Ecosystems are fundamental to human well-being—and our research shows that many people strongly value environmental responsibility. But most people are impeded from enacting their values because participating in global supply chains—by buying things—entails innumerable negative impacts on forests, freshwater, coral reefs, with dire consequences for those who depend on the life-sustaining services they provide.

The CoSphere Development Fund provides critical resources for a successful launch of CoSphere.net as an online platform and for the early stages of its evolution. First steps include creating a participatory website that recommends projects and tracks progress, conducting research to better understand how to grow support for conservation from non-traditional sources, and fostering partnerships with both NGOs and forward-thinking businesses. Eventually, CoSphere aims to be self-sustaining through research grants and reciprocal arrangements with partners.

Your gift will help enable CoSphere to achieve its goals of both mitigating impact and inspiring planetary responsibility. The CoSphere team is based at UBC’s Institute for Resources, Environment & Sustainability, but reaches beyond academia to the private and public sectors—an example of the type of institutional innovation that is required to address the sustainability challenges of the 21st century.