---
title: "Everyday Grit: The People Making Environmental Change Possible"
description: Sun Valley Forum’s 10th anniversary honours resilient leadership—spotlighting perseverance, partnerships and quiet impact in climate and community action
author: Dr Marina Nani (Editor-in-Chief)
date: 2025-07-06T11:44:22.000Z
updated: 2026-02-26T22:05:05.978Z
canonical: https://richwoman.co/article/everyday-grit-the-people-making-environmental-change-possible
image: https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/jsm39nd0i-8.jpg
categories: Philanthropic Minds
content_type: Feature
region: Idaho
publication: Rich Woman Magazine
---

High in the mountains of Sun Valley, Idaho, the Trail Creek Cabin sits surrounded by towering pines and clear mountain air. This week, it hosted an evening that celebrated something rare in environmental circles: not the grand pronouncements or celebrity endorsements, but the quiet, persistent work of people who’ve spent decades making real change happen. The [Sun Valley Forum](https://www.sunvalleyforum.com/) marked its 10th anniversary by launching something new – awards that honour what founder Aimée Christensen calls ‘resilient leadership’.

## The Story Behind the Awards – More Than Applause

These aren’t the usual environmental awards handed out at industry galas. The Sun Valley Forum Resilient Leadership Awards deliberately sidestep the celebrity environmentalists and corporate sustainability officers who dominate most ceremonies. Instead, they focus on something harder to measure but more essential: the daily persistence required to actually change things.

‘We are so pleased to be celebrating our 10th year of impact and inspiration, and it is the perfect time for the inaugural Sun Valley Resilient Leadership Awards to recognise those who have made a real difference for nature and us all,’ says Christensen. ‘From an iconic lifetime leader to a courageous youth advocate, from builders of projects to conveners of collaborations, these awardees embody the spirit of resilient leadership.’

The emphasis on resilience reflects something the environmental movement has learned over the past decade: that meaningful change requires not just passion or good intentions, but the ability to keep going when progress feels impossible. It’s about [showing up year after year](https://richwoman.co/article/when-your-body-betrays-you-how-one-woman-turned-rare-disease-into-community-recognition), building relationships, learning from failures and finding new ways forward when the old ones don’t work.

## Meet the Awardees: Everyday Persistence in Action

At 84, Brock Evans has spent five decades fighting for America’s wild places with an approach he calls ‘[endless pressure, endlessly applied](https://www.andykerr.net/kerr-public-lands-blog/2021/1/21/preremembering-brock-evans-oregon-conservationist)‘. It’s not a particularly glamorous motto, but it’s helped protect millions of acres of ancient forests and secured permanent wilderness status for places like Idaho’s Boulder-White Clouds.

Evans worked through the Sierra Club, National Audubon Society and Endangered Species Coalition, taking on battles that often lasted years or decades. His work helped protect Hells Canyon and countless other wild places, not through single dramatic victories but through the kind of persistent advocacy that modern environmental campaigns still use as a template. The fact that singer-songwriter Carole King presented his award speaks to how arts and community activism have always been part of his approach.

What makes Evans’s story compelling isn’t just the scale of what he accomplished, but how he did it: by [building coalitions](https://richwoman.co/article/from-courtrooms-to-community-a-woman-s-mission-for-economic-justice), working with people who disagreed with him and never assuming that one victory would be enough.

### Emmy Scott – Centring Youth and Marginalised Voices

Emmy Scott’s work as Executive Director of [Earth Guardians](https://www.earthguardians.org/) represents a different kind of environmental leadership – one that recognises climate activism and mental health support as inseparable. Under her direction, Earth Guardians has mobilised young leaders in more than 60 countries, but not in the way you might expect from a youth climate organisation.

Scott’s approach centres on something often overlooked in environmental activism: the psychological toll of fighting climate change. Her organisation’s [Speakers’ Bureau](https://www.earthguardians.org/speakers-bureau) addresses climate anxiety, depression and the isolation many young people feel when confronting environmental challenges. This isn’t feel-good therapy – it’s practical recognition that sustainable activism requires sustainable activists.

Her emphasis on collective action and supporting marginalised voices reflects a growing understanding that the people most affected by climate change are often the least heard in environmental discussions. It’s patient work that doesn’t always generate headlines but creates the foundation for lasting change. [Young climate activists](https://richwoman.co/article/alexia-franklin-a-mother-earth-s-daughter-at-work-from-local-streets-to-global-climate-change) like Scott are proving that addressing mental health alongside environmental action creates stronger, more sustainable movements.

### Dr Tom Buttgenbach – Clean Energy Without the Hype

Dr Tom Buttgenbach has built solar plants capable of powering 20 million homes, but he doesn’t talk about it like a tech entrepreneur or industry cheerleader. As founder and CEO of 1st Avenue Capital and Avantus, he’s developed what may be the largest solar pipeline in the United States, including groundbreaking projects like the Springbok II Solar Farm and the Eland Solar plants.

Buttgenbach’s focus on practical deployment rather than revolutionary technology sets him apart. With more than 40 clean energy patents, his work has been about making solar power reliable and affordable enough to become a new normal for American electricity, not just a nice-to-have supplement.

His recognition with the Gigaton Scale Award reflects something important about climate solutions: sometimes the most important work happens in the background, building infrastructure that most people will never think about but that quietly changes how energy works.

### Jean Oelwang – Building Partnerships at Ground Level

Jean Oelwang’s career has been built around creating connections that didn’t exist before. As founding CEO of Virgin Unite and Planetary Guardians, she helped launch initiatives like The Elders and The B Team – organisations that sound abstract but focus on making environmental science relevant to everyday decisions.

Her work demonstrates what the Forum calls catalyst leadership: the ability to bring together people and resources that might not naturally collaborate. This kind of behind-the-scenes relationship building rarely makes news, but it’s often what enables other environmental work to happen.

Oelwang’s focus on embedding purpose across industries represents a practical approach to environmental change – working within existing systems rather than trying to replace them entirely.

### Wade Crowfoot – Restoring Rivers with Tribal Communities

Wade Crowfoot’s work on [restoring the Klamath River](https://news.mongabay.com/2024/10/largest-dam-removal-ever-driven-by-tribes-kicks-off-klamath-river-recovery/) represents the largest dam removal project in American history, but the real story is how it happened. As Secretary of California’s Natural Resources Agency, Crowfoot helped forge partnerships with tribal nations, states and local communities that had been working on this project for decades.

The Klamath restoration wasn’t driven by government agencies or environmental groups, but by the Yurok, Karuk, Hoopa and Klamath tribes who never stopped advocating for their ancestral salmon runs. Crowfoot’s role was to help create space for that leadership and build the partnerships needed to actually remove the dams.

The project opened more than 400 miles of historic salmon habitat, and [salmon have already been observed](https://caltrout.org/news/salmon-migrate-above-former-klamath-river-dams) migrating above the former dam sites for the first time in over a century. It’s a reminder that some of the most effective environmental work happens when people in positions of power help amplify community voices rather than trying to lead from the front.

## Why These Stories Matter to Everyday Readers

For anyone who has ever wondered whether their individual actions matter in the face of global environmental challenges, these stories offer a different perspective. None of these award recipients started as celebrities or had access to unlimited resources. They succeeded through what Evans calls ‘[endless pressure, endlessly applied](https://www.andykerr.net/kerr-public-lands-blog/2021/1/21/preremembering-brock-evans-oregon-conservationist)’ – the kind of persistent, patient work that anyone can do.

The diversity of their approaches also matters. Scott focuses on mental health and youth empowerment, Buttgenbach builds solar infrastructure, Crowfoot works on government partnerships, Oelwang creates cross-sector collaborations. There’s no single path to environmental impact, but there are common themes: persistence, relationship building and the willingness to keep working even when progress feels slow.

Their work also demonstrates that environmental change often happens through seemingly ordinary activities – community meetings, technical planning sessions, [coalition building](https://richwoman.co/article/food-rescue-as-a-practical-climate-solution-how-rescuing-food-cuts-methane-and-fights-hunger), policy negotiations. The dramatic protests and headline-grabbing campaigns get attention, but lasting change often comes from the less visible work of [building systems and relationships](https://richwoman.co/article/honouring-three-decades-of-making-youth-sports-possible-and-the-power-of-creating-a-better-fu).

## A Decade of Community and Courage

The Sun Valley Forum has spent 10 years creating something unusual in environmental circles: a space where people talk about setbacks and challenges as much as successes. [Aimée Christensen’s approach](https://www.sunvalleyinstitute.org/about/founder-profile-aimee-christensen) has been to bring together leaders from business, government, philanthropy and the arts not just to share best practices, but to learn from failures and support each other through difficult work.

The Forum’s outdoor setting in Sun Valley isn’t just scenic backdrop – it reflects an approach to environmental work that keeps people connected to the natural world they’re trying to protect. Past speakers have included Senator Cory Booker, Dr Sylvia Earle and Carole King, but the emphasis has always been on practical solutions rather than inspirational speeches.

This year’s theme, ‘All In For Nature: Building A Resilient World’, reflects the Forum’s evolution from a gathering focused on climate science to one that addresses the full range of environmental and social challenges facing communities around the world. Like the [sustainable fashion movements](https://richwoman.co/article/the-future-of-fashion-re-imagined-responsibility-to-our-planet-through-sustainability-resilie) emerging globally, it’s about practical action rather than just awareness.

## Practical Hopeful Actions

The message from Trail Creek Cabin isn’t that environmental problems are easy to solve or that individual actions alone will fix everything. Instead, it’s that persistent, thoughtful work by ordinary people can create extraordinary change over time.

Whether it’s [community reforestation projects](https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/jun/19/green-planet-reforestation-chico-mendes-environmentalism-regeneration-guatemala), local river restoration, youth environmental groups or solar installations, the opportunities for meaningful environmental work exist in every community. [Small daily actions](https://richwoman.co/article/10-easy-actions-to-beat-plastic-pollution-on-world-environment-day-2023) can contribute to these larger efforts. The challenge isn’t finding the work – it’s finding the persistence to stick with it when progress feels slow.

As research on [nature-based solutions](https://www.nature.com/articles/s44168-025-00267-w) in places like California shows, local communities are already developing practical approaches to conservation and climate action. The key enablers are supportive citizen coalitions, funding and financing, and regional collaborations – exactly the kinds of things the Sun Valley Forum awardees have been building for years.

The Trail Creek Cabin awards ceremony was ultimately about recognising something we already know but sometimes forget: that environmental change happens through the accumulated efforts of people who show up consistently, build relationships and keep working even when the problems seem overwhelming. As Brock Evans proved over five decades, [endless pressure, endlessly applied](https://richwoman.co/article/michelle-lemoine-cultivating-joy-connection-and-belonging-one-garden-at-a-time), still works.

[clean, accessible water](https://richwoman.co/article/water-at-the-doorstep-how-clean-taps-are-changing-lives-and-nature-in-rural-malawi) to 18,000 people across rural communities previously reliant on arduous and hazardous treks to unsafe water sources.

building systems and relationships

[philanthropic commitment](https://richwoman.co/article/what-drives-you-to-keep-giving-the-heart-and-hope-behind-philanthropy-s-champions) to Jamaica’s development, especially through education, is another way change-makers are helping empower new generations.

personal growth
