Under normal circumstances, conversations about changing the world take place in sterile board rooms with stark light, suits and ties. Lots of suits. But today this conversation found its home in the living room of The Marble Group office where we laughed that my conversation with Patrick – as he lounged on the sofa – resembled something like a therapy session. And I suppose when we consider the climate, most of us probably need it.
We decided to meet to discuss New York Climate Week because on the surface, it’s an event, and we do events. Like most conversations, it ended with the core premise of all of our most important discussions, ‘how do we make change happen?’ Getting people in the room is generally agreed as the starting point and in his New York diary there are three staple moments. The first, a breakfast to launch the Fin-Erth Climate Awards.
Fin-Erth is the brainchild of Patrick’s co-founder Serena Oppenheim. It had modest beginnings, dinners comprising Lebanese takeout and 10-15 individuals for important conversation in humble surroundings. Now it’s a curated community for women in finance, investment, policy, law and innovation who are leading the climate revolution from within. It caught the eye of astute individuals at COP 2023 and suddenly, takeout dinners have been replaced with hundreds of women meeting at COP 2024, and community gatherings year-round everywhere from Azerbaijan to Chicago.
A dinner with UNICEF Innovation, partners, and 40 women who work at the intersection of climate and finance is the second of his bookings. The Plastic Symposium at NYU follows, an unpacking of the science and links between the chemicals in plastic, health and the fundamental cost to our livelihoods. It sounds quite a lot like this all happens through painstaking strategy, but Patrick’s approach is less one of powerpoints and more one of instinct. Fin-Erth can rightfully have lofty aspirations because once upon a time, so did its established brothers and sisters. ‘What’s the process for this?’ is a question he hates. ‘All great things don’t have an immediate roadmap but a strong sense of self.’ he says, ‘No distinct business plan, it’s just sitting down and figuring it out. The goal is actually simple: get people in a room, build trust, unlock solutions.’
Climate and championing women are the common thread within these projects. It’s the potential of the Fin-Erth awards that excites him. Women behind the scenes in climate, he explains, get zero PR oxygen. They work in tough verticals that aren’t media polished but who are doing the real heavy lifting in making climate change happen. So these awards are about them, celebrating their achievements and spotlighting the work that doesn’t usually get airtime but needs profiling if it is to win the interest of the world’s key holders.
This will be Patrick’s third year at New York Climate Week where his main goal is ‘simply’ to help raise the agenda on the challenges posed to the climate, at a week long event that functions to gather the best minds for the task. It’s not that simple really, is it. Big challenges need big motivators and he’s got them: two girls, 8 and 4 years old who are growing up in ‘an unfair world’. A world where ‘the odds are stacked against you as women. And we’ve got to try to do something at least to fix it.’
This brings us back to the beginning, how do we make change happen then? People have become desensitised, says Patrick, and organisers forget that the ways to make anyone feel anything is to dial back to the sensory details. How does a room smell, whose voices can be heard, what message is the atmosphere sending? Creating emotion is the fundamental most important thing about an ‘event’ and compelling anyone to care that it happened, to remember it afterwards. ‘I believe in human capital’. He concludes with:
One of Patrick’s many hats is as Chief Content Officer at The Marble Group. To work with Patrick and our team, drop us a line with the project you need help on.