Reimagining the systems that shape our climate future

Imagine a world where conversations have moved beyond climate strategy to delivering climate solutions — that’s the impact the Abrams Climate Academy Fellows are delivering.

From how we grow food to how we power global travel, meet two student teams from the Abrams Climate Academy who are collaborating with global impact leaders to help build more sustainable solutions.

LanzaJet 

Ashley Szydel ’26 Evening & Weekend MBA Program, Roaa Marei ’27 McCormick School of Engineering, Jacqueline Patel ’27 JD-MBA Program and Julia Levy ’26 Medill School of Journalism have partnered with LanzaJet, a leading sustainable fuels technology company. Together, they’re working to show how sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) could move from a costly alternative to a competitive option by capturing and valuing its broader environmental benefits.

The Farmlink Project

Danielle Sarkisian ’27 McCormick School of Engineering and Two-Year MBA students Harini Ramakrishnan ’26, Chase Mlnarik ’26, Jake Zalenski ’26 and Jamie Asfaw-Cooper ’26 have teamed up with nonprofit The Farmlink Project. The team is focused on how reducing food waste can simultaneously cut methane emissions and address food insecurity by connecting surplus produce with communities in need.

Learn more about their innovative fellowship projects and how they’re contributing to sustainable solutions that drive real-world impact. 

Tackling climate challenges and creating value

If you had to explain the climate problem to a friend with no sustainability background, how would you describe it in a few sentences?

Team LanzaJet: SAF can significantly reduce greenhouse gas pollution created from the aviation industry, but today it costs roughly three times more than conventional jet fuel. The price gap is a major barrier to broader market adoption. Our work explores how to close that gap by unlocking additional value, specifically through nature-based credits (a paid unit of verified environmental improvement from restoring or protecting nature) tied to SAF’s own supply chain. For example, these credits quantify environmental benefits like improvements to soil, water and land. By “stacking” these alongside carbon benefits, we aim to make SAF more economically viable and accelerate its adoption at scale. 

Team Farmlink Project: Greenhouse gases cause our planet to warm, and the rate at which humans are adding these molecules to the atmosphere is too fast for the planet to naturally regulate them, raising the planet’s average temperature. The warming itself is an issue, but where it really becomes more dire is that extremes become more regular: Heat waves, wildfires, flooding and droughts all become more intense and more frequent. Our current infrastructure and way of life are not built for this, so we need to slow down the warming by reducing our emissions.

What’s the core insight or innovation behind your solution, and why do you believe it could meaningfully shift the status quo?

Team LanzaJet: Our core insight is that reducing greenhouse gas pollution alone is not enough. SAF production also creates broader environmental impacts across land, water and ecosystems that are currently not valued — nature-based benefits remain largely undervalued by traditional markets. Our approach focuses on SAF supply chains, where feedstock production (like agriculture) directly affects soil health, biodiversity and water systems. By measuring and translating these impacts into market credits and incentives, we create an additional revenue stream tied to the production of SAF itself. This shifts SAF from being purely a higher-cost fuel to one that generates broader environmental and economic value. 

Team Farmlink Project: Farming is a tough business: slim margins, unreliable forecasts and macro forces beyond farmers’ control. This can lead to food waste in the system, and when food is thrown into a landfill, it decomposes. This creates the most potent greenhouse gas: methane. So, reducing food waste is good for the climate — one of the nonprofit’s main initiatives. The Farmlink Project also addresses food insecurity in the United States by connecting farmers and food banks to deliver surplus food to families that need it most.   

An interdisciplinary approach to tackling climate issues

What has the collaboration between your team and the partner organization been like? 

Team LanzaJet: Working with LanzaJet has been an incredible experience. Dan Bloch, our main partner, has challenged us to think critically and explore real-world frameworks shaping the SAF market. Through LanzaJet, we also attended the annual Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials Conference in Geneva, Switzerland, which gave us direct exposure to industry leaders across the biofuels ecosystem. This collaboration has grounded our work in practical application while showing us how impactful solutions must align with both market realities and sustainability goals. 

Team Farmlink Project: It's been a joy to work with our nonprofit partner, and we’ve also been able to meet with them in person at their headquarters in Los Angeles. They are solving a difficult problem in a unique way, and we are so grateful to be partnered with them and support their mission.  Our visit also solidified the relationship with the team, which is a nice reminder of the power of personal connection. We are excited to continue the relationship even beyond graduation. 

Speaking of collaboration, your teams consist of students from across programs, both at Kellogg and Northwestern University. How has this mix of perspectives shaped your solutions approach, and why do you think interdisciplinarity is essential when addressing climate challenges?

Team LanzaJet: Our team brings together perspectives from across Northwestern — law, business, environmental science and journalism — and that diversity has been a major strength. Climate challenges don’t fit neatly into one discipline, so neither can the solutions. By combining analytical, legal, scientific and storytelling lenses, we’re able to approach problems more holistically and challenge each other’s assumptions.  

This interdisciplinary approach helps us navigate complexity, think creatively and build solutions that are not only technically sound, but also practical and communicable to a broader audience. 

Team Farmlink Project: Climate change is a complex issue with many intersecting and overlapping aspects. Solving it will require solutions from every industry while welcoming many perspectives. We have seen that firsthand, with each team member bringing their unique background and expertise to our work. From user design experience to research skills, every member has contributed a special skill to create an effective solution for our project. It has been refreshing to collaborate with the Northwestern community as a whole and integrate the numerous high-powered graduate schools on campus. 

Every project hits a bump or two. What has been the biggest challenge so far, and how did your team navigate it?

Team LanzaJet: One of our biggest challenges has been translating environmental impact into financial relevance. It’s one thing to identify benefits like improved soil health or biodiversity, but another to make this meaningful to stakeholders who are focused on cost and return. We had to rethink how we frame value — not just scientifically — but economically. As a team, we’ve navigated this by connecting environmental outcomes to real market mechanisms and incentives. That shift helped us move from a conceptual idea to something that could realistically influence adoption.

Team Farmlink Project: The biggest challenge for our team was scoping. Food waste is a massive problem, stemming from a very complicated system. It occurs at so many different levels for different reasons, so wrapping our heads around the issue took a lot of deliberate effort. We spent weeks conducting research and interviewing various stakeholders, from farmers to logistics partners to food banks. This time was well spent because we were able to present our partner with a realistic, effective and actionable solution.

The road forward

What have you learned about building climate solutions — technically, strategically or personally — that you didn’t expect going into this program?

Team LanzaJet: We’ve learned that building climate solutions is not just a technical challenge; it’s an economic one fundamentally. Even high-impact solutions won’t scale unless they align with market incentives and decision-making realities. What surprised us most was how much of the work involves translating environmental impact into financial value. This experience shifted how we think about innovation beyond creating solutions and into designing systems that enable adoption.

Team Farmlink Project: Nonprofits can play a key role when markets create negative externalities, and there is limited regulatory intervention. The Farmlink Project is supporting farmers and feeding families — addressing issues that have been left by the wayside by traditional market forces. The large scope of the climate crisis can be very daunting, but there are people all over the world doing their part to address singular issues within the climate crisis puzzle. This collective effort is what makes meaningful change possible. 

Building a sustainable future 

Read next: Capital for change: Creating sustainable solutions

The views and opinions expressed in this post are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Kellogg School of Management or Northwestern University.