The Collider and the Asheville Climate Network

An Analysis of the Climate Services Sector in Asheville, North Carolina

Written by: James Fox | NEMAC+FernLeaf, The Collider

Mary Spivey, Megan Odom, Mickey Snowdon, and Miles Kish | The Collider

Originally Published on September 19, 2020

Editors/Contributors

We are dedicating this analysis to our dear friend, and gifted science writer and editor Nina Flagler Hall. She has since passed on, but her memory will live on forever. She gifted us with copyedits for this entire white paper, and we will be forever grateful.

Mellisa Booth | The Science Communicator

Erin Braasch | Western North Carolina Health Network

Jake Crouch | NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information

Stephen Del Greco | Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, Riverside Technology, Inc.

Ned Gardiner | NOAA Climate Program Office

Ken Haldin | Solar CrowdSource

Nina Flagler Hall | UNC Asheville’s NEMAC

Jeff Hicks | FernLeaf Interactive

Tom Maycock | North Carolina Institute for Climate Studies

Mary Olson | Climate School Asheville

Tim Owen | NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information

Mack Pearsall | The Collider

Jennifer Powell | Powell & Associates, LLC

Karin Rogers | UNC Asheville’s NEMAC

John Ross | Ross Writes LLC

Jennifer Runkle | North Carolina Institute for Climate Studies

Jeremy Schewe | Ecobot

Laura Stevens | North Carolina Institute for Climate Studies

Michael Waddle and Marjorie McGuirk | CASE Consultants International

_______________________________________________________________

Abstract

The Collider is a non-profit co-work, events, and meeting space, a network of working professionals in Asheville, North Carolina, and an essential part of the Asheville Climate Network. Founded with the mission of building a climate service sector in western North Carolina, The Collider has operated under multiple administrations and business plans in its five-year history. The Collider’s current administration, established in 2019, has returned the focus to its original mission but has democratized the organization, placing its members before all else and emphasizing its member-driven nature. The Collider now finds itself at a crossroads: how does it continue to support the network of existing climate-oriented individuals, businesses, organizations, and institutions in Asheville while achieving financial solvency as an independent non-profit entity?

Executive Summary

The Collider is a non-profit corporation originally established in 2010 that opened its doors in April 2016 and now exists as both a network of people and a physical space in Asheville, North Carolina. During its history, there has been uncertainty about how to evolve its mission to fill opportunities posed by current and anticipated future external forces. To address this uncertainty, The Collider has recently focused on a member-driven, network-centric model with a goal of affirming a generative social impact network called the Asheville Climate Network (ACN). The members of The Collider collaboratively drafted a vision statement in the summer of 2019: “The Collider is a nonprofit network of member businesses, organizations, academic institutions, and individuals advancing climate solutions so that all can mitigate, adapt, and thrive in a changing world. Our top priority is supporting the innovative work that our members do right here in Asheville and the rest of the world.”

Currently, there are two existing, intertwined networks present: (1) the Collider network, made up of organizations in the Collider’s physical space; and (2) the ACN, a larger network made up of Collider members, external climate organizations, and federal agencies working in Asheville’s climate services sector. This analysis maps the existing networks using a sub-network model to explain the varied ways in which member organizations and individuals connect and collaborate. The sub-networks identified and explored are:

1. Climate Data, National Report Generation, Tools, and Programming
2. Education and Outreach
3. Ecosystem Services
4. Resilience
5. Climate and Health
6. Climate Mitigation
7. Start-ups located in The Collider not directly linked to climate (defined in Appendix 1)

The Collider is valued by the ACN for its physical location where members are able to work with like-minded colleagues, as a trusted community resource providing accurate climate and environmental information to the public, and a showcase space that lends credibility to the products and services ACN members can bring to the market.

However, the Collider has struggled to find a viable business model and now finds itself at a crossroads. What is the role of The Collider (and its staff) in continuing to cultivate the network of climate-oriented individuals, businesses, organizations, and institutions in Asheville while achieving financial solvency as an independent non-profit entity? How can all stakeholders stay financially whole? This analysis seeks to answer these questions.

Key points that have emerged from this analysis:

• ACN members are convinced of the growing national need for climate services and are committed to growing companies and careers in Asheville to meet this demand. The climate services industry, however, is in its infancy, so members are simultaneously building a market and attempting to sell their products and services into it.
• Some members have proven their business models and associated value propositions and are convinced of the importance of the ACN. These include members that helped to form, and have invested resources in, the Collider to make its network and physical location viable.
• The presence of NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) in Asheville is of enormous benefit to the networks.
• Many members value working with like-minded people, and see how the ACN provides future job opportunities in the climate services sector in Asheville.
• A large number of start-ups have located in The Collider over the past four years, but only a small fraction have been successful and grown to the point where they either moved from The Collider’s co-working space into larger offices or relocated out of the space entirely. Most customers are outside the region, requiring members to rely on larger national networks to connect with paying customers and grow.
• To leverage risk and uncertainty, many members see the benefit in partnering with other entities that provide complimentary products and services and recognize that partnering with local firms holds significant value over partnering with collaborators outside of Asheville. Attracting more climate services firms and professionals to The Collider, therefore, would be valuable to its members.
• A disconnect exists between the value that members assign to the networks, how much they are willing to pay to support the ACN, and how much they are willing to pay for Collider-related services, including the physical space.
• The critical challenge facing both The Collider and the ACN is establishing and maintaining dependable sources of revenue. It has been difficult to financially support the network of people and the physical space. Revenue flows have, in the short term, been adversely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Collider staff have faced consistent difficulty in translating network success and collaborations into dollars for the operation of the space. While the physical space has been instrumental to The Collider’s success, it also represents a significant monthly outlay — one with which sequential administrations have struggled.

Introduction and Overview

Primary Purpose | To discuss the network of climate service providers operating within The Collider

The Collider is a co-work, events, and meeting venue and a network of working professionals in Asheville, North Carolina. The Collider is also the primary physical workspace for the Asheville Climate Network (ACN). The ACN is not an official organization, but the name that The Collider staff give to the assemblage of diverse climate, environmental, and allied providers working in western North Carolina, many of whom have an office or co-work space in The Collider.

The primary audience for this discussion is members of The Collider and the ACN networks, who have varying degrees of knowledge about the structure and history of The Collider. This document will therefore help build understanding and consensus about lessons learned, current status, and moving into the future. A secondary audience is the large group of stakeholders who have supported The Collider in the past, and who will hopefully continue their support. Another audience is other emerging networks of climate service providers, both national and international, who face similar challenges. The hope is that this document will serve as a valuable case study to help make their journey a little smoother.

Secondary Purpose | To examine the current and future financial viability of The Collider and ACN networks

These networks formed based on the premise that the United States is facing an increasing threat from a changing climate with a shortfall of trained personnel standing ready to help build resilience. A growing demand for climate services and a limited supply of service providers is central to the continuing success of the networks. Members of The Collider and the ACN networks believe that this demand will create additional jobs in the field, advance the careers of those currently working in the field, and develop Asheville and the western North Carolina region as a hub for climate services. Beyond individuals or jobs, members of these networks have seen success collaborating across fields and topics; however, it remains to be seen if collaborations can generate revenue, expand opportunity, and secure funding in a sustainable and dependable fashion. Therefore, it is important to discuss views on possible paths forward and the necessary steps needed to reach these goals.

Tertiary Purpose | To address whether or not Asheville is the appropriate location for a climate services market

With the presence of NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) and its climate data repository, an educated workforce, and an active nonprofit and private sector that is seeking to take advantage of both, Asheville is uniquely situated to house this industry.

Limitations to the area’s ability to become a climate services hub have been identified — including questions about the region’s capacity to support a large workforce in this industry and difficulties in coordinating the often divergent goals of regional stakeholders. More information regarding the growth of Asheville’s climate networks is included in Appendix 2.

The Two Asheville Networks: The ACN and The Collider

People join networks to get something that helps them or their organizations do their work¹. Plastrik, Taylor, and Cleveland tell us: “They have an individual value proposition, but not a collective value proposition that they share with others and that requires the collaboration of a network.” While a network can simply be defined as a group or system of interconnected people or things, a generative social impact network is much more than its individual members — it is the collective ideas, services, and products created by individuals working together within the network that benefit the world. A generative social impact network is also mutually beneficial. It engages its members and adds value to their work; in exchange, members add value to the network through their work and engagement.

In mapping the networks that exist at The Collider and in the broader Asheville area, we settled on a dual-network structure. Currently, climate services in Asheville fall into two networks illustrated in Figure 1, each with a slightly different purpose.

Figure 1. Diagram of the dual-network structure currently existing in Asheville.

There are key differences in the structure of the two networks:

• they are usually between individual organizations. The Collider can currently be defined as a network.
• The ACN is a pre-existing, overarching network that was involved in the founding of The Collider as a physical space. Many, but not all, members involved in the ACN have long-standing professional relationships and often work together by mandate. Some are located at The Collider, with significant exceptions: the North Carolina Institute of Climate Studies (NCICS), NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), NOAA’s Climate Project Office (CPO), and others. The ACN can be defined as a generative social impact network.

While The Collider is in a broad sense a network, in reality the physical space is home to seven sub-networks that work and operate fairly independently. Members of these sub-networks are frequent collaborators and often communicate internally about field-specific topics. While these sub-networks do not exclude new members, they typically remain somewhat static. This is partially due to the limited number of new firms that join The Collider, but is also due to the fact that organizations and individuals require a level of trust with new partners before collaboration can occur in earnest. Importantly, these sub-networks overlap, with some organizations belonging to more than one sub-network. Diagrams of each sub-network and its component members can be found in the following pages.

The ACN is a generative social impact network operating within the climate sector and refers to all climate services organizations in the area as well as the web of collaborations, relationships, and projects that exist between them. The ACN encourages collaborations between its members. Established ACN members are ready to take advantage of state and local funding and partner with other ACN and Collider members to develop local solutions and create climate mitigation and resilience impacts in diverse fields. Examples of ACN collaborations are highlighted in the sub-network case studies that follow.

It is important to recognize that the local networks intersect with national networks with similar missions and foci. These networks work together in the climate services field as professionals solving fundamental issues. It is essential that the networks in Asheville integrate with national networks to be most effective and extend the network of professionals in Asheville.

Sub-Network Analysis

The sub-networks arose organically, from interpersonal relationships between participants, unique collaborations between organizations, or funding opportunities for multiple parties. Varying degrees of involvement by staff at The Collider over the years caused many members to rely on each other — through specific collaborations and opportunities — rather than on strategic support from The Collider.

The discussions of the sub-networks that follow illustrate how and why members interact with one another, focusing on the linkages and connections between organizations rather than details of every individual or group. The descriptions reflect the status of the sub-networks as of the time of this writing (mid-2020), but it should be noted that they continuously evolve and change.

The Collider contains seven interconnected sub-networks, listed below and illustrated in Figure 2:

1. The Climate Data, National Report Generation, Tools, and Programming Network
2. The Education and Outreach Network
3. The Ecosystem Services Network
4. The Resilience Network
5. The Climate and Health Network
6. The Mitigation Network
7. The Start-Up Network

Figure 2. Diagram of six ACN sub-networks. The Start-Up Network is not included here because it belongs solely within The Collider network and is not affiliated with the ACN.

The Climate Data, National Report Generation, Tools, and Programming Network

This is by far the most extensive sub-network present. It is built on the Asheville presence and expertise of NOAA’s NCEI and NCICS, as well as NOAA’s CPO, which is headquartered in Silver Spring, Maryland, but has an Asheville presence. The primary goal of this network is to collect and translate climate data into useful information and then disseminate it nationally to government agencies, universities, firms, and municipalities. NOAA’s NCEI and CPO, as well as NCICS, provide these services as an integral part of their missions, but they also partner with and support a large number of firms and individuals in Asheville and nationwide.

The NOAA data center at NCEI is the foundation from which the ACN and The Collider are built — it serves as the origin of the network of organizations that are responsible for producing significant climate studies and related services, such as the National Climate Assessment (NCA), the U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit (CRT) and its associated Climate Explorer tool, the National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS), NOAA’s Climate at a Glance tool, and many data services. To generate these tools and maintain the current level of services requires significant climate science expertise, including data analytics, database and web programming, geographic information services (GIS), visualization, graphic design, writing and editing, and many more skill sets found throughout the ACN.

Case Study | National Climate Assessment Technical Support Unit

The National Climate Assessments (NCAs) are produced through the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) in conjunction with NOAA’s NCEI. The NCA is a periodic survey of climate change science mandated by the Global Change Research Act of 1990 (GCRA). These scientific assessments inform climate news in the U.S. and beyond and help guide policy.

The most recently published climate report is the Fourth National Climate Assessment, which was released in two volumes in 2017 and 2018. The NCAs bring together author teams from hundreds of science experts from across the country who work in federal and non-federal

science agencies, academia, state and local government, and the private sector. Mandated to be delivered to the President and the Congress every four years by the GCRA, the assessment involves a multi-year authoring and publication process.

NCICS provides most of the staff for NCEI’s Technical Support Unit (TSU), which supports the USGCRP’s climate reports. The TSU, under the direction of lead scientist Dr. Kenneth Kunkel, also creates State Climate Summaries to accompany the NCAs. Each assessment report includes an executive summary that helps non-specialists digest the scientific material.

In March 2020, NCICS released The North Carolina Climate Science Report, which supports North Carolina’s Executive Order 80 by providing peer-reviewed, scientific climate analyses.

Case Study | Climate Explorer

Climate Explorer — an online tool that displays interactive graphs and maps of climate information for every county in the contiguous United States, including days of high-tide flooding at more than 80 coastal stations and historical thresholds — was initially launched in 2014. The tool accesses data through the NOAA Regional Climate Centers’ Applied Climate Information System (RCC-ACIS), a powerful web services platform that enables on-the-fly climate data requests. It was developed by a team of interagency federal partners led by NOAA CPO that included NEMAC+FernLeaf and other public and private partners, and operates under the auspices of the USGCRP.

Climate Explorer’s future projections are based on the output of climate models. Comparing historical modeled results, or “hindcasts,” of climate models with observed temperatures is helpful in determining if the model can simulate climate evolution over the past five decades and, therefore, its skill in projecting future climate data.

Climate Explorer is useful for planners, but was created for anyone interested in the future ecological, public, economic, and social health of the county, including businesses, individuals, and communities of all sizes.

In 2019, NEMAC+FernLeaf partnered with NOAA CPO to perform usability studies on Climate Explorer. The studies resulted in a comprehensive redesign of the tool.

Case Study | FernLeaf Interactive: AccelAdapt

AccelAdapt is a Software as a Service (SaaS) product developed by FernLeaf Interactive that leverages NEMAC’s applied research. Using NEMAC’s extensive insights on asset-scale indicators of climate vulnerability and risk, FernLeaf created AccelAdapt to automate the tedious and complex tasks associated with implementing calculations across a city or regional scale. AccelAdapt addresses several limitations inherent in reports, designed as a processing pipeline that enables living vulnerability assessments and providing an interactive interface that allows the user to answer sophisticated resilience questions.

AccelAdapt is at the center of FernLeaf’s business model: the team provides the software product as a part of a resilience planning project for various local and regional governments. They provide ongoing access and support of the tool on a subscription basis, and have a robust professional services group that helps clients and partners understand how to use the product to recommend and take adaptation actions.

With a growing demand pushing FernLeaf to decouple from projects as a sub-consultant, the company has established an enterprise program that supports a range of firms outside of Asheville — from a woman-owned stormwater modeling small business in South Florida to several major national and international engineering firms — which are increasingly using AccelAdapt to bolster their planning and consulting engagements with clients.

As of mid-2020, AccelAdapt has powered vulnerability assessments for resilience planning across over 50 jurisdictions in the Southeast, including Asheville, the Land of Sky region, and New Bern in North Carolina, Charleston in South Carolina, and West Palm Beach, Tallahassee, Boca Raton, Hallandale Beach, Lake Worth Beach, Boynton Beach, and Delray Beach in Florida. As a graduate of Esri’s Startup Program, AccelAdapt is routinely highlighted as the go-to tool for delivering government climate vulnerability assessments on the ArcGIS platform.

The Education and Outreach Network

The purpose of this sub-network is to provide information in various mediums to a diverse audience. Target audiences may range from the general public to community and industry leaders to climate adaptation and resilience practitioners. There is potential for the Education and Outreach Network to provide training for emerging adaptation professionals.

At its outset, members realized that most of its target audience did not know the facts about a changing climate and its potential impacts on things that they care about. Over the years, the network has focused on the importance of interacting with people at a local level and creating content and messaging that is meaningful, interesting, and even entertaining.

This network consists not only of trained educators and educational content creators, but also science writers and editors, graphic designers, videographers, associated media specialists, and informal educators. Several individuals and firms in this network have identified niches where customers are willing to pay for customized education and outreach products and services. This network continues to evolve with a fluctuating but growing demand for these services.

Case Study | NOAA CPO’s Train the Trainer Workshop

The Collider membership met numerous times in the Fall of 2019 to articulate mutual needs and priorities. One identified need was to expand opportunities for members within the national landscape of climate adaptation. NOAA’s Climate Program Office (CPO) has focused on the issue of scaling climate adaptation efforts through numerous projects, including the publication and promotion of the Steps to Resilience (StR) framework found in the U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit (CRT). The StR is a risk management and decision-making framework that encapsulates tested, documented practices from multiple disciplines and parts of the world, making an explicit link between federal climate information and local decisions. The StR also highlights the need for professional climate services to protect lives, property, and other valued resources across the nation.

The CRT team works with government officials to document risk and exposure and identify specific climate services that could benefit them in making better decisions. Given the evident interdependence of government and private-sector capacity, the CRT team hosts trainings in the StR framework so that decision makers and professionals can adopt shared vocabulary and approaches to making better decisions.

In September 2019, the CRT team, working with UNC Asheville’s NEMAC, hosted a one-day intensive workshop on the StR at The Collider’s theater/auditorium. Following this workshop, several Collider and ACN members took direct action:

• CASE Consultants International redesigned a project plan for municipalities in coastal North Carolina.
• Mary Roderick with the Land of Sky Regional Council of Governments adopted the StR framework for the council’s engagements with federal partners and focused its contractual relationship with FernLeaf Interactive.
• Jen Powell of Powell & Associates, LLC, initiated a heat-health national network project plan centered on the StR.

The StR grew out of a formal relationship between NOAA CPO and NEMAC+Fernleaf and has become a pillar of a national strategy for scaling climate adaptation. Adopting the StR within the ACN network helps ACN and Collider members mutually scale their efforts.

Case Study | CASE Consultants International and Horry County, SC

CASE Consultants International (CASE), a certified Woman Owned Small Business, applies climate arts and sciences expertise to inform real-world decisions in climate adaptation, sustainability, and resilience by customizing advice and services to meet specific client needs for tactical projects or strategic programs. CASE subject matter experts consult on climate and environmental sciences, services and policy, city and regional planning, and land use policy and conservation through scientific, technical policy analysis and development.

In 2019, Sherwood Design Engineers approached CASE to develop a long-term resilience and flood mitigation plan for Horry County, SC (the seat of Myrtle Beach). The county has suffered from repeated major flooding over the past several years. CASE combined its expertise in climate science, data analysis, and professional urban and rural planning. Specifically, CASE collaborated with Horry County’s Planning and Development offices to develop buyout strategies aligned with the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery Program (CDBG-DR), but adaptable to other funding sources. In this process, CASE reviewed and recommended various codes and ordinances, including: Land Development Code, Stormwater Ordinance, Stormwater Design Manual, Flood Protection Ordinance Draft Impact, and Fee Ordinance. CASE also developed code enforcement protocols for activation after flooding or natural disaster to address code compliance issues associated with damages and debris.

To create an interactive process and incorporate feedback into developing its Flood Resilience Plan, CASE designed several public outreach and engagement events with residents and stakeholders of Horry County. This practice had two goals, both of which were achieved: education regarding the flood types and appropriate planning, and prioritizing programs and funds based on community interests and understanding.

The Ecosystem Services Network

This sub-network includes organizational representatives and teams that deal with the natural system and how it is changing due to climate and non-climate stressors, focusing on ecosystem services and landscape resilience projects. This sub-network frequently utilizes GIS to improve or evaluate stormwater systems, green spaces, wetlands, rangelands, etc., to increase climate resilience within communities.

Being located in western North Carolina, these local organizations have a strong recognition of the importance of ecosystem services to the quality of life and economy of the region. Western North Carolina is a green island in the midst of the Southeast’s major urban areas, and almost half the nations’ population is less than a day’s drive from this natural playground. But the natural system is impacted by a variety of threats and stressors. Network members focus on finding solutions to keep the natural system vibrant and resilient. While most of this network’s work is based in local ecosystems, many members apply these lessons to natural systems found across the Southeast, the nation, and the world.

Case Study | Ecobot

Ecobot — a climate tech start-up — developed a phone app that streamlines the wetland ecological intake process. The app optimizes the wetland delineation process by more than 50 percent in time efficiency through its swift data collection, contextual vegetation, soil data lookup, automated calculations, and generation of regulatory reports. Ecobot’s competitive advantage is its partnerships with Esri, Trimble, and EOS, introducing advanced mapping and modeling capabilities into a single app.

The firm is located at The Collider and is rapidly expanding from an infusion of seed funding received at the end of 2019 and market growth share. They have hired six new employees since the start of 2020, and has moved from The Collider’s co-work space into a larger, private office.

Case Study: Asheville’s River Arts District Watershed Project

RiverLink — an Asheville-based non-profit organization — partnered with the City of Asheville in the Fall of 2019 to restore the section of the local watershed that drains through Asheville’s River Arts District (RAD). Collider member Blue Earth Planning, Engineering, and Design was selected by RiverLink to lead the one-year assessment and planning phase of the RAD Watershed Restoration Project. Fellow Collider member Ecosystem Services — an engineering consulting firm based in Charlottesville, Virginia — was included in the award as a subcontractor.

The French Broad River and its three tributaries comprising the RAD Watershed suffered severe damage from industrial and agricultural pollution over the past century. Given the amount of development throughout the watershed in recent years, bank erosion and stream channel incision were the main issues identified. The RAD Watershed Team created a GIS-based computer model of hydrologic data, including percent of impervious surfaces and type of land uses. They used this model to simulate water flow through the stormwater pipes and streams throughout the watershed to help identify problem areas and potential project sites.

The RAD Watershed Team used a holistic approach by embracing the watershed’s uniqueness and its diverse community. They worked side by side with RiverLink to listen and learn from community stakeholders to ensure that the restoration plan prioritized residents, built trust, and proactively addressed equity and inclusion. The team saw the watershed restoration as an opportunity to harness the creativity and artistry within the area while supporting the creation of green jobs for disadvantaged residents. They also emphasized building climate resilience by understanding climate change impacts in the watershed and using ecologically based green infrastructure practices.

Case Study | Eyes on Earth

Eyes on Earth works with private, public, and academic organizations to determine water levels and predict future agricultural yields worldwide. The organization was contracted by the Lower Mekong Initiative — an organization comprising Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Viet Nam — in the Fall of 2019 to determine the extent to which China is restricting the Mekong River’s natural flow with the five hydroelectric dams the country has built along the river.

Eyes on Earth used its unique wetness and temperature monitoring, which uses microwaves transmitted from satellites to cut through cloud coverage and detect water quantity in the Upper Mekong River Basin, in the project. The team determined that China was interfering with the natural flow of the river during a time when it was its lowest level in over 50 years.

The Resilience Network

This sub-network is much broader than most of the others. Its purpose is to help communities build climate resilience through a combination of products and services that include stakeholder engagement and cross-network collaboration.

With many of its customers located outside the region, this network relies on a national network of collaborators to deliver products and services to end clients. Many members also hold memberships with larger networks, such as the American Society of Adaptation Professionals (ASAP) and/or the so-called national Resilience Ecosystem of climate services professionals.

Case Study | Building Resilience for the State of North Carolina: Supporting the New Climate Risk Assessment and Resilience Plan

In October 2018, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper issued Executive Order 80, calling on the state government at all levels to “evaluate the impacts of climate change on programs and operations,” among other priorities. To understand the impacts of climate change, leaders in Raleigh looked to Asheville. The outputs from what ensued provide a vivid window into the essential functions and behavior of the ACN as an adaptive social network.

One requirement was a climate assessment. The NCICS/NCEI NCA TSU worked with the Office of the State Climatologist and other climate science academicians to develop a state-level climate science assessment — the first time that the TSU had developed such a product.

Understanding and responding to impacts requires a deep understanding of climate and business practices, which is a strength of a different set of actors within the ACN. The CRT’s Steps to Resilience framework documents best and tested practices in honing governance and business decisions using climate information. Over a five-month span, the CRT team facilitated four workshops among dozens of agency representatives who had been tasked by the Governor’s order. Drawing on NEMAC+FernLeaf ‘s experience with similar engagements among councils of government and municipal staff across the southeastern US, the CRT team worked with state officials to establish a shared vocabulary. With guidance, state officials

documented 744 distinct impacts to government activities within 11 sectors. They also described exposure, vulnerability, risk, measurable impacts, and potential adaptation strategies for a subset of those climate-related impacts.

The statewide climate and risk assessments formed the backbone of the state’s Climate Risk Assessment and Resilience Plan delivered on June 2, 2020, which enables the state’s leadership to articulate a vision for future climate adaptation efforts. Development of this backbone required the blended skills of climate science expertise, acumen with decision support, facilitation expertise, writing and editing, and a commitment to addressing climate-related problems. None of these skills resides within a single individual or even entirely within the practitioner community in Asheville; however, as a network the ACN possesses the required skill and expertise to adaptively build and sustain teams to address the complexity of issues required for managing state-level climate risks.

The Climate and Health Network

The purpose of the Climate and Health Network is to engage public health leaders, medical providers, and the public on the connection between climate risks and human health. In light of COVID-19, it is becoming increasingly clear that climate and health are interconnected and must be addressed in tandem. The applications of this network are far-reaching and likely to grow in coming years.

NCICS supported the development of the USGCRP 2016 Climate and Health Assessment, which expanded on the Third National Climate Assessment’s chapter on human health. The assessment elaborated on major health-related threats of a changing climate: temperature-related death and Illness, air quality impacts, extreme events, vector-borne diseases, water-related illness, food safety, nutrition, and distribution, mental health and well-being, and populations of concern. Members of the Climate and Health Network also create tools and application technologies. This sub-network has established the WNC Health and Climate Working Group, described more fully below.

Case Study | State of North Carolina COVID-19 Self-Checker Tool

In May 2020, Dr. Jennifer Runkle, an NCICS environmental epidemiologist, co-developed an online self-checker tool for COVID-19 with Buncombe County health officials and other partners. The new tool helps residents who think they may have COVID-19 identify their symptoms while also providing officials with vital data about the spread of COVID-19 in the county. In addition to symptom checking, the self-checker tool allows residents to opt-in to a daily check-in that enables health officials to monitor change in symptoms or barriers to obtaining testing or medical care.

As of June 1, the site had received approximately 6,200 visits, with 1,857 residents and 160 from outside the county completing the survey tool. More than half of those reporting symptoms were identified as medically vulnerable, and more than 25 percent did not have a healthcare provider.

The COVID-19 Self-Checker Tool is available for free in English, Spanish, and Russian.

Case Study | Daily Breath and CASE Consultants International

CASE Consultants International (CASE) is a building and climate consulting firm that uses scientific and technical data to aid clients in their decision-making process. In 2015, Eric Klos, founder of DailyBreath LLC and creator of the DailyBreath app, became a client of CASE. CASE had access to the data he needed to prove his hypothesis: “The convergence of specific weather variable thresholds with air pollution and pollen created an increased risk of breathing difficulty for respiratory patients.”

CASE provided a literature review consisting of evidence-based research involving meta research from clinical studies proving the correlation between weather and environmental exposures, specifically for allergy and asthma. Additionally, the review identified specific weather and ecological exposure thresholds that correlate to a higher incidence of symptoms for allergy sufferers or adverse health outcomes for asthma patients. The thresholds helped inform the original DailyBreath Risk Index. Users of the app are continually updating its database through a real-time feedback loop. A computerized algorithm was developed from the initial risk index to create personalized risk indexes for individual users.

Through the collaboration between DailyBreath and CASE, users can learn about and track their environmental triggers to lower their overall exposure rate — hopefully allowing them to live healthier lives.

Case Study | WNC Health and Climate Working Group

The Western North Carolina Health and Climate Working Group formed in Fall 2019 with a mission of engaging local hospital and public health agency leaders in conversation around the impacts of climate change on public health in the region. The group comprises seven key partners specializing in public health practice, policy, nursing, science communication, spatial mapping, environmental modeling, and climate epidemiology and seeks to provide solutions and co-benefits to building climate and health resilience in western North Carolina.

Dr. Jennifer Runkle, an environmental epidemiologist at NCICS and the climate epidemiology specialist in the Working Group, says the group is interested in examining how social determinants of health — particularly racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities — influence health patterns in vulnerable populations across the region. According to Runkle, “Climate hazards like extreme heat and flooding can impact peoples’ mental health and lead to maladaptive behaviors such as substance abuse. Further stress from climate change can exacerbate these health issues. Landslides can shut down roads, cutting people off from their jobs and impeding their access to food and medicine.”

The group is comprised of academics and professionals from the Western North Carolina Health Network, UNC Asheville’s NEMAC, Western Carolina University, Appalachian State University, the Buncombe County Department of Health and Human Services, Powell & Associates (an independent public health consultant and Collider member), and graduate and undergraduate students from University of North Carolina School of Public Health, the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and Western Carolina University.

The Working Group has the capacity to provide a macro perspective that local healthcare systems need, and is a convenient mechanism for collecting and sharing stories about residents who have already been most affected by climate change. These stories — and the hard data the group plans to collect — are connecting the dots between social vulnerability and climate change.

The Climate Mitigation Network

This is the smallest sub-network in The Collider. Members have yet to work with each other, but they’ve partnered with other firms in The Collider. The common thread tying members of the Mitigation Network together is their development and/or promotion of renewable energies.

Disasters increase the gap between the rich and poor, and a key focus of the Mitigation Network is preventing this gap from widening. By mitigating the effects of climate change, members are able to help build equity within lower-income communities through initiatives such as job creation, greenhouse gas reduction, building more pedestrian-friendly cities, and energy savings. Solar CrowdSource has begun working with lower- and middle-income communities to bring down the cost of solar, while Climate Interactive has applied a “multi solving” approach to building climate equity through its models and workshops.

Case Study | Climate Interactive

Climate Interactive is a think tank focused on building the climate action needed to reduce global temperatures to well below 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels through its hands-on climate simulators, games, workshops, and seminars. Founded by co-directors Andrew Jones and Dr. Elizabeth Sawin in 2010, Climate Interactive’s tools connect everyone from policymakers to laypeople with real, feasible climate solutions. The organization has located its second home at The Collider since 2016, where it has led climate simulation workshops and seminars for the Asheville public and developed its tools and resources for the wider world.

In conjunction with MIT Sloan, Climate Interactive released its En-ROADS tool in December 2019. This cutting-edge online climate policy simulator allows its users to test a myriad of climate policy solutions in real time and visualize a variety of climate impacts. Unlike other climate modeling tools, En-ROADS was designed to be used by everyone from K–12 schools to churches, although the tool’s primary audience is policymakers and business leaders.

Most recently, Climate Interactive debuted En-ROADS at 2019’s COP25 in Madrid, instead of showing people research. The team has found that facilitating interactive experiences that put people in a position to experience the full scale of action needed to reduce global emissions is the best way to get people involved.

Case Study | Solar CrowdSource

Solarize campaigns launched in individual communities over the past decade utilized group purchasing power to significantly reduce solar energy and storage costs for a community. Solar CrowdSource (SCS) is a start-up company that facilitates the solarize concept by leveraging resources, experience, and other communities’ help. SCS simplifies the community solar installation process from start to finish through turnkey support from private and public partners.

Recently, SCS has begun incorporating strategies to bring more low- or moderate-income (LMI) communities into the market to access affordable solar power. SCS’s model already works to bring down costs of solar through bulk purchasing. However, the company has begun to integrate fundraising methods to reduce further costs for LMI residents who would otherwise be unable to afford solar energy systems or battery storage.

SCS implemented its donor-driven campaign on St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI) in early 2019. The USVI is located in an energy cost-intensive setting with per capita energy usage averaging seven times higher than in the contiguous U.S. Household income is lower in the USVI and energy is significantly more expensive, which means that low-income families pay more than twice as much for electricity as mainland families. A seed donation of $55,000 from one generous individual provided grants that enabled four St. John-based solar installers to discount their products and services significantly. This campaign allowed 22 residents — including LMI residents — to have solar energy affordably installed in their homes.

In just a year, SCS created over $600,000 in clean energy infrastructure on St. John, including 200,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of solar energy per year and nearly 294 kWh of battery storage. This development will prevent 261,500 pounds of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere annually and is equal to more than 3,800 trees cleaning the air.

SCS’s solar installations on St. John have also made participating residents more energy independent, increasing their resilience to future storms. In 2017, Hurricanes Irma and Maria decimated the island, damaging almost 75 percent of LMI homes. Residents were left without power for months because St. John’s electrical grid was nearly destroyed. Adding 294 kWh of battery storage ensures that people will have a backup power source if another disaster strikes.

The Start-Up Network

This sub-network is slightly different from the others because it is not solely composed of environmental- or climate-based firms. Because it is not organized around climate, The Start-Up Network is not a component member of the ACN. The potential for direct collaboration within this network might not be as clear as it is in others due to the niche diversity of each organization, but the organizational struggles faced by each member are similar.

Collaboration could occur by seeking out and pursuing projects that would benefit from the combined efforts of multiple network members, as well as benefit the members by sharing resources and learning from each other. The Start-Up Network presents huge potential in its members’ abilities to secure and leverage capital, expand quickly, and collaborate with members working more directly in the climate sector.

In addition to its climate workforce, Asheville is home to a wide variety of small business resources, with organizations such as Venture Asheville, Mountain Bizworks, SCORE Asheville, and the NC Small Business and Technology Development Center (SBTDC) all working (often together) to launch and grow businesses. The potential for overlap between Asheville’s business resource community and its climate sector is vast. The business community can play a critical role in helping apply climate data to products and services.

Case Study | SBTDC Taking the Leap → Climate School Asheville

The Collider team was approached by Ben Robbins, a business launch specialist working at North Carolina’s Small Business and Technology Development Center (SBTDC), in late 2019. SBTDC is a business advisory resource hub associated with the U.S. Small Business Administration operating through North Carolina’s University of North Carolina System. SBTDC chapters are housed within UNC institutions, and employees work within their respective communities to encourage and support new firm creation. The SBTDC Western North Carolina office is located at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, but sought to engage more closely with Asheville’s existing resources.

Robbins reached out to The Collider to host the “Taking the Leap” program, the SBTDC’s flagship development course. Participants can create or finalize a business model, explore funding streams, and exit the program ready to incorporate a business through a month-long process. Collider member Sherry Wheat and partner Mary Olson participated in this program, during which they formalized plans for a new business: Climate School Asheville. Wheat and Olson formally incorporated their business in July 2020, and intend to utilize Collider resources and networking to build their operations.

Case Study | Business Model Canvas Workshops, Hackathons, Small Business Incubator

The Collider is a multifaceted organization that promotes the growth of small climate services businesses in order to support workforce development in western North Carolina. Two examples of business growth and job creation in The Collider are FernLeaf Interactive and Ecobot. Both firms are climate services tech start-ups that have expanded at The Collider, but without Collider intervention. Both organizations started in The Collider’s co-work space with only a few desks and, after substantial growth, moved into larger private offices. Both firms also chose to stay at The Collider for the overall proximity to other climate services practitioners and firms.

The Collider has in the past offered a “lunch and learn” series of lectures for members, including lectures focused on the Business Model Canvas approach. As noted above, it also partnered with the SBTDC to host a month-long “Taking the Leap” business development course. The Collider team hopes to improve partnerships with local business development resources to provide increased access to members.

The Collider has hosted several “hackathons” to emphasize the importance of climate data to solutions and as an interactive method of gaining exposure. A hackathon is a fast-paced programming event where program and software developers compete and collaborate on software development projects. Teams were tasked with transforming weather and climate data into innovative solutions companies. Scenarios changed based on the event, varying from supply chain adaptation and mitigation efforts to calculating extreme weather thresholds and the overall economic impacts on vulnerable populations based on historical weather data. These events demonstrate the importance of climate data and build a sense of community among participants, while simultaneously recruiting new start-ups through catalyzing the entrepreneurial mindset.

Collaboration Across Sub-Networks

In conducting this analysis, Collider staff have used a network-centric approach to the member base as a way of categorizing and rationalizing the space. In reality, lines can be blurred.

Notable in the analysis is the number of collaborations that happen beyond intramural sub-networks. Individual collaborations between members not connected strongly to a particular sub-network exist, and collaborations and connections occur between members of different sub-networks. The main limiting factor to collaborations of this nature appears to lie simply in the low number of avenues for collaboration between groups with vastly different goals. For example, a member of the Climate and Health sub-network may desire to work with a member of the Ecosystem Services sub-network…but there are generally few projects that overlap both professions.

Despite this, opportunities for collaboration continue to motivate members for a number of reasons. Revenue generation, unique opportunities or expertise, and a workplace culture based around organic relationship-building all contribute. The latter is likely due to The Collider’s recent history, when the changing goals of multiple previous administrations reduced organizational support for members and led to them relying on existing relationships to create new value for their organizations.

The “Asheville Factor” | Local Opportunity and Capacity

Is Asheville an appropriate location to support a robust climate services sector? Members of The Collider have historically viewed Asheville as having the necessary local ingredients to grow a climate services workforce, but have struggled with mobilizing the right stakeholders to implement the vision and mission of creating jobs in this sector.

As noted previously, Asheville houses the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) — the world’s largest repository of climate data — and the North Carolina Institute for Climate Studies (NCICS). The Collider is located in downtown Asheville, just steps away from these institutions, and employees of these organizations are members and often collaborate with other Collider members. State and local governments have acknowledged the climate threat in legislation and planning: North Carolina’s Executive Order 80 and the AVL 5X5 Vision 2020 Economic Development Strategic Plan both outline areas of emphasis/funding that can be leveraged by ACN members. Additionally, NC Executive Order 143, spurred by the COVID-19 crisis, highlights crucial work needed to advance climate justice in underserved communities.

Beyond the public sector, Asheville is home to a wide variety of nonprofits and organizations that play an active role in the mitigation, adaptation, and resilience fields. The Southern Environmental Law Center and the WNC Sierra Club are located in the city, along with numerous local advocacy groups such as Asheville GreenWorks, MountainTrue, and the Dogwood Alliance. These and others have demonstrated a willingness to engage with The Collider and the ACN.

These positive markers have spurred the creation of a number of new businesses in the area, but only some have been successful. It’s clear that Asheville has a large number of individuals, companies, and entrepreneurs that are desirous of working in the climate data or climate services field, although it appears to have a limited capacity to support such a range of firms.

It’s important to note that the climate services industry in this country is still nascent. While the perception among many is that this field is a space for future growth, particularly as weather events and climate impacts continue to intensify, new firms in this arena must build a market while simultaneously selling their products and services into it. It’s possible that the relative size of this industry has contributed to the growth of networks in Asheville as network members work together to secure funding, source opportunities, and expand their businesses. The network adds value by allowing members to both celebrate successes and commiserate over failures — and share lessons learned from each.

In an effort to support this nascent industry, various organizations have sought to determine the number of jobs within this sector in the western North Carolina region, with mixed results. Independent studies using data from the North American Industry Classification System have resulted in varying numbers, with results ranging from 500 to 1,100 climate sector jobs in the area. Overall, there are few clear paths to determining the true number of climate data employees in western North Carolina. The Collider can confidently state that it is home to 110 members. The Veach-Baley Federal Complex, which houses NOAA’s NCEI and NCICS, houses roughly 265 employees. These are the two largest agglomerations of climate services workers in the region, though not a complete sampling of the workforce. Collider staff estimate that there are most likely 500–700 people working in the climate sector within the region.

A better understanding of the area’s carrying capacity for climate services would allow organizations such as The Collider, the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce, and others to focus efforts as well as provide invaluable information to companies or other organizations looking to establish a presence in the region.

Critically, The Collider both supports climate services providers and relies upon them for its survival. Collider staff work to facilitate collaborations and connect members to opportunities and resources, and it is the contributions of these firms to The Collider through membership fees that keeps The Collider operating.

The Collider Network and ACN: Future Directions to Financial Viability

When it first opened its doors in April 2016, The Collider was run as a quasi-small business incubator for companies working within the climate sector. Until the summer of 2019, the organization focused most of its attention outwardly, trying to attract entrepreneurs and investors. Though it undoubtedly gained momentum, The Collider spent significantly more money than it made in its first three years, paying large staff salaries, hosting conferences, and establishing its brand. At times, The Collider attempted to compete with national climate adaptation networks, such as ASAP, instead of integrating and collaborating with existing networks. A series of iterative approaches initiated by successive administrations tried to determine what business model might work, but a limited amount of data was collected or analyzed to measure success. This limited learning across the network. Now in its fourth year, The Collider is seeking to grow from its past challenges, using a build-measure-learn approach.

One of the main characteristics that distinguishes The Collider from other environmental networks is its physical space. The rent for this space is The Collider’s second-largest cost — behind only personnel costs — which has made it difficult for the organization to become self-sustaining. The Collider’s co-work and event spaces offer two critical revenue streams for The Collider; however, the combined amount raised from each has yet to cover the monthly costs of operating the non-profit. These unique revenue streams have had an interesting knock-on effect of increasing the diversity of the space. In opening the co-work space to non-climate firms or individuals, The Collider has (at times inadvertently) created new avenues for collaboration or connection, a view often expressed by long-standing Collider tenants. The belief is that in building relationships with members working in non-climate fields, climate firms are exposed to outside perspectives and new problems related to climate change.

Also unlike other environmental networks, The Collider does not charge a network fee. The Collider generates membership revenue from the co-work space, but all revenue from offices outside of the co-work space flows to The Collider’s landlord, Ocean Asheville. Occupants of these “outer” offices tend to be among the most active members of the ACN, use Collider amenities, and are supported by Collider staff, yet do not contribute financially to The Collider. The Collider has identified this as a major funding issue and is working on a solution. All members of the network need to be invested in its success, and there must be better integration between the personal side of the network and the office space.

Institutional members NCEI and NCICS are both very supportive of ACN and The Collider, and have committed to continuing to partner with members on federally funded projects and utilizing the meeting and event spaces when they become available again, post pandemic.

Financial incentives aside, a key characteristic of The Collider’s member base through all of its iterations has been a focus on individual networking and community building. While this has had valuable impacts for members, it has been crucial to the continued existence of The Collider as an entity. The Collider relies fairly heavily on word-of-mouth referrals for co-work interest and for event space inquiries. The goal of The Collider staff is that, through natural expansion of our member’s professional connections, The Collider network would benefit as these connections are gradually brought into greater contact with the community at The Collider.

As highlighted by many of the case studies presented herein, collaborations among ACN members are often financially lucrative for those involved. The Collider, however, does not always receive funds from these connections. Potential exists for these collaborations to yield revenue for The Collider in at least three forms:

• The Collider receives finder’s fees for revenue-generating projects.
• The Collider fulfills its role as a nonprofit in partnering with ACN individuals, businesses, organizations, and institutions on grants.
• Collaborations expand member businesses and bring in new Collider members.

A viable revenue stream to support the work of the network will have to be generated. Current challenges include both fully identifying and understanding what The Collider’s network will look like and who will be interested in it. What role will the staff play in the network? How do members and staff transition from the current to a new model? How do we create a sustainable funding model that members will buy into — literally? And, of course, given our 2020 reality, how will the network function in a post-coronavirus world?

Foundationally, members must first adapt to the new business climate to survive financially; only then can they turn their attention to answering the question of how to be more successful as an operating network. Most of the business opportunities will likely be from customers outside of Asheville. The network must also determine how best to virtually connect to these customers and provide the required products and services.

Summary and Closing

In the years since its founding, The Collider has played various roles in the existing and developing climate sector within the Asheville economy. From the beginning, a focus on networking, gradual expansion, and personal relationships within The Collider has allowed the organic growth of a complex network of related organizations.

The Collider’s current member base can be roughly divided into seven sub-networks, based around specific subject areas such as climate data and national report generation, ecosystem services, or start-up status. While diverse, a number of members belong to multiple sub-networks and collaborate with other firms in various fields.

The critical challenges facing The Collider and these networks are chiefly financial. Revenue flows in the short term have been adversely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Before the pandemic, we saw an increased demand in the climate services market. It is now unclear if the existing network structures can harness that demand efficiently. Beyond individual organizations, staff at The Collider have faced consistent difficulty in translating network success and collaboration into dollars for the operation of the space. While the physical space has been instrumental in The Collider’s success, it also represents a significant monthly outlay — one with which sequential administrations have struggled..

What is obvious to all members of The Collider is the importance of the network and a desire to build on past investments to make a more sustainable future. Significant work and funding has gone into establishing The Collider brand and the strength of the network. We are sure that the network will need to evolve through its seven sub-networks to be viable, and we have the confidence that this evolution is our path forward.

As a network, all of our members must commit to the importance of collaborating for our future success. We must also share the lessons we have learned — and are still learning — with the larger national network of service providers, and compare ours to theirs. Together, as a local and a national network, we will continue to build a strong foundation for current and future members and grow the number of people nationwide who will help our nation become more resilient to the challenges of a changing climate.

Appendix 1: Glossary

• The Asheville Climate Network (ACN): A conceptual name for the group of individuals, businesses, organizations, and institutions working within the western North Carolina region’s climate sector. The ACN is a pre-existing, overarching network that was involved in the founding of The Collider as a physical space.
• AVL 5X5 Vision 2020 Economic Development Strategic Plan: First launched in 2010 by the Economic Development Coalition for Asheville-Buncombe County and the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce, AVL 5X5 was a five-year strategic plan designed to add 5,000 new jobs and $500 million in capital investment within five target clusters, one of which is Climate Tech. The plan was updated in 2015.
• Climate sector: Individuals, businesses, organizations, and institutions working to mitigate and/or adapt to a changing climate.
• Climate sector providers: The individuals, business, organizations, and institutions working within the climate sector.
• Climate services:Tools and information used within the climate sector. Examples of climate services include GIS mapping; local, state, and national reports, plans, and assessments; data gathering; and modeling.
• The Collider: A co-work, events, and meeting space; a network of individuals, organizations, businesses, and institutions in Asheville, North Carolina; a 501(c)(3) non-profit; and an essential member of the Asheville Climate Network (ACN). It is located on the fourth floor of 1 Haywood Street, Asheville, NC, 28801.
• Cooperative institute: A key center that allows for growing research across multiple entities and serves as a pathway for NOAA to fund strategic partnerships.
• Generative social impact network: A group of individuals or organizations that aim to solve a difficult problem in society by working together, adapting over time, and generating a sustained flow of activities and impacts. A generative social impact network is also mutually beneficial. It engages its members and adds value to their work; in exchange, members add value to the network through their work and engagement.
• NC Executive Order 80 (EO80): North Carolina’s commitment to addressing climate change and transition to a clean energy economy.
• NC Executive Order 143 (EO143): North Carolina’s commitment to addressing the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on communities of color. The EO provides targeted measures to help communities of color recover from the pandemic.
• Network: A group or system of interconnected people and/or things.
• Stakeholder: Anyone willing to provide resources, capital, time, and/or energy for a group.
• Sub-network: A network within a network, typically based around a key topic.

Appendix 2: History

The question that staff and members of The Collider are asked most frequently is, “What is The Collider?” There is not a simple answer. Depending on who is asked, The Collider can be described as a co-work space, an event venue, the floor of a building, a network of climate firms, a group of like-minded businesses, an entrepreneurial accelerator, or a climate non-profit. Fundamentally, The Collider is both a physical workspace and a network of collaborative firms and organizations. In attempting to explain how The Collider has come to be a physical space and a network of people, it may be helpful to explore the history of the network and space and how they’ve changed over the years².

Asheville, North Carolina, has been home to climate data for decades. The National Weather Records Center was established here in 1951 and was eventually converted into NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information following the consolidation of multiple organizations in 2015. Over the years, NOAA has worked to supplement its federal agency role by making an impact in the Asheville area more broadly.

NOAA produced the first National Climate Assessment in 2000; several of the lead authors were located in Asheville. These individuals led the effort to start building a local workforce outside of NOAA and the federal building that could focus on, and define the work related to, climate services. They began to talk with local leaders in business, government, and education to determine the best path forward.

In 2003, supporters at UNC Asheville, the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce, and local community leaders were able to secure a federal start-up grant to create UNC Asheville’s National Environmental Modeling and Analysis Center (NEMAC). Formed with the primary goals of applying the climate data stored in the federal center to the commercial sector, as well as creating local jobs, the center also looked to build greater linkages with local governments and expand the importance of climate data in policy and decision-making processes.

By 2004, local business leaders and philanthropists, self-organized into an economic development group called The Asheville Hub³, saw the climate data repository as a potential jobs and economic growth opportunity. The Hub enabled a national consulting firm to align various county economic development activities with community priorities. The Hub Strategy to Align Economic Development Efforts presented to Buncombe County Commissioners a model for six development “clusters”⁴: creative, health-related, technology, manufacturing, marketing. and enterprise, plus 17 accompanying strategic goals. Climate data, broadband, and scientific expertise were woven throughout the six clusters. By 2008, the Hub, recognizing the paradigm-changing potential of sustainability, began to craft a development strategy based on the fusion of the environment and economics. The Asheville-Buncombe Sustainable Community Initiative (ABSCI) was formed as a 501c3 ”‘think-and-do” tank with the mission of improving quality of life through innovative and sustainable economic development. Highly successful programs such as Reading, Writing, and Retrofit made Asheville’s climate cluster mainstream, developed greater linkages, and yielded collaborations and growth.

In 2010, the ABSCI refiled its 501c3 status under a new name — The Collider.

By early 2008, serious efforts were underway to establish a NOAA Cooperative Institute in Asheville to support NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center, NCEI’s predecessor. Cooperative Institutes are key centers that allow for growing research across multiple entities and serve as pathways for NOAA funding to be used in strategic partnerships. In late 2008, NOAA announced a nation-wide competitive Federal Funding Opportunity to establish a new Cooperative Institute to focus on satellite-related climate studies In May 2009, NOAA awarded the new Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites (CICS) to a partnership between the University of Maryland (which had hosted the Cooperative Institute for Climate Studies since 1984) and North Carolina State University. This partnership became the North Carolina Institute for Climate Studies (NCICS), a frequent contributor to the existing climate services sector in the region. NCICS hosted several “Dataset Discovery Days”⁵ workshops in 2012, which linked the Asheville network to a national network of companies and people engaged in similar work.

In 2009, NEMAC opened an engagement center in downtown Asheville to connect its data to the public. This was the first instance of a physical location in which existing network players were able to meet and work together. During the next five years, the network of climate services providers grew in Asheville and discussions about growing the business sector continued. Several members of the network, including the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce, ERC Broadband, CASE Consultants International, NEMAC, and others sponsored an “Asheville Booth” at the American Meteorological Society’s annual conference for several years to attract companies and individuals to Asheville.

The Collider’s physical space was not conceived of until a number of puzzle pieces fell into place. Local philanthropist and ABSCI Executive Director Mack Pearsall’s continuing interest in building jobs around the climate services sector in Asheville matched neatly with strong relationships in the growing (but still informal) network of people in the local climate data industry. Claire Callen, owner of the building at 1 Haywood Street, offered the fourth floor as a possible space to host the development of this network. The Collider was born.

Opening its doors in April 2016, The Collider was initially populated by many members in a loose association of climate firms from the Asheville area. At the time, a key goal of The Collider’s administration was having NCEI and NCICS employees in The Collider. To this end, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed by The Collider, NCICS, and NEMAC setting forth a possible set of roles and responsibilities that each would shoulder to ensure the space’s success. This MOU was never fully instituted, in large part due to changing personnel in the three groups and due to the necessity for each to stay viable as a separate entity before promoting collaboration of the partnership.

Because the climate services industry was — and still is — nascent, it is unclear what the market and its customers will support or pay for. The Collider has seen significant changes in just four years, and it is in this evolution that many of the competing definitions arose.

Regrettably, The Collider has seen high turnover in its administrative staff. Each new administration worked to build its specific vision and value proposition for The Collider — visions that often directly conflicted with those in the past. Different administrations attempted to create a research and technology center and a small business incubator, while others simply ran the floor as a co-work and events space. Due to these changes, Collider members were often unable to rely on support or strategic direction from The Collider’s staff. This spurred a focus on building businesses and opportunities more organically with other members. This DIY atmosphere was strengthened as institutional members, such as NCEI and NCICS, shifted to a wait-and-see stance amid variability in member and leadership interests. To be clear: this is not the fault of the institutional members. It is, rather, a reflection of the lack of strategic direction of the ACN and an unclear view of how additional collaboration would benefit different members of the network.

This came to a tipping point in the summer of 2019. It was clear that without more strategic focus on enabling the network of people working on climate services in Asheville to be more self-sufficient and strategically driven, the financial model of the physical space could not be self-sufficient. Following this realization, Collider members, stakeholders, and partners worked together to define and discuss the value and future of the space, settling on a member-driven, bottom-up approach.

The network is stepping up to this challenge and is now defining itself and determining a path forward. Today, The Collider is focused on the creation of sufficient conditions for a socially generative network to exist and thrive.

Case Studies

Case Study | NEMAC

NEMAC was formed as a collaboration between UNC Asheville, NOAA, and the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce representing local businesses and nonprofits. Since then, NEMAC has become a key player within the Asheville climate sector, and as an applied research center it uniquely bridges public and private firms. The formation of NEMAC is one of the first visible signs of the formation of the first “sub-network”: the Climate Data, National Report Generation, Tools, and Programming Network⁶.

In Fall 2004, two major hurricanes caused significant flooding and landslides in western North Carolina, causing multiple deaths and over $200 million in damages and lost business. In response, the City of Asheville asked the question, “How can climate information help us determine how to make our city more resilient to these types of storms?” The city and Buncombe County partnered with local citizens, leaders, NOAA, and NEMAC in a Flood Damage Reduction Task Force. This was recognized as a business opportunity — there was a potential customer (the City of Asheville) willing to tell climate services providers what they valued and where the shortfall was in the current methods that climate data was being provided. This was the early genesis of the Resilience Network.

Case Study | NCICS

The North Carolina Institute for Climate Studies (NCICS) was created to manage the activities of the Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites–North Carolina (CICS-NC), discussed previously. It is an inter-institutional research center of the UNC system, administered by North Carolina State University (NC State). This structure facilitates collaborations with other institutions in the UNC system and with other academic partners.

For several years, there was little practical distinction between NCICS and CICS-NC, and the NCICS identity was rarely used. However, as NCICS gradually expanded its portfolio of projects funded by other federal agencies and organizations, the organization transitioned to using NCICS as its primary identity for broader activities, such as outreach and engagement efforts in Asheville — including efforts to develop what would become The Collider.

The agreement supporting CICS was recompeted in 2019, and NC State and the University of Maryland partnered on a successful response to a new Federal Funding Opportunity. The Cooperative Institute for Satellite Earth Systems Studies (CISESS) began operations in July 2019, with NCICS again hosting the Asheville location. CISESS brings broader missions and new challenges, including an overarching goal of improving our understanding of both the natural and human components of the Earth system.

The initial vision for CICS-NC was relatively narrow: it would provide research-to-operations support and interfacing with academic partners for the nascent Climate Data Record (CDR) Program, which stitches together observations from different instruments flying on different satellite platforms over different time periods to create high-quality datasets suitable for tracking climate variability and climate change.

While the CDR Program was a major undertaking, it wasn’t broad enough to support and sustain a new academic research institute. It would have resulted in many missed opportunities and an inability to support the full scope of NCDC activities. It was recognized that a broader mission would help the Institute bring a multi-disciplinary climate workforce to Asheville, establish it as a place to build a long-term career, and broaden NC State’s climate portfolio.

By continually embodying this more expansive vision and working to raise stakeholder awareness of what the Institute can and does provide, NCICS has been able to support the CDR Program, improve NCEI’s suite of in situ datasets, advance the state of data stewardship activities, perform foundational climate research, provide technical support for National Climate Assessment activities, help usher NOAA and NCEI into the cloud computing era, advance NCEI’s user engagement activities, and interface with national and international partners. Along the way, it grew to support more than 30 full-time, highly trained employees, many of whom have been with NCICS since its formative years.

Reflecting on the ten-plus year journey from idea to established research center, there are three lessons that may be relevant for The Collider and the Asheville Climate Network:

1. It’s critical to have a clearly defined vision and understanding of what you are trying to accomplish from the outset.
2. From the beginning, NCICS benefitted from a level of support sufficient to deliver results and succeed. A corollary to that is to ensure that an organization’s scope remains in balance with a realistic assessment of available funding and support. To that end, one must identify partners who can provide more than sweat equity.
3. Build trusting partnerships and find ways to establish win-win relationships. A shared vision that everyone agrees on and supports is essential.

For NCICS, exceeding expectations on some early high-risk projects helped establish trust in its ability to deliver results and paved the way for supporting an expanding portfolio of NCEI projects. Flexibility in working with external partners facilitated information exchanges and infrastructure improvements that benefitted both the Institute and NCEI. In short, identifying opportunities for innovation and the ingredients necessary for success were critical factors in moving from start-up to sustainability.

¹Plastrik, Peter, Madeleine Taylor, and John Cleveland, 2014: Connecting to Change the World: Harnessing the Power of Networks for Social Impact. Washington, DC: Island Press.

²https://www.citizentimes.com/story/opinion/contributors/2015/08/28/story-behind-climate-sector-success-story/71304162/

³https://mountainx.com/news/community-news/1012county-php/

⁴Day Ray pioneered “economic development clusters” in a patented methodology adopted by Buncombe County

⁵ Designed by our own Collider member Marjorie McGuirk, with NOAA and NCICS.

⁶The sub-networks are more fully discussed in the main body of this analysis.