMobil, ARMCO Specialty Steel, Cummins Engine Company and First National Bank of Chicago. In 2017 and 2018, Nicole was recognized as a FederalHealthIT 100 and in 2018 received accolades with a Women in Leadership Impact Award.
BOARD MEMBER & CHAIR OF FUNDRAISING COMMITTEE
Pete co-founded Ryan & Wetmore with Michael Wetmore in 1988. A top-50 Washington, DC area accounting firm with 40 employees. Extensively experienced in many industries, Pete's accounting and consulting specialties include government contractors, not-for-profit organizations, real estate and construction companies, employee benefit plans, technology companies, and international tax and litigation support services before the IRS. Pete has presented at major conferences on multiple topics throughout the United States. He has served on the Board of Directors for a number of successful nonprofit organizations, serving on the leadership board for the local chapter of the Alliance of Mergers and Acquisition Advisors and former board member of the National Philharmonic Orchestra for 15 years. He is currently an active member of the Villanova University Parents Program and mentors students at Archbishop Carroll High School. He is also the chairperson of Catholic University Athletics Cardinal Club.
BOARD MEMBER & CHAIR OF FINANCE COMMITTEE
Ashley Meeky is a rising freshman at Vanderbilt University. She plays competitive tennis year-round and has finished top 12 in the state. She serves as captain of her school’s girls tennis and track teams. She also participates in National Honor Society, Interact Club through Rotary International, and Teens Helping Teens. This year, she started a domestic violence awareness program at her school. She also loves volunteering at South Suburban Family Shelter (an organization that serves victims and survivors of domestic violence), Habitat for Humanity, and Progressive Housing (an organization that serves people with developmental disorders). For fun, she enjoys reading and operating her own natural hair business called Hair Chronicles By Ashley. Since she was young, she’s aspired to travel the world, this sparked her interest in restoring the climate so that everyone in the world could have the opportunity to experience the Earth’s beauty.
ASHLEY MEEKY
BOARD MEMBER & YOUTH AMBASSADOR
BOARD MEMBER
FOUNDER AND CHAIRMAN EMERITUS
Leadership Team
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
Kye Young founded Social Impact Partners LLC in December 2019 after 15 years of experience working in resource mobilization capacities at non-profits and within the United Nations system. Most recently, Kye served as the Director, Corporate Relations for the United Nations Foundation, the world’s largest organization dedicated to advocacy and support for UN causes. Prior to this, Kye spent seven years working in the Private Sector Partnerships Division of the UN World Food Programme (WFP). Prior to WFP, from 2005-2010, Kye served as a Grants Manager for the San Francisco-based NGO, The Asia Foundation.
VP OF PARTNERSHIPS & DEVELOPMENT
An award-winning strategist, Alexandra brings over 12 years of PR experience to the Foundation for Climate Restoration. Rooted in her passion for climate justice, Alexandra leverages her expertise in crafting strategic communications to give the Foundation a significant platform to spread awareness around their mission to restore the climate.
SENIOR ADVISOR: COMMUNICATIONS
Delaney Pues is a digital nomad focusing her work on addressing key environmental and humanitarian issues in the current world. After graduating Magna Cum Laude from San Diego State University, Delaney began her work in the nonprofit sector managing donor relations, development, and finance to help fund programs for orphaned and vulnerable children in Mexico and Nicaragua. Departing from San Diego, California in the summer of 2019, she traveled cross country and back running off of solar power in a converted sprinter van, reducing her carbon footprint. She has worked and traveled throughout Iceland, Europe, Australia, and Southeast Asia where she became increasingly aware of the global impact humans have made on the natural world. Motivated by her firsthand interactions with melting glaciers, rising sea levels, and natural disasters, Delaney hopes to play a key role in fulfilling the goal of restoring the climate to a safe and healthy level. As an avid surfer, hiker, and backpacker, Delaney’s love for the environment has contributed to her dreams of creating a better world for future generations.
DIRECTOR OF DONOR RELATIONS
SENIOR ADVISOR: EUROPEAN STRATEGY
Brad Ack is an environmental innovator with 30 years of creative contributions towards a more sustainable and biologically diverse world. Brad recently launched the Ocean-Climate Trust, working to build a new ocean/climate stabilization agenda, unlock new intellectual and financial investments in ocean/climate restoration; source and develop innovations to repair and restore critical components of the ocean system; and take advantage of the oceans capacity to capture and store carbon in new ways. Previously Brad was Senior Vice President in charge of the Oceans program at WWF-US; Regional Director Americas for the Marine Stewardship Council; and Executive Director of the Puget Sound Action Team, Office of the Governor in the State of Washington. He has held other conservation leadership positions in the Southwest US and started his career working in Latin America to integrate sustainable resource use into large parks and protected area projects.
SENIOR ADVISOR: OCEAN CLIMATE NEXUS
Lena Sinha-Connolly has extensive experience in international affairs, working with the United Nations on international development cooperation, governance and the rule of law. As policy adviser and director with the United Nations Development Programme, she managed international cooperation initiatives in areas ranging from agricultural development and poverty reduction to renewable energy, biodiversity conservation and climate change. Committed to multilateralism in addressing global challenges, she advises the foundation in its efforts to bring forward climate restoration solutions that will begin the long process of restoring the Earth’s climate system to the state last experienced in pre-industrial times.
SENIOR ADVISOR: GLOBAL GOVERNANCE AND CLIMATE RESTORATION
PROJECT MANAGER & YOUTH PROGRAM DIRECTOR
Dragana “Anna” Djuknic has been with Columbia University for a decade, first at Columbia Business School, and then at the Department of Biomedical Engineering as a Program Manager, where she manages a multi-million budget in support of cutting edge scientific research, and where she works closely with the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Science Foundation (NSF) and NASA. She holds an MBA from the Stevens Institute of Technology.
Her lifelong interest has been in helping people in need, especially children with special needs and orphans. She has received the honorary title of Dame of the Order de Saints Maurice and Lazarus for her humanitarian work. Anna is very passionate about projects for saving the planet, where her primary goal is to save resources for our own generation and, even more importantly, for the generations to come.
Her lifelong interest has been in helping people in need, especially children with special needs and orphans. She has received the honorary title of Dame of the Order de Saints Maurice and Lazarus for her humanitarian work. Anna is very passionate about projects for saving the planet, where her primary goal is to save resources for our own generation and, even more importantly, for the generations to come.
DRAGANA DJUKNIC
SPECIAL ADVISOR
Jeannie Presley Mangone combines a unique background in law, environmental and urban planning, and project management that helps guide F4CR’s internal policies and procedures. She has previously worked with local governments and community members to establish municipal and regional policies and plans, managed multi-million dollar environmental projects, and is a registered patent attorney. Her lifelong passion for environmental stewardship and sense of responsibility to offer a better world to her daughter and future generations motivate her to shape ethical policies that are socially responsible, equitable, and achievable for the global community.
SENIOR ADVISOR: ORGANIZATIONAL POLICY
FELLOW
Lew speaks and writes on topics ranging from collaboration and integrating technology to new business development, forming partnerships, and sustainability. His perspective merges design thinking with entrepreneurial business practices. After nearly 27 years working for Steelcase brands, on March 1st, 2021, Lew retired and restarted to dedicate most of his time to climate action. To that end, Lew is a local member of the Queens Climate Project in New York and supports the international Foundation for Climate Restoration as a Special Advisor where he is co-developing a new Solution Series. Today, Lew is also developing a new platform for the design community to inspire and empower like-minded colleagues to drive climate action further.
LEWIS EPSTEIN
SPECIAL ADVISOR
With almost 20 years of varied human resources experience, a Bachelors in Human Resource Management, a Masters with a focus on Conflict Resolution and senior level certifications SPHR and SHRM-SCP, Cerissa Burden lends her expertise to F4CR to assist in creating a foundation and maintaining a human resources program that supports F4CR as an employer of choice. Her experience has primarily been in the government sector working with an international employee base. Cerissa's areas of expertise encompasses the full employee lifecycle inclusive of: policy development, regulatory compliance, employee relations, total rewards, and workforce management.
SENIOR ADVISOR: HUMAN RESOURCES
Felix Kramer is a Strategic Advisor for F4CR. His website for Climate Restoration is https://ClimateChangesEverything.org. A husband and parent, he volunteers full-time and writes about “missing pieces” in climate awareness and solutions, and advises and invests in clean energy and carbon removal companies. He founded CalCars.org and helped win the eight-year campaign for mass production of plug-in hybrid cars like the Chevy Volt. He is a former entrepreneur and strategic communicator. He has launched, led, and promoted environmental, political and IT projects and companies.
STRATEGIC ADVISOR
Christian is an experienced executive from leading global industrial groups within healthcare and industrial B2B, who has worked with strategic transformation and intrapreneurship by building new business units. Today, he is Director at Nordic Real Estate Partners (NREP), the leading Nordic private equity real estate manager and Partner in 2150, which is an emerging European investment platform to invest into companies focused on Urban Tech Sustainability. Together with four leading global industrials representing +200bn market cap he co-founded and acted as Chairman of SYNERGI, a climate organization focused on increasing the ambitions on climate and energy efficiency in Denmark and Europe. His background is a Masters in Finance & International Business from Aarhus University and Executive Leadership Degree from INSEAD.
SPECIAL ADVISOR
STRATEGIC ADVISOR
Council of Experts
Sir David King was the Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government under both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, and Head of the Government Office for Science from October 2000 to 31 December 2007. Throughout his career he has been very outspoken of the threats of climate change. King has published over 500 papers on his research in chemical physics and on science and policy, and has received numerous prizes, fellowships and honorary degrees.
Sir David King
Brad Ack is the CEO of Ocean Visions. His passion lies in protecting ocean ecosystems and finding ocean-based solutions to the climate crisis. Ack has been a part of numerous innovative conservation and sustainability initiatives. Ack and his colleagues enlightened the audience at the Second Annual Climate Restoration Forum on the central role of the oceans in combating climate change and the changes that are happening in the ocean.
Brad Ack
Tom Chi was head of Product Experience and a founding member of Google X, and currently works to address our carbon debt in order to heal the planet. Chi pioneered and practices a unique approach to rapid prototyping and leadership that can jumpstart innovative new ideas and move large organizations at unprecedented speeds. Chi is talented at giving presentations and has been educating people on various platforms on many different topics.
Tom Chi
Dr. Sarah A. Green is interested in all aspects of environmental chemistry from molecular analytical methods to global climate change, including the science policy interface. Dr. Green has been a member of the Chemistry Department at Michigan Tech since 1994 and currently serves as Interim Department Chair. She was awarded a Jefferson Science Fellowship to serve in the Bureau of East Asia-Pacific Affairs in the U.S. Department of State (2013-14). Dr. Green currently serves as co-vice chair for the Scientific Advisory Panel on the Sixth Global Environmental Outlook (GEO-6), United Nations Environment Programme.
Sarah Green
Dr. Charles “Chip” Fletcher is the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. Dr. Fletcher is a Commissioner on the Honolulu Climate Change Commission and an advisor at the Ocean-Climate Alliance. He works on climate change awareness and is an expert on Pacific paleo-sea level history, beach processes, and modeling the impacts of past, present and future sea level rise on island environments and communities.
Dr. Charles “Chip” Fletcher
Dr. Gillian Bowser is a Research Scientist at Colorado State University. Her current projects include developing biodiversity surveys for a preserve in Brazil, engaging students in sustainability through an intensive summer academy experience, and building a network of women in sustainability that includes international partners from business and academia. She previously worked as a wildlife biologist and ecologist for the U.S. National Park Service in Yellowstone, Grand Tetons, Joshua Tree and Wrangell St. Elias. Dr. Bowser was a High Level Group Stakeholder Representative for the U.N. Global Environmental Outlook (GEO6) and the Global Gender Environmental Outlook report (GGEO).
Gillian Bowser
Dr. Gregory Guannel is the Director of the Caribbean Technology Center at the University of the Virgin Islands. He is a coastal, ocean and civil engineer who focuses on how Caribbean communities can adapt and respond to climate change. Guannel holds a Phd in Civil Engineering from Oregon State University, a Masters degree in Ocean Engineering from Texas A&M University, and a Masters degree in Public Works from the Ecole Superieure des Travaux Publics (Paris).
Dr. Gregory Guannel
Terri Pugh holds a Masters in International Policy Studies from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, where she studied practical solutions to the world’s problems through well thought out policy implementation. She learned more about living and prioritizing values from her experiences as a mother of three and member of her family. Her lifelong interest in justice and the environment and her need for scalable, realistic solutions for solving climate change and environmental issues drew her to the mission of the Foundation for Climate Restoration. The idea of setting the goal for climate restoration as a means of achieving the task, satisfied the policy analyst, advocate and mother inside of her. When not working, Terri can always be found outside in the fresh air.
Terri Pugh
Chapter Empowerment Coordinator