Over the past 15+ years, I've worn many hats. I started my career in the creative industry, working as a consultant in fashion, art and design in India and the UK before discovering the excitement of the, then emerging, tech start up and scale ups boom. From Co-Founder to Operations leader, I have found myself applying my creative mindset to collaborate with operations, product, and tech teams, crafting elegant solutions to complex problems through thoughtfully designed services and apps. My experience spans diverse sectors including transportation, healthcare, AI, and sustainability. Throughout this journey, I've embraced design thinking and living systems approaches, which have become the foundations of my potential-realising toolkit.
Parallel to my startup journey, I've always been drawn to the complexity and wonder of human behaviour, spirituality, and natural science. This curiosity led me to discover the regenerative practice and design movement. From here, I dove headfirst into an intensive learning journey, connecting with an inspiring global community of regenerative practitioners, climate activists, and nature leaders.
The diversity of my experiences has given me a unique and holistic perspective that I now bring to our impactful work at Subak where I blend the best of both worlds - the agility and innovation of the startup ecosystem with the interconnected wisdom of regenerative thinking. It's a beautiful synergy that drives our work towards meaningful climate action, and I'm excited to continue growing and contributing to this vital cause.
At Subak, I blend the best of both worlds - the agility and innovation of the startup ecosystem with the interconnected wisdom of regenerative thinking. It's a beautiful synergy that drives our work towards meaningful climate action, and I'm excited to continue growing and contributing to this vital cause.
Which industries are you working in and how has this evolved since your foundation?
We used to work as more of an accelerator model - such as Y Combinator, which was incredibly impactful and allowed us to support a large number of NFPs, however we quickly realised that a linear and compressed boost to business capability was simply not enough. Start ups and scale ups continue to face growth challenges beyond the programme, and so Subak has responded by shifting to an ongoing and responsive system of learning, support and growth that members can access and contribute towards through their lifetime.
We’ve further evolved into a climate action think tank, accelerating systems change through research and collaboration. We do this by researching the key transitions needed in a specific sector, and then bringing together and building organisations to drive policy change.
We’re focussed across four specific sectors - Land Use & Agriculture, Heat, Transport, Energy, and Policy. Our Transport and Policy missions are community-led, and we play an active role in our Land Use & Agriculture, Heat and Policy missions.
How does it work in practice? Take our Land Use & Agriculture mission as an example. Through the Impact Lab we’ve assembled established not-for-profit organisations -Nature Friendly Farming Network, Sustainable Soils Alliance and UK Youth 4 Nature - to form a cohort. Through Subak, they will share knowledge and resources to inform UK government policy, improve soil health and support the transition from intensive to regenerative agriculture.
By working together, Subak and these three organisations will help those working in agriculture reduce their carbon emissions and increase biodiversity, which will have a large impact on the UK meeting its climate goals.
What do you look for in a founder?
Our founders are diverse in their skills, experience and personal attributes - we value this diversity in community and collective action. That said, some of the attributes we look for and also coach are -
- An ability to visualise a thriving future for the specific sector they are in, and use that vision to inspire teams and stakeholders to catalyse action.
- Being able to hold that vision in integrity to a wider set of systems and actors, it takes multiple visions working together to create climate change
- Having a learning and development mindset and being open to diverse skills and perspectives. This alongside the willingness to collaborate is instrumental to what we look for in our founders.
Can you talk about your current portfolio?
At the moment we’re proud to represent 318 individuals across over 10 countries working within a range of different sectors. It’s exciting to be building such a vibrant and diverse global community. We’re now seeing many of our members evolving into successful scale-ups - like Ember and Climate Policy Radar who are both making significant strides in their fields - and others are collaborating on their missions to form new organisations and projects.
What does the future look like and which industries are you looking towards for future change and investment?
In 10 years, the Subak collective will have mapped, analysed, and taken meaningful action in every major Global sector which affects the climate system (based on the UN’s ‘six sector’ taxonomy):
- i) transport
- ii) Nature-based solutions
- iii) Agriculture, food, and waste
- iv) Energy
- v) Buildings and cities
- vi) Industry.
Subak as a collective will have played a role in bringing about transformational shifts in multiple systems equivalent to New AutoMotive’s ZEV mandate (a key transformational shift for the UK transport sector). We welcome partners, collaborators and investors who share our values and want to work together to create and accelerate change.
What makes Subak different?
Subak is a climate impact community. This means that we are a mission-oriented organisation that brings people together to share data, knowledge and connections to solve our most urgent climate challenges.
We launched our Impact Lab to investigate the most critical climate challenges. It creates and funds groups who can tackle these challenges and deliver positive systemic change. In practice, this means we run sector-specific missions to map, understand and address key challenges in the most carbon-intensive sectors.
Can you talk about the importance of convening climate organisations and funding sector-specific missions to drive policy and behaviour change.
We know that when we do this, we can achieve our goals faster. As we have distinct thematic focus areas, this means that all of our activities are tethered to maximising systemic change in those areas.
Our approach begins with identifying potential mission areas and assembling diverse cohorts to tackle these challenges collaboratively.
For example, one of our co-founders, Baroness Bryony Worthington (lead author of the UK’s Climate Change Act), recently highlighted an important concern regarding the government's current efforts on the decarbonisation of heating. We recognised this gap and actively engaged our community to understand their perspectives and needs. Through informal interviews, we gathered insights that helped us clarify the challenges around heat policy in the UK and identify the specific data and policy gaps that exist.
Once we’ve identified a focus area, we conduct early-stage research to explore critical issues, decision-making processes, and key stakeholders involved. This allows us to refine our challenges - from a broad concept of 'decarbonising heat' to a more in-depth understanding of the potential approaches and tangible policy opportunities, which we can then work on accelerating.
Our research is an ongoing process, and we are currently advancing missions focused on land use, forestry and other land use (AFOLU). This is a significant priority for us, and we are excited to expand our efforts in this area with our partner organisations.
What one piece of advice would you give founders?
Find different and unique ways to deeply understand the skills and perspectives you need within your organisation, and hire team members that share your values and are truly excited by your vision.
It doesn’t end there, every leader should invest the time to empower, support and develop their teams to do their most authentic and meaningful work.
How can you get involved?
If you would like to learn more about Subak you can follow us on LinkedIn and keep up to date with our latest project and announcements via our blog.
Pranuthi Chander is COO at Subak.
