Could Training and Upskilling Be The Most Efficient Way to Transform Aotearoa Into A Climate Leader?
Matthew Shribman (Manu Tukutuku) and his team at AimHi Earth provide accessible and engaging online climate and sustainability training, curated to educate and upskill individuals and organisations. In close collaboration with fellow Edmund Hillary Fellowship (EHF) Fellow, Sarah Grant (Piripiri), the AimHi Earth programme has been introduced to Aotearoa, through a partnership with Ōtautahi Christchurch-based indigenous knowledge alliance Kia Kotahi Ako, to provide NZ organisations with the tools to be sustainability leaders.
EHF Fellow and AimHi Earth CEO and Chief Scientist, Matthew Shribman, formally trained as a scientist at the University of Oxford. “I was lucky to grow up surrounded by nature, full of questions, and I got very lucky that school didn't beat the scientific curiosity out of me,” he says. Matthew has since stepped out of the lab and – following a brief stint as the front-man of indie-pop band, Ash Lad – into the realms of systems thinking, environmentalism, educating, advising and campaigning. Known to some as the presenter of the renowned YouTube series ‘Science in the Bath’, Matthew has found a way to take complex scientific ideas and theories and make them appealing to a large audience using his unique and personable method of delivery. He believes that the best solutions to complex problems begin with building wider understanding through accessible education.
“The future of education is centred around community, intrigue, accountability, relationships, locality and great role models,” Matthew says. “Our core offering at AimHi Earth is a collection of live, online experiences for leaders, teams and organisations to undertake together. These experiences lay the foundational knowledge, impetus and activation that save organisations enormous sums in the long term by getting everyone on the same page, working in unison, and knowing what questions to ask and when. Around these experiences, we run sustainability diagnostics on company teams, provide on-demand learning materials, offer access to experts, run deep-dive sessions on industry-specific topics, and measure overall impact.”
A popular TEDx speaker and the creator of the Global CO2 Widget, it is Matthew’s deep knowledge of interdisciplinary science and science communication that informs AimHi Earth’s understanding that facts, alone, don’t inspire behaviour change. By integrating top science expertise, psychology and storytelling into their learning programme, AimHi Earth is able to create learning experiences that lead to lasting impact and real ownership of climate solutions. “The best way to help others gain understanding is to tell a compelling story first; the reinforcing facts come in later. Our learning experiences use a lot of stories alongside other strategies for rapidly embedding knowledge, which is why they are orders of magnitude more effective than the alternatives,” Matthew says.
Indeed, Matthew says that 90% of the people who take part in an AimHi Earth learning experience significantly change their behaviours in the months afterwards.
“We believe that most people are already the experts of where they are; that what they need more than anything is the impetus to ask the right questions. Our work lies in optimising that ability.”
While AimHi Earth is still in its early stages, Matthew says they have been focusing on a small number of high-impact technologies and formats to achieve results more quickly, and to prove the value and scalability of their model. “What's particularly exciting in the longer term is the evidence that this model can be applied to so many other areas requiring transformative learning, beyond the climate and nature emergency.”
Aotearoa New Zealand has proved an excellent fit for the AimHi Earth model during their early stages of exploration. Matthew and his team are working in partnership with indigenous knowledge-led education alliance, Kia Kotahi Ako, to adapt their learning experiences for an Aotearoa audience. “There are few places I’d rather be bringing to life ambitious ideas to change the world,” Matthew says. “I see New Zealand as an innovative, forward-thinking nation with a strong connection to its indigenous roots, nature-centric people, an open government system and, of course, the EHF community which offers so much to its Fellows and to the nation.”
The programme works in many global contexts, Matthew says, and AimHi Earth is focusing on implementing it in countries based on the speed with which they can prove and expand impact with the ability to run live training. “Aotearoa ticked all the boxes. We see New Zealand as having a forward-thinking business environment, and we think that we can move quickly to create impact in New Zealand,” Matthew says.
Kia Kotahi Ako CEO, Sarah Grant, is excited to be championing this partnership. “Matthew reached out to [EHF Fellow and Kia Kotahi Ako Founder] Jojo McEachen to look at scaling AimHi Earth across Aotearoa. The original discussion was around translating their content into Te Reo Māori, but it has since evolved into a more holistic collaboration based on locally-adapted content which best appeals to New Zealand businesses and policy-makers; embracing Te Ao Māori (Māori world view) without directly translating everything. We worked closely with [Kia Kotahi Ako Strategic Advisor and EHF Connector] Huia Lambie and piloted the New Zealand Masterclasses within the EHF whānau to do a proof of concept.”
“We have worked closely with Kia Kotahi Ako on the journey to bring culturally-adapted climate and sustainability training to organisations in Aotearoa, to ground our sessions in te ao Māori and to weave in mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge),” Matthew adds. “One of the key themes explored in our Aotearoa sessions is what we can learn from te ao Māori about sustainability: the concept of kaitiakitanga (guardianship and protection) and taking a holistic, long-term and intergenerational view of caring for our planet.”
The partnership has so far yielded two online Masterclass events (May 2022 and April 2023), and an in-person event in Ōtautahi Christchurch in March 2023. “Matthew was due to be in New Zealand in March of 2023, so we connected him with the local ecosystem to generate interest in an in-person Masterclass delivered in collaboration with values-aligned organisations Seed the Change and Terra Nova,” Sarah adds. “Our role in this partnership has been to bring industry leaders from a range of sectors into those discussions and find ways to bring what has been a successful concept overseas here to Aotearoa.
“We’re big on large-scale vision and systems change and AimHi Earth is key to making that change. Imagine if all the business and policy leaders in Aotearoa really understood the climate and nature crisis. That’s the piece that gets us most excited about this collaboration.”
The in-person event was attended by 40 people, with half of the participants pledging to be a part of ongoing action. “There was a facilitated networking aspect to the event and an opportunity to share obstacles and inspirations,” Sarah says. “What I found interesting was that most people’s goals were tied to very discrete things like ‘we implemented an electric car charging scheme’, as opposed to systemic things. Matthew really pushed participants to think about what is most impactful, rather than what is most visible. So participants were challenged to consider things like divesting from fossil fuels or lobbying for better environmental policy, rather than implementing small-scale business schemes. The peer-to-peer aspect of the session was really valuable and helped us get a better sense of how a model for big business in the UK can be adapted into a model that is fit-for-purpose for New Zealand’s SMEs who often face time and resource challenges. Great conversations were sparked from attendees and there is interest in future partnerships from philanthropists, policy leaders, businesses, university students and schools, as well as offers of help to champion the training.”
For AimHi Earth, the Masterclasses were ‘tasters’, to give business leaders a flavour of the model and an insight into the tools AimHi Earth can provide to equip New Zealand businesses to be climate and sustainability leaders. From the Masterclasses, AimHi Earth are now in conversations with multiple NZ businesses to plan ongoing training. Plans are already underway for another Aotearoa Masterclass on 20 September 2023 as part of Te Ao Earth Week, where Sarah is excited to see past participants come together to continue the journey of becoming champions for creative, engaging and uplifting climate and sustainability training for NZ organisations.
AimHi Earth’s climate and sustainability education programme is an example of a Fellow initiative working to systemically address the impacts of climate change by supporting and enabling resilient communities, which is one of the mission focus areas of the Hillary Institute and EHF’s new initiative The Mission Studio. "We can’t build resilient communities to adapt to the impacts of the climate and nature crisis without first developing green skills through high-quality climate and nature education and training,” Matthew says. “We won’t overcome the climate and nature emergency with top-down and technology solutions alone. The emergency is far too fast-moving, distributed and multifaceted; it cannot and will not be solved without widespread education and everything that comes with it.
“The change that we need to see is not going to be achieved by a few passionate individuals within companies, with everyone else agnostic. It's going to take a very large number of us, all working together.”
“So my ask to the EHF community is to approach and challenge leaders, C-suite and Heads of Sustainability on whether what they're doing to keep up with our changing world will work if they don't have enough of their colleagues fully on board. If Fellows felt it reasonable to do so, I’d welcome them to invite industry leaders to check out AimHi Earth - the organisation getting organisations activated, upskilled and aligned.”
More EHF Fellows have come on board to help to scale AimHi Earth’s education programme. Fellow Marco Marowec has recently been appointed to the Board, and Fellows Tina Jennen, Andrew Hewitt, Randy Komisar, Mark Bregman, Zach Sims, Yoav Lurie, Jag Lamba and Ryan McIntyre are all in discussions with Matthew to offer advice on how to scale.
Story by EHF Fellow Bex De Prospo (Piripiri) and Director of Authentic Storytelling.