Climate Unbound

What we exist for

Welcome to Climate Unbound, a non-profit innovation organization dedicated to accelerating the implementation of innovative solutions to address climate change.

Climate Unbound empowers multiple stakeholders to co-create and rapid expand beneficial solutions to climate change. We prioritize the health and welfare of local communities by directly involving the voices, concerns, and life experiences of impacted stakeholders in the innovation to implementation process. At Climate Unbound, we promote the notion that collaborative processes in which people co-create innovative solutions are needed to build a sustainable future for all.

We understand that the world needs countless innovations serving people and the planet to be rapidly implemented, but the current processes of getting innovations to market discourage co-learning and collaboration between innovators, communities, technical advisors, government agencies and other contributors and stakeholders. Many of the decision processes for implementing innovation create conflict and stalemates rather than a collective wisdom that includes the best of all the perspectives. This often leads to missed opportunities to mitigate climate change and serve the health and welfare of communities.

The fastest way to implement climate innovations may be the most inclusive way. To serve the health and welfare of communities and mitigate climate change everywhere, we need processes of co-learning and collaboration that lead to the implementation of innovative and highly beneficial solutions that can be permitted and built to serve the health and welfare of people and the planet. 

How we achieve our mission

In the practical challenge of getting beneficial innovation projects properly assessed, revised or rejected, and the best ones implemented through improved processes, we will promote and test the idea that collaborative, participative and co-learning processes that engage multiple perspectives can speed the process. To do this, Climate Unbound will study, develop and implement educational and collaborative processes that accelerate the adoption of innovations that genuinely benefit communities and the planet.

  1. Identifying innovations: Working with multiple stakeholders, we identify and analyze for consideration innovative ways to prevent pollution, build green, healthy, and sustainable communities, and mitigate climate change while reducing and eliminating the use of fossil fuels. (For instance, we may identify urban land reform as both a climate and social justice action.)
  2. Educating for expanded perspectives: We design and carry out collaborative processes for mutual education, collaboration, and fact-finding between key stakeholders to determine the benefits or liabilities of the climate-positive innovations at the community level. (In the example of urban land reform, a curated group studies urban infill benefits and challenges and develops educational materials.)
  3. Multi-stakeholder implementation processes: The next step is to redesign and support processes between the innovators, funders, community representatives and government agents to get the vetted innovations permitted and built. (In the urban land reform, curated groups co-design and recommend equitable ways to allow increased infill housing in the local or state jurisdictions.)

These processes follow the model of participative action research, engaging people impacted in the discovery of better routes to changes, in this case ones that simultaneously serve the climate and communities. People’s lived experience, justice considerations, technical and environmental perspectives are all needed to assess the benefits of climate innovations. Wise decisions on the benefits of proposed innovations require multiple stakeholders to put their individual perspectives together within collaborative processes so they can serve the wider systems, natural and human, that climate change is threatening.

Scaling the learning of Climate Unbound

The innovative processes and implementations that emerge at the local level can serve as a model to accelerate the implementation and scaling of other locally beneficial and globally climate-positive innovations. One longer-term aim is to model ways to equitably open the flow of beneficial climate and health innovations through the essential guardrails of the permitting process. We help communities and innovators discover ways to build more communication and collaboration between stakeholders into the process to mutually shape innovative projects, rather than waiting to engage in legal actions.

When local communities, innovators, scientists, NGOs, government agencies and other stakeholders work together to find innovative ways to mitigate climate change and promote environmental health and justice, we can build a healthier, more sustainable future for all.

Who we are

Glenn Hallam

Glenn Hallam, Ph.D.

Chair, Board of Directors

Dr. Glenn Hallam spent 20 years in the executive development industry before shifting to a focus on environmental leadership and running a series of conferences called Green Wave. A connector and facilitator, he has introduced thousands of leaders to one another, while helping them explore ways to accelerate change when faced with limited budgets and influence. His forte is getting people talking, finding synergies and building relationships.

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Doug Hendron

Doug Hendren, MD, MBA

Treasurer, Board of Directors

Douglas H. Hendren is a retired surgeon in Harrisonburg, Virginia. After graduating from Harvard College and Case Western Reserve School of Medicine (MD 1982), he returned to Harvard for postgraduate orthopaedic surgery training, followed by a joint replacement fellowship at the Institute for Bone & Joint Disorders in Phoenix, Arizona (1989). He is a fellow emeritus of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons the American College of Surgeons.

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Libba

Libba Pinchot, Ph.D,

Secretary, Board of Directors, and Co-founder

Libba Pinchot is an educator, entrepreneur, consultant, and author who is dedicated to helping people and teams shape innovative approaches to a better future—at work, in communities, and with nature.

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Sabrina

Sabrina Watkins, MBA

Member, Board of Directors

Sabrina Watkins works with organizations interested in delivering more powerful financial, social and environmental results. Her interest in conservation began camping as a young child, continued through her Gold Award in Girl Scouting, her choice of groundwater focus for her bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering, and her long-term work on business sustainability. She currently lives and hikes in the national parks and forests of North Carolina and serves on the board of Balsam Mountain Trust to fulfill their mission in environmental education.

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Gifford Pinchot

Member, Board of Directors, and co-founder

Gifford Pinchot III works at the intersection of entrepreneurship, innovation and the environment. A global leader in intrapreneurship and organizational change, he is an author, consultant, social entrepreneur, and thought leader. Over the years, he’s co-founded six companies—both for-profit and nonprofit. He has sold or merged three of them and three are still thriving.

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If you’ve got a question about  our initiatives or anything else, please get in touch.

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Sabrina

Sabrina Watkins, MBA

Member, Board of Directors

Sabrina Watkins works with organizations interested in delivering more powerful financial, social and environmental results. Her interest in conservation began camping as a young child, continued through her Gold Award in Girl Scouting, her choice of groundwater focus for her bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering, and her long-term work on business sustainability. She currently lives and hikes in the national parks and forests of North Carolina and serves on the board of Balsam Mountain Trust to fulfill their mission in environmental education.

She now consults with companies to accelerate enterprise-wide sustainability by aligning diverse stakeholder priorities into effective, efficient strategic action plans. This work strengthens relationships internally and externally, particularly between leaders, investors, and environmental/social advocates.

She is a change agent who delivers practical, profitable and lasting results. During her 37 years in the corporate world, she worked on adding “Valuing All People” as a company core value in the 1980’s; brought her production operations region to top quartile in safety and environmental performance; led global environmental technology; and led advanced technology for biofuels, greenhouse gas emission reduction and water conservation. In 2012, she was named to the Industrial Safety and Health News “Power 101” list of influential leaders in sustainability.

Ms.Watkins retired from ConocoPhillips in 2017 after a decade as global head of sustainability, with responsibility for corporate policies, implementation strategies, results, and reporting. During her tenure, and with board, executive, and investor engagement, the company reduced over 7 million annual tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions, saved over $100 million, and strengthened stakeholder support for the company’s strategic activities.

Sabrina now serves on the board of Future 500 as well as ClimateUnbound.org.
She served as chair of the board of the U.S. Business Council for Sustainable Development (USBCSD) from 2007-2009, on the board of Houston Wilderness from 2009-2010, and on the board of the Senior Advisory Council for the Global Environmental Management Initiative (GEMI) from 2012-2014. 

Drawing on her expertise in sustainability, decision analysis, engineering and innovation, she is author of over a dozen peer-reviewed scientific papers and case studies. Her public speaking has recently included topics such as carbon asset risk, successful engagement with socially responsible investors (SRI’s), action alternatives to fossil fuel divestment, and the importance of ecological economics in decision making.

Ms. Watkins earned a B.S. in Civil Engineering (1981) from Lehigh University and an MBA in Sustainable Business from Bainbridge Graduate Institute, now the Presidio Center for Sustainable Solutions at Redlands University (2007).

Doug Hendron

Doug Hendren, MD, MBA

Treasurer, Board of Directors

Douglas H. Hendren is a retired surgeon in Harrisonburg, Virginia. After graduating from Harvard College and Case Western Reserve School of Medicine (MD 1982), he returned to Harvard for postgraduate orthopaedic surgery training, followed by a joint replacement fellowship at the Institute for Bone & Joint Disorders in Phoenix, Arizona (1989). He is a fellow emeritus of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons the American College of Surgeons.
Doug and Nancy, his wife of 50 years, raised their two children in Eureka, California, eventually returning to their East Coast roots in 1996. As managing partner of Hess Orthopaedics, Doug also personally designed and oversaw the 2003 building of the group’s 20,000 sq. ft. office and rehab facility, and the subsequent addition of an out-patient surgical facility.

After retiring from practice, Doug earned an MBA in sustainable business at Bainbridge Graduate Institute (2011), where he awakened to the many interwoven perils of our global environmental crisis.

His passion since then has been education and activism about climate disruption. Doug is a founding member of several local environmental organizations, including Renew Rocktown (2015),  Shenandoah Valley Faith & Climate (2023), and the Environmental Performance Standards Committee (EPSAC), developing Harrisonburg’s environmental action plan. A veteran of several local “solar barnraising” events, Doug also serves as a volunteer consultant to GiveSolar, a nonprofit working with Habitat for Humanity to bring affordable solar power to low-income homeowners. Having proven the model throughout Virginia, GiveSolar is now developing a national program to serve all fifty states.

Doug is also a longtime member of Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), and serves on the editorial team for PSR’s “Compendium,” the definitive database of scientific and medical information about the hazards of the oil and gas fracking industry. 

Doug’s other passion is composing and performing “climate music.” It started as an experiment to try to find ways around the widespread resistance to basic information about climate disruption, its causes, and its environmental, economic and health consequences. There is no shortage of material! Doug is now working on his seventh album. His music is all free, intended to educate and entertain. It is available on his website, MusicalScalpel.com, and on Spotify and various streaming platforms.

Glenn Hallam

Glenn Hallam, Ph.D.

Chair, Board of Directors

Dr. Glenn Hallam spent 20 years in the executive development industry before shifting to a focus on environmental leadership and running a series of conferences called Green Wave. A connector and facilitator, he has introduced thousands of leaders to one another, while helping them explore ways to accelerate change when faced with limited budgets and influence. His forte is getting people talking, finding synergies and building relationships.

Hallam has spent several years exploring ways to convert the anxiety and angst of youth into forward progress for the planet. He founded Green Bowl, a national collegiate competition, paralleling football season and now in its 3rd year, to engage students in developing compelling pitches for large-scale changes to address climate change. HIs company, Green Dock Ventures, developed Green Pin, an “Instagram and Yelp for the Planet,” available for iPhone and Android, designed to engage students in seeing the world through the lens of sustainability.

As CEO of Green Dock Ventures, Inc., Hallam strives to raise money to accelerate commercial projects to address climate change, with an emphasis on electrification and agrivoltaics. His goal is to help farmers stay in business while addressing the climate crisis at scale, helping to produce food while conserving water and creating clean energy. 

Hallam has a Ph.D. in Industrial/Organizational Psychology, with an emphasis in quantitative research methods, from the University of Minnesota, and an undergraduate degree from Stanford University. His favorite class at Stanford was Small Scale Energy Systems with Professor Gil Masters in 1982.

An avid bikepacker (combining mountain biking with backpacking), Hallam developed a love for the planet when he was a child, taking his first backpacking trip with his father and brothers at age ten.

Gifford Pinchot

Member, Board of Directors, and co-founder

Gifford Pinchot III has a long career as an environmentalist and social justice activist. He is also an author, consultant, social entrepreneur and thought leader. He has co-founded five companies and NGOs. He coined the word intrapreneur with his wife, Libba, and they wrote the book that started the intrapreneurship movement. Intrapreneuring: Why You Don’t Have to Leave the Corporation to Become an Entrepreneur (1985) explained how the intrapreneurial spirit can flourish within larger organizations to the benefit of both the company and the employees. The book was a NY Times bestseller and published in 15 languages. The Intelligent Organization, written with his wife, Libba, took intrapreneuring a step further, to include empowering organizational changes that allow all employees to lead with their values. Since 1983, Mr. Pinchot and his wife Libba have led Pinchot & Company, a consulting and training business that has served over half of the Fortune 100 and helped them to launch over 700 new products and businesses. The company delivers live and online learning and accelerators as well as coaching and cultural interventions to increase innovation.

In 2002, the Pinchots co-founded and led the Bainbridge Graduate Institute (BGI), the first school to offer an MBA in Sustainable Business. In 2016, BGI merged with Presidio Graduate School which is now the Presidio Center for Sustainable Solutions based in the Marin campus of The University of Redlands.

Mr. Pinchot has received numerous awards in his lifetime, among them, Executive Excellence, listing him in the top 20 of leadership thinkers. In 2009 he was awarded the Olympus Lifetime Education Award and in 2010 he and his wife were both named Purpose Prize fellows. In 1965 Mr. Pinchot graduated from Harvard University with honors in Economics and completed all-but-dissertation in a PhD program in Behavioral Physiology at Johns Hopkins. He can be found online via Intrapreneuring.com, BetterWorldVisionaries.com, and https://www.linkedin.com/in/giffordpinchot/

Libba

Libba Pinchot, Phd

Secretary, Board of Directors, and Co-founder

Libba Pinchot is an educator, entrepreneur, consultant, and author who is dedicated to helping people and teams shape innovative approaches to a better future—at work, in communities, and with nature.

Her innovation story starts in her early 20’s, when, fresh out of Stanford with a philosophy degree and no job prospects, Libba went knocking on her department head’s door and was surprised to be the second person hired for his new multi-million-dollar, multi-year grant for the development of the first computer-assisted primary school math and reading projects. It was a fruitful collaboration over four years between teachers, programmers and hardware people, co-creating ways to use all new technology to improve kids lives.

Next Libba was tapped to lead one of the new Head Start teacher training programs based at a community college—credentialing the first cohorts of college-educated Head Start teachers. The program also supported over 100 children annually while offering their parents community college tuition, a living stipend and mutual aid circles. Educating the whole family has positive life-long impact on kids and families and this program was ready to scale. With the next change in federal administration, the parent support program was eliminated, and still needs restoration.

In 1973, she and her new spouse Gifford joined family members on a 300-acre biodynamic dairy farm in upstate New York, where they were mentored by pioneers from Threefold Farm who brought biodynamics to the U.S.

While on the dairy farm, the Pinchots developed a successful nationwide crafts business, engaging 18 underemployed local young adults in co-creating a values-based artist blacksmith business.

In 1978, still on the farm, Libba and her spouse Gifford co-invented the concept of intrapreneurship—the practice of bringing entrepreneurial spirit and innovation inside organizations—and launched their unlikely innovation consulting business. In 1985 they wrote the NY Times bestselling book Intrapreneuring.

For three decades, Libba co-led Pinchot & Company’s intrapreneuring practice that educated people in organizations to transform their workplaces from the bottom up with innovative and entrepreneurial initiatives that were values based, customer focused and profitable.
One long-lasting result of the Pinchots’ intrapreneuring work began under Gore’s government reinvention program, leading to a multi decade program in the Forest Service based on their next book, The Intelligent Organization: Engaging the Talent and Initiative of Everyone in the Workplace. After co-designing the internal finance and personnel structures with Forest Service leaders, they trained self-selected intrapreneurs to grow “Enterprise Teams” (internal service enterprises) with entrepreneurial freedoms to serve internal customers across the Forest Service and into other agencies. When audited, the program’s Enterprise Teams were found to be 1.8 times as productive as the average Forest Service team.

Their seven years immersed in biodynamic farming proved invaluable decades later, when in 1993 they assumed the stewardship of Gilean Douglas’s 150-acre homestead in BC and developed it into a permaculture learning center that became the first home for the Bainbridge Graduate Institute and a model of place-based learning.
In 2002, Libba co-founded the Bainbridge Graduate Institute (BGI)—the first school to offer an MBA in Sustainable Business. This new kind of business education trained intrapreneurs and entrepreneurs alike to build profitable companies that benefit both people and planet. BGI graduates—over 800 of them—are now proving that mission-driven companies can lead markets and still stay true to their values. In 2016 BGI merged with Presidio Graduate School, now the Presidio Center for Sustainable Solutions at the University of Redlands’ Marin campus.

Since 2024, Libba has been part of a Pinchot Institute for Conversation team advising the Forest Service leadership on wildfire strategies. She is also an active co-founder of Visual Magic, a startup designed to support the national, state and local parks. Both activities support a passion of hers— championing the nation’s public lands.

Most recently, she co-founded Climate Unbound, a nonprofit dedicated to accelerating the implementation of people-positive climate innovations.
In addition to being a director of the Climate Unbound non-profit board and before that the founding BGI board, Libba chaired the board of a model elementary school, Wightwood, for 9 years and was a founding director of Yes! Magazine’s board. She has taught the legal responsibilities of boards pro bono to a handful of non-profits.

Libba holds a Ph.D. in Organizational Systems and Change from Saybrook University, as well as two master’s degrees—in education and psychology—and a bachelor’s in philosophy from Stanford. She is co-author of The Intelligent Organization: Engaging the Talent and Initiative of Everyone in the Workplace. Her dissertation, Learning with Corporate Sustainability Leaders, explored both the systemic barriers and the collaborative breakthroughs needed to address corporate sustainability.
Her work has been recognized with the Purpose Prize, the Social Venture Network’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and Saybrook’s Dissertation of the Year in Organizational Systems and Change.

You can find Libba online at ClimateUnBound.org, Intrapreneuring.com, or on LinkedIn.