'Count it, Change it, Scale it' with Andrew Steer | Big Ideas Into Action Podcast

This episode of WRI’s “Big Ideas Into Action” podcast features reflections of WRI’s outgoing President and CEO, Andrew Steer, as he departs to lead the new $10 billion Bezos Earth Fund.

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It’s been nearly nine years since Andrew Steer joined World Resources Institute as its president and CEO. Following the March announcement that he will leave WRI to become the president and CEO of the Bezos Earth Fund, we asked him what he has learned while at WRI about meeting the urgent social and environmental challenges of our time.

Vice President for Communications Lawrence MacDonald asked Andrew about the reasons for his remarkable optimism, the changes he has seen in the world during his time at WRI, and what he sees coming in the years ahead.

Highlight from the episode

“Count it, change it, scale it. ‘Count it’ means you’ve got to bring the best data. You’ve got to have the best maps, data which is up to date, presented in a user-friendly way, linked to research and analysis and design. But then you’ve got to demonstrate that that design works on the ground, in cities and corporations. But then — and this is the really important point — you’ve got to figure out how to scale it. And what I’ve learned is that you can’t scale it as an individual organization. You can only scale if you understand the new governance of the world, which is multi-stakeholder.” - Andrew Steer, WRI President and CEO