Culture, Connection, and Climate: The Evolution of LA Climate Week
- Stevie Gray
- May 30
- 9 min read
Los Angeles County has been through a lot this year. As someone with family and friends in both Altadena and the Palisades, the grieving process is far from over, and, on top of LA-specific tragedies, there are a number of ongoing geopolitical shifts that are making this year extremely challenging for many communities across the world.
Now, more than ever, Los Angeles needs opportunities to build community in order to connect impact-focused individuals and organizations; that’s why this year’s LA Climate Week was such an important experience, and why its theme was community resilience.
Unlike last year’s inaugural LA Climate Week, which took place in September, this year’s was set during Earth Month, which meant that many of the events fell outside of the official “week.” For that reason, I wanted to speak to the team responsible for organizing LA Climate Week in order to get more perspective on the inner workings of such a large set of interconnected events.
I had the pleasure of speaking with Dan Thorman of the Collidescope Foundation, the nonprofit responsible for creating and organizing LA Climate Week.
Creating LA Climate Week
After a career in for-profit media and advertising, in 2019, Thorman made the decision, along with co-founder Nick Lynch, to create a B-Corp, Collidescope.io, an impact-focused consultancy, in order to create a bridge between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and nonprofits.
After spending years building community and partnerships as a social entrepreneur, Thorman founded the nonprofit Collidescope Foundation, and ever since, he’s been fully focused on the mission of “consultancy for doing good,” with a goal of creating jobs for impact leaders.
After Lynch connected Thorman to JC Arce, they realized the need for an LA Climate Week. During the planning phase, Thorman and Arce set the larger goals of the week to: “[educate] the community, [create] marketing, exposure, and fundraising opportunities for nonprofits all over Los Angeles, and [to create] an infrastructure for these organizations.”
Since its inception, their team has been working tirelessly to bring these goals to life. To put it simply, LA Climate Week is a massive project, and while it may be surprising to read, it’s currently completely volunteer run.
As Thorman mentioned, “Sometimes, when you start off small, you stay small. When you start off big, you stay big,” and the LA Climate Week team did not start off small.
Planning Year Two
I asked Thorman what lessons were learned from year one and how they shaped year two, and his answers provided a window into the planning process and the methodology that the team used to shape the experience of both weeks.
There was an intentionality to the structure of the first two LA Climate Weeks, and Thorman compared their approach to software releases, where you can “[determine] consumer demand, [work] through the bugs, and [find] out what “features” attendees wanted.”
One of the most noticeable changes between the first and second year was the geographic organization of events. Thorman mentioned that one of the most consistent pieces of feedback from year one was that it was “all over the place,” literally.
If you’re not familiar with Los Angeles’ endless expanse, I highlighted it in my recap of the inaugural LA Climate Week and my breakdown of LA Metro. Taking that feedback into account, this climate week was the beginning of location-based hubs, which were home to events grouped by category.
For example, Thorman mentioned that the events for arts and entertainment, career development, tech, food systems, and homeownership were all grouped in geographic hubs. This system is something the team plans to further develop for future weeks.
Another noticeable growth point was the inclusion of new event partners. The Jane Goodall Institute was a prominent partner this year, and Thorman mentioned that the Climate Week team is excited to continue building partnerships with impact-focused organizations for future events.
An impressive and notable difference between year one and two was the timeframe in which the team brought this year’s events to life. In December of 2024, the team made the decision to have this year’s LA Climate Week in April. Then, in early January, the LA Fires impacted the entire organization of the event. Thorman noted that due to the fires, the team didn’t truly begin planning this year’s Climate Week until February.
With this tight timeline in mind, Thorman highlighted the importance of prior and ongoing relationships in order to bring this year’s Climate Week to life. And, even as the dates fast approached, the amount of events only continued to grow. Dan cited that “one month before, there were 40 events. By March 30th, there were 160.”
In total, well over 200 events happened throughout April.
Measuring Success
When planning and running such a massive project, tracking success is essential for improvement. For that reason, the team used comprehensive data analysis for how they were able to reach audiences, and who those audiences were.
This analysis allows the LA Climate Week team to determine the demand for events, taking into account the event categories, geography, and venues.
Thorman said, “Success is not judged by the quantity of events, but by the community
engagement,” and mentioned that the engagement at smaller events often has much more of an impact than the engagement at large events. A balance of both large and small events will continue to be part of the team’s approach going forward.
In addition to a data-driven approach, Thorman noted the genuine connections, both business and professional, that he and the team have been able to make through running LA Climate Week, and how much their network has evolved and grown as a result of putting these events together. I couldn’t help but reflect on the personal connections I’ve been able to make through these events, too.
A notable event Thorman mentioned was Altadena Earth Day. Having resided in Altadena for many years, Thorman said that most of the people he saw at the event were people he didn’t know, and how many of the attendees he spoke to were learning about Climate Week for the first time.
What I Attended and What I Learned
While I wasn’t able to attend quite as many events this year compared to last year, the events I attended spanned the LA Basin and a range of categories. Here are the events I attended, in order:
Opening Ceremony - DTLA
Food Day in WeHo - West Hollywood
Creative Industries Opportunity Space - Arts District
Arts & Climate Collective Festival - USC
The Carbonauts Sustainability Cocktails - Venice
Entertainment + Culture Pavilion: Storytelling, Solidarity, and Climate Solutions - Miracle Mile
UpRise - The Art of Climate Action - Beverly Hills
Making Sustainability Cool
One of my favorite moments from the entire week was during the first panel of the Creative Industries Opportunity Space at LACI. The panel was titled “Transforming People and Places: The Great Green Shift,” and during the panel, Brandon “Stix” Salaam-Bailey, founder of the Thinkwatts Foundation, dropped a number of timely, insightful, and hilarious remarks that have been taking up space in my head ever since.
Stix made a number of important points about the reality of growing sustainability initiatives through workforce development, and how, most importantly, when you strip away the corporate speak, workforce development meant jobs and money for local communities.
On top of his other relevant remarks, it was his very simple comment of “we need to make this shit cool” that stuck with me the most, however, and it’s the biggest takeaway from the entire week for me.
He expanded on that comment, citing the perception of sustainability professionals as “party poopers” in corporate and public spaces needs to change. Oftentimes, we’re the people delivering bad news to either a carbon footprint-heavy industry or the general public, information that many would rather tune out than absorb.
The idea of making sustainability cool doesn’t just mean slapping a sleek logo on a green company or product. What Stix was talking about was changing community and global culture around sustainability. As I’ve continued to work in a number of intersectional spaces that rely on communication, this continues to be the most difficult aspect of long term change, but I have no doubt that it’ll happen.
Los Angeles, more than most cities, has a lot of work to do when it comes to shifting towards a sustainability-focused culture. To some extent, all of us in Los Angeles are inherently living unsustainably, whether it’s our car-centric commutes, water consumption, or energy use.
While it’s unlikely that any of us are satisfied with these habits, they’re baked into our city’s culture. It took me nearly two decades to realize many of these things shouldn’t be “normal.”
With all of that in mind, one of California’s most notable global exports is our culture. Whether it’s our fashion, our entertainment, our food, or our music, this state, and more specifically, Los Angeles, has the ability to impact global culture in a significant way. If we can ingrain sustainability into the fabric of our city’s culture, and make it cool, it can have a global effect.
Event fatigue
With 2025 being such an overwhelming year for a number of reasons, one of the most important things I learned this climate week was this: I don’t need to attend more events than I have the capacity to.
While that sounds obvious, in a set of spaces so niche and intersectional like sustainable film production, it can be difficult to pass up an opportunity to connect with like-minded and mission-aligned individuals and organizations.
The fear of missing out is real, but so is fatigue, so I attempted to balance my week as best as possible, opting to miss out on some events in order to save energy for others.
On top of that, on a hike with my friends recently, I was provided with a new perspective on events like these. Oftentimes, it can be tempting to attend an event that’s in your “sector.” For example, I always feel compelled to go to creative and film production-focused events. While these are great networking opportunities, they aren’t often spaces where learning takes place.
With that in mind, it might be more worthwhile for me to attend an event that has nothing to do with my focus; that way, I can learn about a wider breadth of issues and the people working to solve them. I’m excited to try this approach next year!
The Future of LA Climate Week
As LA Climate Week continues to evolve, Thorman mentioned that the team plans to continue to group events in order to curate demand-based experiences that are public transit-accessible. Even compared to year one, I noticed that multiple events I attended were transit-accessible; I happily took the train to three of them!
While LA Climate Week is currently a fully volunteer-run set of events, that’s not the long-term plan. And, as an important note, Thorman said the goal for the future of LA Climate Week isn’t “to just keep getting bigger.” As he mentioned, though, the byproduct of reaching more people is getting bigger.
The team planned the first two years as proof of concept, with the goal of obtaining larger partnerships and funding once the demand was understood and communities were energized. “The goal is to make it much more curated, purposeful, and organized,” Thorman said.
Especially with massive, global events like the World Cup and the Olympics coming to Los Angeles in the coming years, LA Climate Week has the potential to gain a global audience. And, as coverage of the week continues to grow, it’s likely that more people will continue to learn about these events.
Having been able to meet a number of members from the LA Climate Week team, as well as the other organizations involved with planning, sponsoring, and speaking at events, I can confidently say that the future of LA Climate Week is in good hands, and I’m excited to see its continued growth in the coming years.
About the Author
Stevie Gray
Born and raised in Miracle Mile, Los Angeles, Stevie Gray is a non-fiction storyteller and film production sustainability professional determined to produce solutions-forward work that evokes systemic change. In his travels, Stevie has witnessed the intense effects of our species on Earth's ecosystems, fueling his commitment to share intersectional stories that have local and global impact. Stevie hopes to motivate readers to work towards dismantling the harmful systems that have brought us to this point in our history.
The Sustainable Act was proud to serve as a media partner for LA Climate Week 2025, helping amplify the powerful work and voices behind this year’s programming. As part of our collaboration, we featured an in-depth podcast interview with Executive Director JC Arce, spotlighting the vision and impact of the week-long event. Our team also created dynamic social media content and published an original article by writer Stevie Gray on our website, capturing key moments and insights from the experience. We're grateful to be part of a growing community using media, storytelling, and creativity to drive climate action forward.
We’re always looking to collaborate with organizations, creatives, and changemakers using storytelling to drive climate action. If you’re interested in partnering with The Sustainable Act for future events or media collaborations, we’d love to connect!
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