Project Align! by We Are Human and investment firm 2050 has been built to help founders and leadership teams align their company’s growth with the interests of the planet and society.
The quick version
- Since summer 2023, We Are Human and 2050 have been co-creating Project Align! to design a toolkit and leadership capability, shaped by our collectively experienced tensions.
- The project has been created as a freely available Commons initiative, enriched through partnerships with pioneering organisations and leading research collaborators to benefit the community.
- This article marks the conclusion of the Commons-funded phase and the beginning of something new, outlining what we learned, what the methodology offers, who it’s for, and how it works.
Project Align! was never just a toolkit. It was a bet on a new way of building. A Commons-funded collaboration between We Are Human and investment firm 2050, it began with a simple question: what if alignment isn’t an outcome, but a capability? Not a goal, but a rhythm? Not a workshop, but a way of working?
As the Commons phase of Project Align! ends, we’re marking this moment not with an ending, but with a continuation. A turning point. An invitation.
Why We Partnered: Designing for Emergence, Not Control
Our mutual investment in the future-proof materials company Paebbl was more than a shared bet—it was a shared blind spot. It surfaced the need for alignment not just in vision, but in action.
We invested in Paebbl—who store sequestered carbon in building materials—when we conceptualised the world’s first regenerative Fjordarium at Sjø Fornebu, and were seeking mission-aligned companies to help bring it to life.
This matched 2050's thesis that when value chains are aligned around a shared goal, the risk of transformative products never reaching the market can be mitigated. In that moment, we saw how aligned incentives could create stronger shared traction—and realised this wasn’t theoretical. It was urgent.
Project Align! arose from years of accumulated tension like this. The tension between the speed of startups and the depth of system change. Between investor metrics and founder intuition. Between scaling fast and staying true.
2050 brought the systemic and finance lens. We brought the founder’s scars, the boardroom insights, and a trail of lessons from creating companies like Kahoot!, shaping future-forward concepts like Sjø Fornebu, and backing dozens of startups across Europe. Together, we created a space where alignment came first—and everything else followed.
The result is a methodology built not on rigid plans, but on living processes. Alignment isn’t a soft skill. It’s the missing infrastructure in modern company-building—one that teams only recognise when trust, momentum, or clarity diminish.
What We Learned: Alignment Is a Journey
Alignment is not a static state or consensus. It’s a dynamic process—like navigation, tuning, or orchestration. It evolves as context shifts, as goals mutate, and as stakeholders show up in new ways.
We don’t align to get buy-in.
We align to become whole.
That means:
- Designing for tension, not evading it.
- Not all misalignment is loud. Some of it whispers, slowly eroding clarity and trust until traction is lost.
- Surfacing misalignment early and treating it as a signal, not failure.
- Moving from personal clarity to team coherence to ecosystem resonance.
- Success is more likely and faster when others are aligned through win/win outcomes.
This isn’t theory. It’s how we’ve seen leaders and changemakers transform in real time.
The Method: From Tensions to Breakthroughs
At the core of Project Align! is a spiral. It starts with tension, deepens into signal, opens into insight, and culminates in breakthrough.
This isn’t a linear process. It’s a cycle that compounds over time as leaders and changemakers tune into what is alive in their organisation.
The method itself is therefore modular and emergent. It’s designed to be flexible enough to meet teams where they are: starting with the tensions they feel most urgently, and working through them to uncover the deeper patterns underneath that lead to true breakthrough.
That’s why we chose to design canvas-based Micro Methods: short, guided tools that invite fast participation, deep reflection, and collaborative sensemaking. Think of them as flexible scaffolding—built for co-creation, not compliance. They help leaders bring others onto the same journey and foster alignment that compounds over time.
The toolkit of Micro Methods are designed to meet teams where they are:
- Tension Diagnostic
- Long-term Company & Personal Goals
- 360° Impact Map
- Ecosystem & Value Chain Maps
- Heart, Hand, Mind
- Alignment Timeline
These Micro Methods are field-tested “sequence unlocks”—tools designed to turn friction into clarity and alignment into momentum. They don’t give answers. They surface better questions. In doing so, they unlock sustained capital across trust, time, talent, and truth.
Who It’s For: Quiet Rebels and System Shapers
Project Align! wasn’t designed for the average operator. It’s for those navigating complexity with curiosity: Founders, Investors, Ecosystem builders, Transition leaders.
We’ve run it with:
- Variable: where tensions between ideology and market reality intensified sharper positioning.
- Paebbl: where reframing unlocked commercial readiness without sacrificing purpose.
- Fifteen: where aligning internal narratives led to renewed value chain and customer clarity.
Alignment didn’t mean control. It meant flow. When it clicks, deeper momentum returns, relationships cohere, and the path forward becomes clear. It feels like synchronicity; it’s coherence.
We start with the individual, the inner alignment of leaders. Then we move outward to team, organisation, and ecosystem. It all ripples, and those ripples generate long-term positive consequences for society and the planet.
Built for the Commons, Launched for the Common Good
From the start, Project Align! was committed to the Commons. Together with 2050, we decided to invest time, resources, and IP to create something openly accessible, designed to serve not just individual companies, but a broader movement toward regenerative business.
It has been a deeply co-creative process. We’ve applied the methodology in partnership with pioneering organisations like Variable, Paebbl, Fifteen, Skift, Katapult, Coral Vita, and Ruter. We’ve refined it through dialogue and collaboration with leading thinkers and institutions:
- Stockholm Resilience Centre, to embed their Earth system boundaries and Essential Environmental Impact Variables (EEIVs).
- Upright, to base decisions on measurable impact data.
- The Good Investors and Builders Vision, to understand alignment from an ecosystem and investment perspective.
The result is not just a toolkit, but a shared language and practice for alignment, with potential beyond its original scope. We believe in pragmatic idealism - meeting reality without losing sight of what is important.
Join the Movement
- Try it: Download the free toolkit.
- Stay curious: Follow the ripple to what comes next.
