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About

OUR MISSION

We are tech workers seeding climate action in companies, organisations and industries through deep, self-organized community building and support.

Our vision: A transformed tech industry that makes climate a priority, and takes responsibility for social impacts and ecological limits.

The climate crisis requires a serious and sustained response from across civil society, and that includes the tech sector and technology professionals. ClimateAction.tech’s purpose is to empower technology professionals to play our part — to meet, discuss, learn and take climate action.

Our Beliefs

  1. We believe that the tech industry must use its power and influence to advocate for and accelerate fair climate solutions.
  2. We believe that the tech industry must also transform itself to prioritize people and life.We want an industry that supports dignified work, fair and equal pay, health and well-being. We want an industry that conserves and restores the environment.
  3. We believe that everyone has a part to play in addressing the climate crisis.We have experiences, abilities, and roles that can be used to change the system — if we listen and learn from each other.

Our beliefs are based on the following Foundational Facts:

  1. We are at the beginning of a climate catastrophe.Our actions today will determine how severe the crisis becomes.
  2. The climate crisis is caused by burning fossil fuels and mass exploitation.The tech industry is part of these systems, and often accelerates these activities. It is itself a large contributor to CO2 emissions. In both cases, we can change this for fairer, more equitable outcomes.
  3. Climate impacts are not fairly distributed.

Theory of Change

How we serve our members

Climate concerned tech workers join our community of practice through our onboarding. Our community exists to define, improve, and promote our practice: Taking climate action at work.
We do this by creating a space for social learning, support, and community to help our members become more effective agents of change. The community organizers and volunteers provide support through:

  • Creating identity — Shared community values, beliefs, and purposes, as well as badges & branding
  • Enabling connection — CAT events, Slack conversations, member directory
  • Developing shared understanding — Collect & share stories, Wiki, website, guides

As CAT members we apply what we learn about taking climate action in our workplaces and in the wider tech industry. We give back to the CAT community and share our experiences.

How our members take action

  • Green your craft: Use resource & carbon-conscious strategies to build efficient products & services.
  • Speak up and create signals for cultural change: Break climate silence & normalise climate conversations in tech. Bring up climate in meetings, town halls, requirement discussions and at conferences.
  • Advocate & influence
    • Create structural change at work: Influence leaders, decision makers and others to take climate action. For example through joining/starting a green team or influencing who your workplace collaborates with.
    • Popularise climate priorities to scale across the industry: Share knowledge by speaking, writing, organizing events, or becoming a mentor.

How these actions map to our vision

  • Sustainable products & services:
    • New industry standards & norms
    • Accurate ways of measuring impact
    • Building things right & building the right things
  • Climate conscious culture:
    • Climate is top-of-mind. It is a factor in all business decisions and projects.
    • Decision-makers cannot ignore climate, because a significant % of the workforce demands climate action.
  • Transformed tech industry:
    • Sustainability is integrated into corporate strategy and metrics for success
    • Climate-conscious partnerships, client & collaborator choices
    • Long-term climate goals & commitments with short-term reporting requirements
    • Tech workers are expected to understand the climate impact of their profession
    • Sustainability is embraced as a way to innovate and create value.
    • Products and services are carbon zero and circular.

Our Story

The ClimateAction.tech community formed when a previously unaffiliated set of tech sector workers and employees found each other and bonded on a shared vision — to volunteer their own time, and to support and engage the entire tech sector in addressing the climate crisis.

This includes deep respect for the many existing efforts to tackle and address climate, an awareness of the privileged position many workers hold in tech, especially in wealthy countries, and a desire to contribute what we can through our time, skill-sets, positions and other possible resources.

Our approach is to advocate internally within tech, and to collaborate externally to support the broader climate movement from tech.

Since forming, our membership has ballooned globally, and now involves vibrant input from students and graduates, through managers, designers, developers and creatives who work in tech across a wide array of industries, all the way through to senior figures at the world’s largest tech companies.



Our People

Directors

Heather Baden
(she/her)
[email protected]
LinkedIn

Portrait of Melissa Hsiung

Melissa Hsiung
(she/her)
[email protected]
Twitter
LinkedIn

Portrait of Sandra Pallier

Sandra Pallier
(she/her)
[email protected]
LinkedIn

Advisors

  • Andy McWilliams (he/him)
  • Asim Hussain (he/him) Twitter
  • Sam Phillips (he/him)

Volunteers

  • Aïda Cissé
  • Alja Isaković
  • Andrea Magnorsky
  • April Bates
  • Bee Flaherty
  • Ben Tongue
  • Brett Duboff
  • Caroline Schneider
  • Claire Thornewill
  • Clare Tomassian
  • Dan Robinson
  • Elisa Escapa
  • Evan Hahn
  • Gaël Duez
  • Guillaume
  • Hannah Smith
  • Henry Deacy
  • Irene
  • Ismael Velasco
  • Marwa Eltaib
  • Mary Ma
  • Matt Newhall
  • Mobolaji Ladega
  • Nat Darke
  • Owen Rogers
  • Tom Kennes

Alums

  • Poppe Guthrie
  • Łukasz Mastalerz
  • Matt Sirkis
  • Siôn Elis Williams
  • David Cairns
  • Chelsea Mozen
  • Sara Diaz
  • Peter W
  • Tom Jowett
  • Sean O’Connor
  • Steven Lemeshow
  • Becca Hachey
  • Tiffany Lee
  • Derek Salmon
  • Toni G
  • Chin-Wu Chen
  • Arne Tarara
  • Paul Momoh
  • Stefanie Mühlbacher
  • Sarah Hsu
  • Sigi Kluckner
  • Ismael Velasco
  • Csaba
  • Su Hang
  • Matthew Ferry
  • Marketa Benisek
  • Alicia Wong
  • Andrew O’Regan
  • Luís Cruz
  • Luke Watts
  • Christina Unger
  • Myf Nixon
  • Nikals Jordan
  • Evan Harte
  • Sofia Rufino
  • Piyush Mishra
  • Pia Faustino
  • Rebecca Stevenson
  • Noel Anthony
  • Siddharth Krishna
  • Brittany Fischer
  • Bryce Walsh
  • Yarin Snapir
  • Natalia Waniczek
  • Nadia Zunarelli
  • Khaled Arnaout
  • Antonio Roque
  • Sarah Hoessler
  • Laurence
  • Erin Duddy
  • Deena Rosen
  • Mario Carabotta
  • Kaushal Bhavsar
  • Joshua Cortez
  • Jemma Harwood
  • Katrin Apel
  • Veronica Hotton
  • Roopak Kandasamy