We Need Synergies, Not Silos, to Solve Humanity’s Greatest Challenges

The authors advocate for 'nexus solutions' that provide multiple benefits across climate, nature, and human health, citing clean cooking as a primary example of a 'triple-win' intervention.

• Clean cooking technologies serve as a 'triple-win nexus solution' by improving household air quality for 2.1 billion people, reducing premature deaths from chronic illness, and freeing up time for education and paid work. Additionally, these technologies mitigate climate change and protect forests by reducing tree harvesting, which in turn can decrease childhood mortality from diarrheal disease for those living downstream of healthy forests.
• Project Drawdown asserts that the most effective solutions are those at the 'nexus' where investments yield outcomes superior to addressing climate, nature, or human well-being in isolation, rejecting the term 'co-benefits' in favor of viewing all positive outcomes simply as 'benefits'.

APA

West, P., Jameel, Y., & Jasper, D. (2025). We Need Synergies, Not Silos, to Solve Humanity’s Greatest Challenges. Project Drawdown. https://drawdown.org/insights/we-need-synergies-not-silos-to-solve-humanitys-greatest-challenges

Chicago

West, Paul, Yusuf Jameel, and Dan Jasper. We Need Synergies, Not Silos, to Solve Humanity’s Greatest Challenges. Project Drawdown, 2025. https://drawdown.org/insights/we-need-synergies-not-silos-to-solve-humanitys-greatest-challenges.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |last1=West |first1=Paul |last2=Jameel |first2=Yusuf |last3=Jasper |first3=Dan |title=We Need Synergies, Not Silos, to Solve Humanity’s Greatest Challenges |publisher=Project Drawdown |date=25 February 2025 |url=https://drawdown.org/insights/we-need-synergies-not-silos-to-solve-humanitys-greatest-challenges |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{west2025need, author = {West, Paul and Jameel, Yusuf and Jasper, Dan}, title = {{We Need Synergies, Not Silos, to Solve Humanity’s Greatest Challenges}}, publisher = {Project Drawdown}, year = {2025}, month = feb, url = {https://drawdown.org/insights/we-need-synergies-not-silos-to-solve-humanitys-greatest-challenges}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }