Primer partnered with Vibrant Data Labs, a nonprofit that uses data to create the first-ever comprehensive map of climate change funding. Our interview with Eric Berlow of Vibrant Data Labs shows how ‘following the money’ reveals both our biggest opportunities and threats to turn climate change around.

It’s no secret that the future of our planet is in trouble. The recently reported IPCC report concluded that countries aren’t doing nearly enough to protect against significant disasters to come. 

But in order to solve a big problem like climate change, and to understand if our current response is working, we need to see where private funding in the sector is going. What issues are getting money, and which organizations are getting that funding? What other trends might emerge? 

Applying NLP to climate change

That’s where natural language processing comes in. Using Primer’s NLP technology, we partnered with Eric Berlow at Vibrant Data Labs to produce the first-ever climate change funding map. Primer’s Engines analyzed data on over 12,000 companies and nonprofits funded in the last five years. Using organizations’ descriptions provided by Crunchbase, grant applications provided by Candid, and in partnership with the Cisco Foundation, we generated one of the first-ever data-driven hierarchies of climate topics to better understand our current response, alongside any potential gaps. Using this topic hierarchy, we can see what projects organizations are working on – and where. That helps us see what’s missing in the bigger picture. And to solve a problem like climate change, a big picture view is what’s needed.

Watch our interview with Eric Berlow on why following the funding is crucial for the climate’s future. 

“The Coronavirus pandemic was like the trailer to the climate change movie where if the have-nots are really impacted, everybody gets affected by it. Climate change is one of those problems that is an all-hands on deck problem. You cannot just solve a little piece of it. “ – Eric Berlow

Learn more about Primer’s partnership with Vibrant Data Labs here, and learn the technical piece behind the work here and here.

For more information about Primer and to access product demos, contact Primer here.