Climate groups by profession/industry – get connected!
Before diving in, a quick heads up – Crowdsourcing Sustainability is looking for some new teammates to help with developing a new climate impact tool, SEO, and uploading content/social media. So if any of these feel like a good fit for you, please do apply (and let me know you found out about it here!)
My hope is that this newsletter helps you begin or strengthen your work on climate in your capacity as a professional – whatever industry it is that you work in.
Preamble
Sustainability is the future of the economy.
We need to rapidly transform every aspect of society according to the IPCC.
That means no matter what you do for work, it’s going to be increasingly affected by the climate crisis.
This will happen in many ways, but I currently think about it in two buckets:
- The DNA of your organization and industry will be forced to transform to become truly sustainable so that it stops making the climate crisis worse (at the very least).
- Organizations with physical locations and supply chains will need to adapt to the impacts of extreme weather – including all of the intersecting and compounding consequences of climate change as it strains our unprepared systems.
My goal in making the following list was to help you, regardless of your profession, to find resources and connect with other people in your field who are thinking about, talking about, and acting on climate as it relates to their industry.
We tried to select a few organizations for each industry that were ambitious, somewhat established, and would be the most useful for you to check out. But this list isn’t perfect of course. So please do share any useful feedback to make it better by commenting on it in this Google Doc!
Alright, that’s all I’ve got for ya – find your profession on the list. Learn, connect, and take action with your industry peers – and share this list with any friends that come to mind!
Climate Groups by Profession
Accounting
SASB
SASB Standards guide the disclosure of financially material sustainability information by companies to their investors. Available for 77 industries, the Standards identify the subset of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues most relevant to financial performance in each industry.
Accounting for Sustainability
A4S aims to inspire action by finance leaders to drive a fundamental shift towards resilient business models and a sustainable economy
Architects
International living future Institute
The ILFI mission is to lead the transformation toward a civilization that is socially just, culturally rich, and ecologically restorative.
The Center for Sustainable Design
The Centre for Sustainable Design (CfSD) has built world class knowledge and expertise of sustainable innovation and product sustainability. The Centre researches, develops and disseminates understanding of present and future sustainability impacts and solutions related to innovation, products, technologies, services and systems through projects, training, events, networks and information. CfSD works with partners in Europe, North America and Asia to deliver high quality results.
Artists
Climate Change Theatre Action
Climate Change Theatre Action is a worldwide series of readings and performances of short climate change plays presented biennially to coincide with the United Nations COP meetings.
ACT – Artists Citizens on Tour
ACT’s objectives are: to make artists realize the power of their actions towards the environment; to offer simple and efficient tools to reduce the environmental footprint that shows and touring create; and to accompany artists wishing to become accredited in order to make their commitment recognized, and inspire their audience.
Climate Stories Project is an educational and artistic forum for sharing personal stories about the changing climate. Sharing your climate story helps build an inclusive and effective movement to confront the climate crisis.
EcoArtSpace has served as a platform for artists addressing environmental issues since 1999. Beginning in 2020, we transitioned to a membership-based organization. We are a community of artists, scientists, professionals and concerned citizens coming together to share resources and support each others work. This is an inclusive non-hierarchical and non-competitive collaborative environment where we can imagine and make real a healthy liveable future for us all.
(More Resources for Artists)
City Government
C40
C40 is a network of the world’s megacities committed to addressing climate change. C40 supports cities to collaborate effectively, share knowledge and drive meaningful, measurable and sustainable action on climate change.
Local Governments for Sustainability is a global network of more than 1,750 local and regional governments committed to sustainable urban development. Active in 100+ countries, we influence sustainability policy and drive local action for low emission, nature-based, equitable, resilient and circular development. Our Members and team of experts work together through peer exchange, partnerships and capacity building to create systemic change for urban sustainability.
The Resilient Cities Network consists of member cities and Chief Resilience Officers from the 100 Resilient Cities program, sharing a common lens for holistic urban resilience and with thousands of projects in implementation.
Urban Sustainability Directors Network
We are a network of local government professionals across the United States and Canada sharing best practices that can create a healthier environment, economic prosperity, and increased social equity.
Construction
The U.S. Green Building Council is committed to a sustainable, prosperous future through LEED, the leading program for green buildings and communities worldwide. Our vision is that buildings and communities will regenerate and sustain the health and vitality of all life within a generation. Our mission is to transform the way buildings and communities are designed, built, and operated, enabling an environmentally and socially responsible, healthy, and prosperous environment that improves the quality of life.
International living future Institute
The ILFI mission is to lead the transformation toward a civilization that is socially just, culturally rich, and ecologically restorative.
The Passive House Institute (PHI) is an independent research institute that has played an especially crucial role in the development of the Passive House concept – the only internationally recognized, performance-based energy standard in construction.
Designers
Climate Designers is the global hub for designers and creative professionals from all industries, committed to using our creative skills for climate action.
We are a non-profit that catalyses climate action through storytelling. We develop ideas, source funding and find talented creatives to produce communication projects that trigger mass understanding and drive societal transformation.
Engineers
Engineers for a Sustainable World
Engineers for a Sustainable World (ESW) is an international nonprofit network of students & professionals united by their shared passion for technical sustainability.
Farmers
Alternative Farming Systems Information Center
The Alternative Farming Systems Information Center (AFSIC) specializes in identifying resources for food systems and management practices that support the United States Department of Agriculture’s effort to ensure a sustainable future and economic viability for agriculture and farmers worldwide.
The Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture is a diverse collaboration working to create productive and profitable opportunities across the agricultural value chain for continuous improvements in environmental outcomes. Our work is grounded in science-based tools and resources, unparalleled, system-wide collaboration and increased supply-chain transparency.
We’re dedicated to expanding our reach and building a global grassroots movement. We rely on dedicated local and international organizations to identify regional best practices, guide our global campaigns and ensure our message of hope through regeneration reaches even the most remote communities.
(There don’t seem to be a lot of national groups – here’s is a state-by-state list for the US.)
Finance & Investing
Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures
The Financial Stability Board created the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) to improve and increase reporting of climate-related financial information.
Climate Action 100+ is an investor-led initiative to ensure the world’s largest corporate greenhouse gas emitters take necessary action on climate change.
Our mission is to promote environmental and social corporate responsibility through shareholder advocacy, coalition building, and innovative legal strategies. They have a fantastic tool (Fossil Free Funds) that helps to identify which mutual funds and ETFs are sustainable vs. those that are greenwashing.
The Ceres Investor Network includes more than 200 institutional investors, managing more than $47 trillion in assets. We work with our members to advance sustainable investment practices, engage with corporate leaders, and advocate for key policy and regulatory solutions to accelerate the transition to a net zero emissions economy.
Healthcare
The Global Climate and Health Alliance
Formed in 2011. Alliance members are health organizations from around the world, united by a shared vision of a sustainable future. The alliance works to tackle climate change and to protect and promote public health.
A consortium of the nation’s medical professionals talking about climate change and public health.
Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health
Climate change is one of the most important issues of our time and has major health and healthcare implications. As some of the most respected professionals in America, doctors and nurses have a crucial part to play in raising awareness of the public about these issues. To facilitate the medical community’s awareness-raising efforts, the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health (Consortium) brings together associations representing over 600,000 clinical practitioners.
An international nongovernmental organization (NGO) that works to transform health care worldwide so that it reduces its environmental footprint, becomes a community anchor for sustainability, and a leader in the global movement for environmental health and justice.
EarthMedic and EarthNurse seek to partner with individuals and organizations of like mind to address planetary health issues, which are the health of human civilizations and the state of the underlying natural systems that support it. (Founded by CS community member Dr. James Hospedales!)
Hotel Management
The Sustainable Hospitality Alliance
The Sustainable Hospitality Alliance brings together engaged hospitality companies and uses the collective power of the industry to deliver impact locally and on a global scale.
GREEN Hospitality is a collaborative platform that enables and supports sustainability across the entire hospitality supply chain. It connects stakeholders in the hospitality industry and beyond for dialogue and knowledge exchange to co-create innovative solutions for sustainability in the hospitality industry.
HVAC Technicians
We need to electrify everything. HVAC 2.0 is helping both contractors and homeowners to make their next heating and cooling system run on electricity rather than fossil fuels.
Insurance
The global leadership group of insurance supervisors and regulators working together to strengthen understanding and responses to sustainability issues.
Insure Our Future is a global coalition of NGOs and social movements that are pressuring insurance companies to get out of the coal, oil and gas business and support the transition to clean energy. Highly recommend you check out the scorecard and read the report if you’re in the industry.
K-12 Education
The Cloud Institute for Sustainable Education
Our work with schools revolves around the curriculum, instruction, and assessment aspects of Education for Sustainability (EfS). We also provide the strategic planning and leadership development support required for lasting school change.
Our mission is to connect and empower schools worldwide to lead the transformation to a sustainable future.
ClimateScience creates free, reliable, engaging and accessible climate education resources in multiple languages, formats and audiences. We’ve got courses, kids’ books, animated videos, classroom activities resource, instagram account and much more.
Lawyers
Lawyers for Good Government – Climate Change
U.S. legal volunteer opportunities effecting on-the-ground change, for environmental and non-environmental lawyers.
Law Students for Climate Accountability
Shining a light on the law firms playing a major role in exacerbating the climate crisis and working to hold them accountable. Highly recommend you check out their scorecard for more info if you’re in law.
Climate Defense Project fills a gap in the legal landscape by supporting front-line activists, pursuing climate impact litigation, and connecting attorneys with communities and campaigns.
We bring together a community of climate concerned lawyers, with the focus being exclusively on in-house counsel. This network offers a platform for support and the sharing of best practice, case studies, thought leadership and ideas for positively influencing internal colleagues and processes and external suppliers and stakeholders. Becoming a member of our community, working with the Net Zero Action Principles and joining an Action Learning Group will enable lawyers to get ahead of the curve and deliver real action.
National Resource Defense Council
We combine the power of more than three million members and online activists with the expertise of some 700 scientists, lawyers, and policy advocates across the globe to ensure the rights of all people to the air, the water, and the wild.
Librarians
Sustainable Libraries Initiative
The Sustainable Libraries Initiative (SLI) is an award-winning project to create leadership and provide tools to mobilize libraries to think and act sustainably. We strive to do this work in a way that builds awareness and consensus while inspiring action by members of the library ecosystem to own their role as sustainability leaders in their communities. Our ultimate goal? To ensure our communities thrive, can bounce back from disruption, and are infused with new and better life for everyone.
Sustainability Round Table of the American Library Association (ALA) (SustainRT)
A professional forum for ALA members to exchange ideas and opportunities regarding sustainability in order to move toward a more equitable, healthy, and economically viable society. Providing resources for the library community to support sustainability through curriculum development; collections; exhibits; events; advocacy; communication; library buildings and space design.
Media & Journalism
With their Climate Matters and Partnership Journalism programs, Climate Central provides climate reporting resources that help meteorologists, journalists, and newsrooms report on climate impacts and solutions in ways that are local, immediate, and personal — grounded in the latest science.
CCNow collaborates with journalists and newsrooms to produce more informed and urgent climate stories, to make climate a part of every beat in the newsroom — from politics and weather to business and culture — and to drive a public conversation that creates an engaged public.
End Climate Silence is a volunteer organization dedicated to helping the media cover the climate crisis with the urgency it deserves. Our mission relies on the premise that the news media has a professional responsibility to cover climate change accurately and because the climate emergency has begun, remaining silent about climate change in stories about its causes and effects is a form of climate denial.
Fossil Free Media is a nonprofit media lab that supports the movement to end fossil fuels and address the climate emergency.
PR & Advertising
We are bringing together leading ad and PR agencies, their employees, and clients to set a new industry standard that agencies should not work with fossil fuel companies or their front groups. (Video)
Join the 290+ Marketing, PR, Advertising and Media professionals and 70+ organizations that have declared for the climate.
International Environmental Communication Association
The IECA is a professional nexus of practitioners, teachers, scholars, students, artists and organizations engaged in research and action to find more ethical and effective ways to communicate about environmental concerns in order to move society towards sustainability.
Policymakers
We are a group of former Gov. Jay Inslee for America staffers and supporters who came together in 2019 on a mission to elect a new president to build support for an all-out national mobilization to defeat the climate crisis and create 8 million jobs in a clean energy economy.
Rewiring America is a growing nonprofit, working to launch a movement that electrifies everything, starting with our 121 million households. We are motivated by the fact that 90 percent of all emissions in the U.S. are energy related and 42 percent of those energy emissions come from the decisions we make in our homes: how we heat our air and water, cook our food, and dry our clothes, and what kind of cars we drive. Through accurate, accessible, and actionable data and storytelling tools that power smart, inclusive advocacy and market-transforming partnerships, Rewiring America aims to achieve national emissions goals, improve our health, lower monthly bills, and create millions of clean energy jobs.
Climate Interactive is an independent, not-for-profit think-tank that grew out of MIT Sloan in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. Based on a long tradition of system dynamics modeling, our simulations and insights help people see connections, play out scenarios, and see what works to address climate change, inequity, and related issues like energy, health, and food.
Psychology & Mental Health
Good Grief Network creates spaces to gather in community, process the painful feelings and realities of our time, and commit to meaningful action.
Eco-Anxious Stories was created in response to our own experiences with eco-anxiety and feelings of isolation as we navigate this crisis. We envision a diverse community of people sharing stories of their own experiences and finding shelter from the storm. We believe that if we can shrug off silence together, we can support one another in taking meaningful action.
Project InsideOut seeks to create a new mindset for engaging communities on our urgent climate and sustainability issues. We are an emerging global community that unites activists with clinical psychologists and evidence-based research to drive sustainable behavior change for our planet. We bring together the expertise and creativity of clinical psychology and environmental activism to accelerate global change. We are dedicated to providing practical tools based on best practices and wisdom honed over years of clinical practice that activists and advocates can apply directly to their work.
Real Estate
The National Association of Realtors
The creation of NAR’s Sustainability Program in 2017 began a surge of member interest and support. The Sustainability Program introduced corporate social responsibility and triple bottom line concepts into NAR’s decision-making practices, balancing economic, environmental, and social benefits.
GRESB
The transition to sustainable real assets is one of the most fundamental challenges we face. It can only be met with reliable ESG information, standardized global benchmarks and collective action from all our stakeholders as we work towards a more sustainable future.Our assessments are aligned with international reporting frameworks, such as GRI, PRI, SASB, DJSI, TCFD recommendations, the Paris Climate Agreement, UN SDGs, region and country specific disclosure guidelines and regulations.
Restaurants
Green Restaurants Association
The Green Restaurant Association, an international nonprofit organization, has pioneered the Green Restaurant® movement as the leading voice within the industry, encouraging restaurants to green their operations using transparent, science-based certification standards. With its turnkey certification system, the GRA has made it accessible for thousands of restaurants to become more environmentally sustainable in Energy, Water, Waste, Food, Chemicals, Disposables, & Building.
Leaders in Environmentally Accountable Foodservice
Each LEAF certified restaurant upholds the highest standards of environmentally-responsible foodservice. Our independent third-party audits review the overall environmental footprint of each business and make it easy for patrons to find green dining options. LEAF is the only national Canadian foodservice certification of its kind.
The Sustainable Restaurant Association
Food Made Good is the largest global community for driving sustainability in hospitality. Our industry standard sustainability framework, Food Made Good rating, and online community provides over 10,000 kitchens around the world with all the tools they need to be leaders in sourcing and serving sustainable food and measuring progressive action.
Students
Through coaching, training, resource-sharing, and coordination, we equip student organizers with the strategies and skills they need to invigorate their activism and organizing both on-campus and off.
Alliance for Climate Educations
The ACE Youth Action Network is made of 572,000 young people taking action in all 50 states. Based on educating students to take action – not specified to university action.
For almost 20 years, Creative Change has helped schools and universities transform their curriculum through a lens of sustainability, resulting in engaged students, impassioned teachers, equitable schools, and stronger communities. Throughout our history, we’ve worked with exceptional K-12, university and nonprofit clients, from local school districts to the United Nations.
The Sunrise Movement is a youth movement to stop climate change and create millions of good jobs in the process. We’re building an army of young people to make climate change an urgent priority across America, end the corrupting influence of fossil fuel executives on our politics, and elect leaders who stand up for the health and well-being of all people.
A youth-led and organized global climate strike movement that started in August 2018, when 15-year-old Greta Thunberg began a school strike for climate.
Supermarkets
Climate Friendly Supermarkets
The environmental investigation agency has an excellent scorecard ranking supermarkets on their (lack of) climate friendliness. Did you know refrigerant leaks at grocery stores are a surprisingly big source of greenhouse gas emissions?
Sports
We leverage the power of sports to drive meaningful impact, convene industry stakeholders, and engage fans, athletes, and communities. The Alliance is focused on seven key program initiatives: energy, food, procurement, transportation, venues, waste, and water.
POW helps passionate outdoor people protect the places and lifestyles they love from climate change. We are a community of athletes, scientists, creatives, and business leaders advancing non-partisan policies that protect our world today and for future generations.
Technology
We are a community of practice of tech workers that provides support and guidance for systemic change in our organizations and industries, to face the climate crisis.
The Global Electronics Council (GEC) is a mission-driven non-profit launched in 2006 and dedicated to creating a more just and sustainable world. Our focus on electronics is due to our recognition that electronics have become increasingly pervasive, finding their way into products within our home, car, clothing, toys, and even the watches we wear.
A growing number of entrepreneurs, investors and technology executives are rising to meet the challenge, and Women in Climate Tech was founded as a platform to help women in this work. Our mission is to empower and amplify the voices of women working in the industry, and to grow the share of females represented who will work on this issue for generations to come. As the negative effects of climate change disproportionately impact women, in addition to low income and communities of color, it is critical for women’s voices to be part of the solution.
Transportation
Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure
We manage the Envision Sustainability Professional (ENV SP) credential and all continuing education curricula to designate professionals who have a deep understanding of sustainability and resiliency. We oversee a membership program for organizations, public service agencies, academics, and professionals. We also advocate for Envision sustainability, resiliency, and equity on local, state, federal, and provincial levels.ISI has witnessed exponential growth in recent years and has established a network of more than ten thousand individual practitioners, government agencies, companies, and other organizations that are recognized members and ENV SPs.
Sustainable, inclusive, prosperous, and resilient cities depend on transportation that facilitates the safe, efficient, and pollution-free flow of people and goods, while also providing affordable, healthy, and integrated mobility for all people. These principles, produced by a working group of international NGOs, are designed to guide urban decision-makers and stakeholders toward the best outcomes for all.
Universities
Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education
The leading association for the advancement of sustainability in higher education. We serve a full range of higher education faculty, administrators, staff and students who are change agents and drivers of sustainability innovation. The flagship Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System is a transparent, self-reporting framework for colleges and universities to measure their sustainability performance.
International Sustainable Campus Network
The mission of the ISCN is to provide an international forum to support higher education institutions in the exchange of information, ideas, and best practices for achieving sustainable campus operations and integrating sustainability in research and teaching.
I’d also like to recommend a couple things that should help across all industries. First, read Dr. Jon Foley’s “The World Needs Better Climate Pledges”. Second, you may find the following organizations helpful on the path to making your company climate positive:
Finally, A big thanks to Dillon Kadish for helping get this mini project over the finish line with his research, vetting, and turning the mess of a doc I gave him into something presentable. And a thank you to James Hospedales for his help identifying Healthcare organizations 🙂