Charting a Resilient Path Forward

Arctic Ice Project, Greenland

Minerva Ventures’ strategic advisory services guide your journey to becoming more sustainable and resilient. We deliver resources, connections, strategies and coaching so you can address cataclysmic risks and identify opportunities that come with a changing climate. 

Minerva Ventures helps you create a more resilient future for your business or agency, as well as for the larger community, the markets, and the ecosystems in which you operate.

We work with clean technology innovators, established businesses, non-profit organizations, public agencies and community leaders to understand and navigate climate risks, explore new opportunities, update your purpose, vision, and strategic direction, and connect with our extensive network for prospective customers, technology partners, and funding.

Planet.com Satellite

Businesses

Kate Dodd

Climate Tech Innovators

Portland Riverfront, M.Grossman

Municipal / Government

Thought Leadership & Special Projects

Speaking, research, and events that catalyze awareness and knowledge of climate change risks and solutions among business, government and community leaders:

  • Advance understanding through dynamic presentations, events, case studies, reports, and guides

  • Provide information about innovative technologies and solutions for reducing risks and coping with the impacts of climate change 

  • Convene leaders from many domains and disciplines to create collaborative solutions for breakthrough systemic change

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man (or woman) could have dreamt would have come his (her/their) way.  I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets: “Whatever you can do or dream you can begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it!”

Explorer William H. Murray, from The Scottish Himalayan Expedition
with a quote from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1749-1832, German Poet, Novelist, Dramatist, Philosopher, Scientist

  • “Sustainability in practice can include a million different things, from employee engagement to achieve carbon reduction goals, to participation in the circular economy. Many companies struggle with where to focus their sustainability efforts. Marianna can be your partner in clarifying what sustainability could mean for your business, help you develop and achieve powerful results, and create the messaging to make that known to your stakeholders.“

    Steve Skurnac – Chief Development Officer, Sims Limited

  • “Marianna is that rare consultant who consistently brings her sincerity, her heart, and her whole soul to the work. Her incredibly sincere and deep seated passion makes her a force of nature on this topic. This passion and her desire to truly move the needle are contagious. She doesn’t allow people to remain complacent.”

    Stephan Crawford - Executive Producer, The ClimateMusic Project

  • “Marianna is adept at engaging diverse stakeholders, understanding their perspectives, incorporating those into creating a common mission or purpose, and then supporting the group to implement that. Marianna brings her deep systems understanding to discern what is needed to get to a positive outcome.”

    Dave Johnson, AIA – Principal, SERA

  • “Marianna has an ability to reach out to and work with a wide variety of people and keep them engaged and working together, even when their perspectives and even their objectives might appear to clash. The productive conversations she so skillfully orchestrated allowed us (in the Green Streets for Sustainable Communities) to consistently move forward productively.”

    Yoriko Kishimoto – Former Mayor of Palo Alto, Director, Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District

  • “Marianna can help develop the ideas, the projects and initiatives, and then bring those ideas to fruition. Her special sauce is understanding how to get things done. Her passion and enthusiasm are contagious, and help energize the execution of the plans and strategies she helps develop. This isn’t academic or theoretical. Saving the planet while doing good things for your business is the mission.“

    Steve Skurnac – Chief Development Officer, Sims Limited

  • “She’s a powerful catalyst, bringing people together to generate new ideas and new connections. This can be convening people one on one for specific collaborations, or in larger groups with a shared interest or purpose.”

    Rick DeGoli

  • “Marianna is good at big picture visioning, at seeing what’s possible and expanding our view. She is a very strong organizational coach. Her insights into how we organize and how we operate, as well as her input into our planning process, are invaluable. ”

    Meghann Beer – Director of Resource Mobilization and Strategy, The Climate Mobilization and Climate Mobilization Project

News You Can Use

Archive

Minerva’s View

Blog
I Told You So
I Told You So
In Case of Emergency, Break Glass
In Case of Emergency, Break Glass

Wildfires are raging in Eastern Oregon. Dry and hot conditions set the stage…. Is it resilience or denial or delusion to adjust to changing conditions? … We have felt reluctant to advocate for partisan politics in this newsletter. But we are in a break-glass-in-case-of-emergency moment. Right now, the most urgent task is to ensure that Americans elect pro-science, pro-web-of-life leaders.

Planetary Boundary Emergency
Planetary Boundary Emergency

Climate scientist Johan Rockström and his colleagues at the Stockholm Resilience Center in Sweden, in a study examine the earth’s key tipping points, found that six of the nine planetary boundaries are already transgressed, placing the Earth “well outside of the safe operating space for humanity.” Now is the time for accelerating action.

Climate Change: What Does the Science Actually Say, And What Should We Be Doing Now?
Climate Change: What Does the Science Actually Say, And What Should We Be Doing Now?

According to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) we still have a narrow window to keep global warming from going above the 1.5°C target. Concerning, but not alarming. However, according to Global Warming in the Pipeline, published by a high powered team of scientists that includes James Hansen, that goal is “dead as a doornail.”

Photo: People on a flooded Brooklyn street, Sept 29, 2023. Yuki Iwamura, The Washington Post

Strategies to Popularize Climate Solutions: Gaining Traction with Multi-Solving
Strategies to Popularize Climate Solutions: Gaining Traction with Multi-Solving

Without public demand and political pressure for new climate solutions, “business as usual” will likely prevail until it’s too late to avert climate change’s worst impacts. How can we shift the prevailing conversation?

Hitting the Snooze Button
Hitting the Snooze Button

The new UN IPCC report calls for urgent action. Lulled by the momentum of daily life and its distractions, we are sleeping through the alarm.

Dangerous Climate Tipping Points
Dangerous Climate Tipping Points

Around the world there are alarming reports of catastrophic floods; extreme drought and heat conditions; unprecedentedly ferocious wildfires; and reduced harvests.

Black Lives Matter and Climate Change
Black Lives Matter and Climate Change

What if we could welcome conversations with one another that allow us to express and hear one another’s pain and to experience our common humanity? What if we treated each person as precious and worthy of respect and equality?

Regenerative Urban Design and Climate Consequences
Regenerative Urban Design and Climate Consequences

The recent storms and floods in the Midwest, fires in the west, and the prospect of Sea Level Rise in the Bay Area present opportunities to plan for and invest in rebuilding that is regenerative and resilient.