When the Duke Climate Commitment got started in 2022, Brian Murray, director of the Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability, asked his leadership team to come to him with big ideas that would strengthen Duke’s impact on research and society. Medical geographer Ashley Ward clearly remembers answering that call.
When you bring together people from diverse sectors, you see clearly that heat’s threats go far beyond health – it’s not just affecting our lives but our livelihoods, our physical, social and economic well-being.
“As extreme heat was affecting more and more of the country, I noticed that nobody was integrating sectors to think about the issue from a policy perspective. In particular, the private sector was rarely included – and that’s who owns the energy infrastructure and the healthcare system. That’s who employs most people who are in high-exposure jobs. I wondered, ‘What would be possible if they were part of this conversation?’”
From that first call to action came the Heat Policy Innovation Hub at the Nicholas Institute, and Ward, its inaugural Director. Ward leads three separate initiatives out of the “Heat Hub”: HeatWise, Bridging Divides, and Cooling Communities. “Mother Nature definitely helped me make my case; 2023 was one of the hottest years on record. Duke—with its location in the Southeast and its experts in so many relevant disciplines— is perfectly situated to lead these convening efforts.”
Across the Heat Hub’s initiatives, Ward and her colleagues focus on expanding the questions asked about extreme heat—and who is engaged in the quest for solutions. The HeatWise initiative brings together researchers, private sector leaders, government officials, foundation officers, and community leaders from across the nation to identify key challenges and innovative approaches.
“When you bring together people from diverse sectors, you see clearly that heat’s threats go far beyond health – it’s not just affecting our lives but our livelihoods, our physical, social and economic well-being.”
To this end, the Heat Hub’s Bridging Divides initiative focuses on quantifying heat’s impacts on various sectors of the economy. In the next decade, heat will account for 72-73% of fixed asset losses across the telecommunications and utilities sectors. Operations and supply chain infrastructure are affected profoundly by extreme heat. “We need to capture the imagination of the private sector – including finance and insurance – with data. For example, $200 billion in local GDP was lost last year due to heat-induced labor slowdowns,” Ward says.
“Heat-induced drought is affecting trucking, trains, and boats. For example, it is harder and harder to maintain cool storage temps when heat is so high – spoilage is a real quantifiable expense. Where are opportunities for innovation to help our economy adapt to this new reality?” Ward says.
Ward also aims to advance heat solutions for rural America—a focus of the Heat Hub’s Cooling Communities initiative. “Many interventions – like cooling stations and cool pavement – are focused on urban populations. What about rural communities? What strategies could protect them in times of extreme heat?” Ward talks about her own experience being raised in a tobacco county, her father being the first in her town to get a high school diploma and she being the first to get a college degree (and masters, and PhD as well).
“Growing up in a rural place taught me that nobody owns these problems or solutions – but it will take everybody to solve them,” Ward said. The Cooling Communities project—initially funded by an internal Duke University grant—focuses on how churches and community centers in rural North and South Carolina can strengthen communities’ resilience. “Faith leaders have shared invaluable insights on the challenges their communities face, how they’re responding, and what future solutions might work best in their local context.”
A second phase of the Cooling Communities project, supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, is developing resources to launch a network of rural churches in the Carolinas that can move toward being fully-fledged, locally led resilience hubs. The project is also exploring innovative financing models, like parametric insurance, to support local institutions’ efforts.
“You can’t see heat and its impacts in the way you can see a tornado or a hurricane—but at Duke we’re raising awareness of the scope of this challenge and creating opportunities for leaders to share knowledge and work together toward solutions,” says Ward. “We can’t do it all—but we can scale this work beyond Duke by creating the evidence base, piloting innovative approaches, and facilitating collaboration across sectors.”
Photos courtesy of Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment and Sustainability.