Climate Asia

Climate Asia Climate Asia's mission is to bridge the talent gap in the climate ecosystem in Asia.

Building Hiring Readiness in Climate CSOsFrom reactive recruitment to strategic hiring decisionsAs climate organisations...
06/18/2026

Building Hiring Readiness in Climate CSOs
From reactive recruitment to strategic hiring decisions

As climate organisations grow, hiring often starts with urgency. A role opens up, responsibilities expand, and recruitment becomes focused on filling a gap quickly rather than defining what success in the role actually looks like. On 19 June, Climate Asia, with support from Onboard Climate and facilitated by Nandita Krishan, will bring together a new cohort of climate organisations for Building Hiring Readiness in Climate CSOs.

The cohort represents organisations working across climate policy and research, urban resilience and governance, climate justice, waste and circular economy, clean energy, sustainable livelihoods, and climate-adjacent sectors. Together, participants will explore:

• Common hiring challenges faced by growing climate organisations
• What it means to build hiring readiness as an organisational capability
• How to move from reactive recruitment to more strategic hiring decisions
• Looking beyond experience to identify the capabilities a role truly requires
• Strengthening the link between organisational priorities and talent decisions

Because behind every climate solution is a team and building strong teams starts long before a role is advertised.

If these hiring challenges sound familiar, you are not alone. We would love to hear what has resonated with you and how your organisation is approaching hiring and talent decisions in the climate sector. Reach out to Nandita Krishan directly to continue the conversation.

Every hiring team has a "one that got away", the candidate who would have been perfect, who somehow never made it throug...
06/16/2026

Every hiring team has a "one that got away", the candidate who would have been perfect, who somehow never made it through. Maybe you couldn't find them. Most of the time, they were out there all along; the search just wasn't built to reach them.

That quiet realisation sat at the heart of Session 2 of Building Hiring Readiness in Climate CSOs, delivered by Climate Asia, with support from Onboard Climate and facilitated by Nandita Krishnan.

The room brought together people and hiring leaders from a cohort of climate CSOs working across India each grappling with the same question of how to build the teams their missions depend on. Some of what the cohort worked through:

-A job description lists tasks; a hiring brief defines the problem the role exists to solve.
-The best hire often hasn't done the exact role, but has solved the exact problem behind it.
-Role clarity becomes real when it turns into clear criteria: the can, the will, and the how.
-Ownership and growing complexity predict success far better than brand names or years on paper.
-A search is only as good as the feedback that sharpens it, every profile is a chance to recalibrate what you are really looking for.

The shift was visible by the end. Chaithra Shree from Hasiru Dala Innovations left ready to redraw her JDs around the problem each role is really there to solve, a small change in framing that quietly changes who a search can find.

The real work begins now. Each organisation takes its brief into a live search and starts meeting candidates in earnest, putting weeks of thinking in front of actual people. We will share more as the cohort moves forward.

🚀 Prabhav 2026 is Live!🗓 10–11 September 2026📍 New Delhi🔗 www.prabhavindia.comWe’re excited to partner with the Impact I...
06/15/2026

🚀 Prabhav 2026 is Live!

🗓 10–11 September 2026
📍 New Delhi
🔗 www.prabhavindia.com

We’re excited to partner with the Impact Investors Council (IIC) for Prabhav 2026, its flagship biennial convening focused on advancing impact investing in India.

Under the theme “Capital, Chapters, Catalysts: Driving the Next Phase of Impact Investing,” this year’s convening will explore how capital can move deeper, smarter, and faster into sectors and models that are transforming India’s growth story.

At Prabhav 2026, conversations will feature deep dives into:

🔹 A conversation with Capital Providers supporting the growth of impact investing in India
🔹Deploying AI responsibly to scale what matters
🔹Exploring sectors such as agriculture, healthcare, and skilling that have proven themselves and identifying what more is needed to unlock the next phase of growth
🔹Scaling climate adaptation: unlocking investment and ecosystem action
Aligning policy and capital for impact at scale
🔹Curated LP-GP dialogues, networking mixers, and ecosystem roundtables

Whether you're an investor, founder, policymaker, or ecosystem enabler, Prabhav 2026 is where impact ambition meets capital and ex*****on.

🔗 Register Here: www.prabhavindia.com
🎟️ Avail a 50% Early Bird Discount for a limited period, use code: PRABHAV50

hashtag hashtag hashtag hashtag

There's a familiar moment in hiring that many organisations recognise only in hindsight. The candidate who would have be...
06/10/2026

There's a familiar moment in hiring that many organisations recognise only in hindsight. The candidate who would have been a great fit never applied, or slipped away somewhere along the journey. More often than not, the challenge was not the talent. It was the search.

That is the conversation we are opening up in closed-door Session 2 of Building Hiring Readiness in Climate CSOs- Define, Position & Search, delivered by Climate Asia with support from Onboard Climate and facilitated by Nandita Krishnan. The session brings together a select cohort of organisations working across climate resilience, clean energy, climate policy, climate justice, circular economy, and sustainable livelihoods.

Date: 12th June | Time: 2:30 PM - 5:30 PM IST

Together, we will explore questions such as:

🔹What if the strongest candidate has never held this exact title, but has solved the challenge the role exists to address?
🔹Why do so many searches begin with a job description when what they really need is a clear hiring brief?
🔹Are we hiring for capability, or simply for familiarity?
🔹Where might the right talent be hiding, just beyond the networks and pathways we routinely rely on?

As climate work becomes more complex and interdisciplinary, many of the people best equipped to solve climate challenges may not come from traditional climate backgrounds at all. Finding the right person starts with designing a search that can recognise talent where others may not.

More reflections and insights from the session coming soon.

One question for the community: what is one hiring assumption that organisations in the climate and social sectors should challenge more often?

Behind every climate solution is an organisation, and behind every organisation is a team that has to be built, role by ...
06/05/2026

Behind every climate solution is an organisation, and behind every organisation is a team that has to be built, role by role, hire by hire. Yet that building often happens under pressure: a role created in a hurry, written as a list of tasks, with little time to ask what the work actually needs. Months later, the gap shows up in a hire that doesn't quite fit. This isn't really a recruitment problem. It's a clarity problem and it shows up across organisations, not just within them.

That's where we began in the first session of Building Hiring Readiness in Climate CSOs — delivered by Climate Asia, with support from Onboard Climate. With people leaders from across India's climate ecosystem, we worked through:

-How hiring turns reactive and how to spot it early
-Where an organisation really sits on the hiring maturity curve
-Hiring for capability over a familiar profile- the judgement, adaptability and ownership a role actually demands
-The Strategic Alignment Matrix: when a role needs fit, and when it needs fresh leverage
-Pressure-testing a live role: why it exists, what happens if it isn't filled, and what would make someone succeed in it

The thread through all of it: clarity before urgency. Stronger roles make for stronger hiring decisions.

The biggest shift for me was clarity — how to hire the right person, not just the most experienced one. The Strategic Alignment Matrix was a wonderful tool to learn, and I'm keen to go deeper into it." — Sudeep Sharma, VAAGDHARA

This is the first session of several with the cohort. And on World Environment Day, the work of protecting the planet runs on the people doing it and on how well the teams behind them are built.

Yesterday, we reflected on what it takes for climate solutions to scale. The conversation challenged the idea that scale...
06/04/2026

Yesterday, we reflected on what it takes for climate solutions to scale. The conversation challenged the idea that scale is simply about replication and highlighted the importance of ecosystems, institutions, and community participation.

But climate solutions do not scale on systems alone. They also depend on people.

In the panel in collaboration with Lend A Hand India at the Climate Asia Annual Conference, From Classrooms to Climate Careers: Building India's Green Workforce, panelists explored a critical question: who will build, implement, and sustain the transition to a greener future?

From improving awareness of green careers to strengthening pathways for skilling, mentorship, and employment, the discussion underscored the need to invest in the next generation of climate leaders and practitioners.

Are we doing enough to prepare young people for the opportunities and challenges of the green economy?



Panelists: Nish*ta Murarka (Ratan Tata Endowment Foundation (RTEF)), Ritika Chandhok (Hero Future Energies (HFE)), Dr Anamika Singh (DIET Ghumenhera under SCERT), Prachi Shukla (GIZ India), Ekta Kumari (Young student studying Coding and Robotics), Deepika Goyal (Lend A Hand India) - Moderator

In the lead-up to World Environment Day, we are revisiting conversations from the Climate Asia Annual Conference 2026 th...
06/03/2026

In the lead-up to World Environment Day, we are revisiting conversations from the Climate Asia Annual Conference 2026 that continue to shape how we think about climate action.

In the panel What Scale Misses: Climate Solutions from the First Mile to the System, one idea stood out: scale is not just about reaching more people. It is about understanding why a solution works, for whom, and under what conditions.

The discussion challenged the idea that successful models can simply be replicated. From community voices to enabling ecosystems, climate solutions need to be adapted to local realities and built from the ground up.

So here is the real question: What is actually holding back climate solutions from scaling? What are we getting wrong?



Panelists: Sonya Fernandes (Ashraya Hastha Trust), Sucharita Kamath (Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs), Manasi Nafde (Climate Asia) - Moderator.

As conversations around World Environment Day begin this month, one question is becoming increasingly urgent: how do we ...
06/01/2026

As conversations around World Environment Day begin this month, one question is becoming increasingly urgent: how do we protect workers whose livelihoods are directly exposed to climate risks?

At Climate Asia Annual Conference 2026, a panel in collaboration with Migrants Resilience Collaborative, an
initiative of Jan Sahas, explored how parametric insurance, widely used in agriculture, can be adapted to support informal and construction workers facing heat, flooding, and other climate shocks.

The discussion highlighted a few critical shifts needed for scale:

🔸Moving from “proof of loss” to “proof of trigger” through transparent, data-driven systems that allow faster payouts
🔸Designing insurance as part of a larger resilience stack that includes finance access, weather information, and social protection
🔸Building hyperlocal and city-level climate risk models that better reflect real livelihood disruptions
🔸Recognising climate risk to labour and livelihoods not only as a welfare issue, but also as an economic and business continuity challenge

As climate extremes intensify, protecting vulnerable workers will require stronger collaboration across governments, insurers, businesses, and communities.

Panelists: Ayandev Saha, K.M. Dastur Insurance and Reinsurance Brokers Private Limited, Arun Krishnan, WRI India, Tanya Sharma, Godrej Properties Limited, Sudeshna Dasgupta, Go Digit General Insurance Limited, Nitish Narain, People’s Courage International (Moderator)

The world just spent a week in Baku at World Urban Forum (WUF13) talking about who gets left behind - in cities, in hou...
05/30/2026

The world just spent a week in Baku at World Urban Forum (WUF13) talking about who gets left behind - in cities, in housing, in systems that were never designed with them in mind.

Our partners at Climate Asia 2026 were sitting with the same questions.

Because when it comes to climate, the same people who are excluded from housing decisions are the ones absorbing the worst shocks. Women whose struggles don't even get counted within their own households. Indigenous communities with generations of ecological knowledge that rarely make it into a policy document. Women founders building commercially viable, climate-smart businesses, often without a fraction of the capital that gets handed to less disciplined ventures.

The gap isn't talent. It isn't solutions. It's who we choose to back, listen to, and include.

The applications for The ClimAct Initiative's Climate Leadership Programme (CLP) 2026 are officially open for young chan...
05/27/2026

The applications for The ClimAct Initiative's Climate Leadership Programme (CLP) 2026 are officially open for young changemakers across India!

The CLP is a six-month programme designed for Indian youth aged 18-35 years, focused on building climate knowledge, leadership skills, and green career pathways.

What makes CLP different? It is designed by and for young people who recognise that climate action must be rooted in community, equity, and powerful storytelling. Whether you are a student, researcher, activist, communicator, or just someone who refuses to look away, this is your space.

Apply now - https://forms.gle/rxXwVfP7Wy3bAvMQ6
Use this unique referral code CA10 for a 10% waiver on the programme fees.

Programme duration - August 2026 - January 2027

Address

Boston

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Climate Asia posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share

Category