Innovera News & Events
Welcome to the Innovera Newsroom, where you can access the latest announcements, press materials, and information on our events.
For inquiries, please contact Stephanie Glazer, Managing Director.
About Innovera
Innovera is a nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating climate innovation and strengthening community and organizational resilience. By convening leaders across sectors and offering programs that empower innovators, Innovera advances scalable solutions for more resilient communities, sustainable infrastructure, and lasting environmental and economic value.
Recent Announcements & Press Releases
Innovera Announces Working Groups Following Climate Week NYC Session on Community Resilience
October launch brings together leaders to develop legal, financial, and governance structures for
integrated, community-beneficial infrastructure
October 2026 — New York, New York
Innovera Convenes Climate and Community Resilience Roundtable During PNW Climate Week
Discussion brings together cross-sector leaders to advance collaborative climate innovation
July 2026 — Portland, Oregon
Where to Find Us
Innovera hosts and participates in industry events that bring together leaders, practitioners, and communities advancing real-world resilience. From on-the-ground innovation to systems-level collaboration, our events highlight what’s working, what’s emerging, and what’s next.
Upcoming Events
October 2026
Community Wildfire Consortium, Virtual
Details to follow.
November 2026
We will be attending the…
4th California Germany Agrivoltaics Conference, UC Davis
Details to follow.
March 2027
International Women’s Day, Portland OR
Details to follow.
April 2027
SF Climate Week, San Francisco CA
Details to follow.
Past Events
September 21, 2026
NY Climate Week, New York NY
From Wildfire Risk to Community Resilience: Financing and Delivering System-Scale Solutions
During Climate Week NYC, Innovera convened a discussion on how innovative financing can help communities prepare for growing physical climate risks, with a focus on wildfire. For the session, Innovera was joined by California Forward to explore how communities can move beyond responding to disasters toward proactively reducing risk, strengthening infrastructure, and investing in resilience, centered on a key question: What will it take to finance and deliver community-scale resilience?
Opening Remarks
Sara Blenkhorn, Director of Innovation, Buckminster Fuller Institute
Albana Theka, President, Financial Women’s Association of New York
Speakers
Gifford Pinchot III, Senior Fellow, Innovera
Nuin-Tara Key, Chief Operating Officer, California Forward
Stephanie Glazer, Managing Director, Innovera
Session Highlights
Together, we examined how wildfire risk is changing and why communities need to evolve from a primarily reactive approach to one that proactively reduces risk and prepares for fire. Speakers explored the different drivers and forms of wildfire risk, from changing fire behavior and accumulated fuels to development patterns and climate conditions, as well as the limits of relying on suppression alone. The conversation considered a range of approaches, including home hardening, fuel management, prescribed and planned fire, landscape restoration, preparedness, and rebuilding, while recognizing that effective resilience must extend across property and jurisdictional boundaries.
The discussion then turned to the financing challenge: how can communities mobilize investment before disaster, better recognize the value of avoided loss, and align public resources, private capital, insurance, and other financing mechanisms around resilience? These questions highlighted a broader challenge that extends beyond wildfire: the need for new structures and mechanisms that can align ownership, risk, investment, revenue, and community benefit, making community-scale resilience more investable and durable.
Innovera’s CIRCLE Working Groups: Focusing on resilience, we introduced underlying questions that are relevant to infrastructure challenges more broadly, and central to Innovera’s CIRCLE Framework: Connected Infrastructure for Resilient Communities & Local Economies. This framework is designed to advance practical financial, legal, ownership, and governance tools to help communities participate in the value created by infrastructure investments and ensure that community benefits endure.
As announced in the session, Innovera is forming CIRCLE working groups to bring together practitioners, investors, community leaders, policymakers, and technical experts to develop and pressure-test actionable toolkits and novel legal instruments for community-beneficial infrastructure.
Interested in participating?
Register your interest in joining a CIRCLE working group: CIRCLE Expression of Interest
Event was held in person at Pier 57 in New York, NY.
July 15, 2026
PNW Climate Week, Portland OR
Building Resilience Together: A Climate Innovation Roundtable with Innovera
Many climate solutions are high-potential but low-uptake, not because the underlying technology or idea is unproven, but because of structural barriers to adoption. Innovera convenes the people who can build the missing tools and architecture to overcome these barriers, then carries the resulting tools into the hands of innovators who can put them to work.
As part of Pacific Northwest Climate Week, Innovera brought together leaders from across sectors to share insights and explore strategies for advancing climate and community resilience.
Discussion Highlights
Participants explored community-driven solutions spanning agrivoltaics, regenerative agriculture, circular economy, wildfire resilience, net-zero buildings, and innovative financing. A common theme emerged: accelerating climate action requires trusted local partnerships, community-centered approaches, and financing models that empower local action. The discussion also underscored the importance of systems thinking, cross-sector collaboration, and designing flexible, scalable solutions that strengthen both climate resilience and local economies.
Event was held in person at the Center for Philanthropy in Portland, OR.
June 17-20, 2026
We attended the…
Social Venture Network Global Gathering: A Revival
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Three days. 250+ values-driven business leaders. One extraordinary place.
Nearly forty years ago, a small, audacious group of entrepreneurs placed a bet that most people thought was naive: that business when led with purpose, values, and genuine courage could be the most powerful force for good on the planet.
They were right.
And the world they imagined then is the world we are being called to build now with more urgency, more stakes, and more need than at any point in SVN's history.
If you are building a business that puts community, justice, and planetary health at the center of everything, this gathering is your moment. Your people are already going. The conversations that will shape the next decade of values-driven enterprise are already being planned.
It was great connecting with so many of you there.
If we missed you, we would still love to connect.
June 17, 2026
9 Ways to Accelerate Agrivoltaics
Private event for foundations, investors and innovators in the field of agrivoltaics
As the Colorado River system shrinks and Lakes Mead and Powell reach deadpool (the level where water cannot be released downstream and power can no longer be generated), we see an urgent need to work together in unprecedented ways, accelerating the adoption of agrivoltaics — a way to reduce water consumption and generate needed energy, while keeping farms and farm workers in production.
We will hear about — and collectively evaluate — 9 viable approaches, with the goal of advancing the projects that have the greatest potential. Examples include the following:
Agrivoltaic Storytelling (Scott Laeser, Rural Climate Partnership) Communicating about successful projects to farmers, funders and various community stakeholders who are in a position to stall or support new agrivoltaic projects.
Developer Collaboration (Miles Braxton, Okovate) Working directly with developers to educate them and build new projects.
Farmer to Farmer Education (Ethan Winter, American Farmland Trust) Directly recruiting and educating farmers, establishing cohorts of farmers to support each other and explore ways to collaborate, such as by forming solar co-ops.
Demonstration Centers (Jordan Macknick, National Laboratory of the Rockies) A network of thoughtfully-designed agrivoltaic farm facilities that are open to researchers and farmers.
Agrivoltaics Market Opportunities (Glenn Hallam, Innovera) Creating a Farm Energy Consortium advancing agrivoltaics by linking farmers to two high-potential off-taker markets near farmland: manufacturing facilities and EV charging infrastructure along highway corridors, all backed by economic analysis, PR, and project support.
Tribal Agrivoltaic Education (Tony Skrelunas, Twin Visions) A series of workshops and site selection support, provided to Native tribes across the West, helping them plan and start agrivoltaic-powered community centers.
Chamber Outreach (Kelsey Pepitone, Chambers for Innovation and Clean Energy) Engaging communities with the economic development benefits of agrivoltaics.
Agrivoltaics Certification and Extension Service Education (Stacie Peterson, American Solar Grazing Association) Offering a four-pronged approach to accelerate agrivoltaic literacy, including certifications, extension toolkits, curricula for universities, and a mentorship program.
Policy Education Workshops (Rob Bradham, Chambers for Innovation and Clean Energy) Influencing the policy influencers with fresh ideas about accelerating permitting and navigating bans.
Innovera hosted this interactive session virtually.