2022 Impact Report: Our journey towards making climate work mainstream

Summary:

• In less than 3 years, our community has grown to 20,000+ members, we have hosted 120+ digital events and have directly enabled thousands of meaningful connections to be made among our members.
• An estimated 1,900 members say that we have directly helped them find jobs in the climate space. 
• The most common ways we supported included keeping them motivated during their job search (50%), helping them gain new skills (16%), enabling them to connect with others (11%) and sharing relevant job opportunities across our channels (10%).
• Members who found climate jobs were 2x more likely to have created connections in our community – primarily through Slack, video calls and our events.

When Work On Climate began in July 2020, our goal was simple:

To become the world’s best community helping professionals transition to working in climate.

This quickly became our ‘north star’, designing mentorship programs that offer direct access to industry experts and curating events that fostered collaboration and connections. With every decision made and action taken, we set out to bridge gaps in the climate career ecosystem and empower individuals looking for jobs in climate to be set up for success.

Since then, our community has grown to 20,000+ members, we have hosted 120+ digital events, and have directly enabled thousands of meaningful connections to be made among our community members. One of our longest-running programs, Expert Office Hours, has facilitated 2,000+ conversations between climate experts and those seeking a job. The collective impact of these efforts is all made possible by 80+ volunteers from across the world!

As the climate movement and growth of the climate talent ecosystem have gained momentum in recent years, so has the need to accelerate the speed and scale of solutions to fight climate change. At Work On Climate, we have always recognized that in order to truly make climate work mainstream and get hundreds of millions of people to work on solutions, we need to transform our global economy and every single industry. 

And this needs to happen fast – faster than any other workforce that has been built in history.

To date, we are best known for our community. Going forward, we believe our role is to harness this and ensure opportunities and conversations to build a climate-positive future are brought into every single educational and professional community and institution. This means rethinking educational curriculums to prioritize skills most critical to address the climate crisis, highlighting climate opportunities at university and local job fairs, and making climate organizations and influencers omnipresent at the largest industry conferences.

Click here to learn more about how we plan to get there in 2023 and beyond, as well as the evolution of our mission toward building the workforce humanity needs to solve climate change.

Every goal we set out to reach needs a tangible outcome and a clear method to measure our progress. In order to benchmark where we are on our journey to make climate work mainstream, we need to answer some key questions:

• How many of our members have successfully landed jobs in the climate space? 
• How did we help them? 
• How can we create an ever better, more impactful experience for our growing community?

In 2022, the Impact Research Team at Work On Climate conducted the first-ever member survey to gain insights on these questions. These are our findings.

Research highlights

1. Helping members find climate jobs

Finding your place in the rapidly evolving climate sector comes with its own unique set of challenges. 

At Work On Climate, our purpose is to remove as many barriers as possible and empower more people to embark on climate careers, no matter where they are on their own journey. Capturing data and insights on our progress and the impact we have had in this area is one of the most important pieces of the climate work puzzle.

• Since Work On Climate began in July 2020, an estimated 1,900 members say that our community, programs, and partnerships have directly helped them find jobs in climate. This represents 9% of our entire community. 
• The most common ways we supported included keeping them motivated during their job search (50%), helping them gain new skills (16%), enabling them to connect with others (11%) and sharing job opportunities from hiring companies and managers across our community channels (10%).
• Members who found climate jobs were 2x more likely to have created connections in our community – primarily through Slack channels, video calls and events organized by Work On Climate.
• 70% of members joined Work on Climate in order to find a climate job or a co-founder to start a business within the climate space.
• 60% of members who told us they are generally interested in seeking a climate job say that they are currently actively looking. This equates to 42% of our entire member base.

“It was so helpful to meet other like-minded people, to get motivated and to give each other energy to persevere through the transition phase. The local meet-ups were valuable and I also met people remotely from all around the world. Two people I met are now in the same industry as me [carbon markets] and it’s great to keep the exchange going”

Hannes Nützmann, CPO & Co-Founder at CEEZER

“As a communications professional, it can be hard to see where I fit into climate-related work. So I was thrilled to join the Work on Climate Slack community and immediately connect with founders looking for help. I’m working with two startups at the moment: Toohla helps people alleviate climate anxiety, reduce emissions, and offset through individualized carbon markets. Chronolog facilitates crowd-sourced timelapses that monitor environmental changes and engage communities in science. I met both founders at a local climate meetup that was publicized on Slack and am happily approaching 6 months as a Climate Communications Consultant.”

 Cassidy Villeneuve, Climate Communications Consultant

“Last year, I decided to leave fintech and find a job that helps fight the climate crisis. I had no expertise in climate, but I found the Work on Climate community on Slack. Seeing people share resources, jobs, and their success stories inspired me and gave me confidence. Fast forward a few months and I couldn’t be happier in my role at the carbon management software company Optera, where I’ve been blown away by how much I’ve learned from the team in just the first few months.”

Michael Hendrix, Learning & Development Manager at Optera

While breaking into the climate industry presents incredible opportunities, there are also hurdles to overcome, from the belief that climate jobs have lower salaries compared to ‘non-climate’ jobs, to the challenge of funneling through a growing plethora of job boards, networking events and online resources to find the most relevant opportunities. 

Click here to learn more about the 5 key obstacles climate job seekers face and our recommendations around how hiring companies and climate talent experts can help.

2. Creating meaningful connections

In order to reach the hundreds of millions of people we need to make climate work mainstream, building connections is key. 

We take pride in growing the world’s largest community for action-oriented professionals looking to have a career in climate – but more importantly, we value the connections we have enabled between members and their peers, industry experts, organizations, investors, and customers.

• Members who found climate jobs were 2x more likely to have created connections in our community – primarily through Slack channels, video calls and events organized by Work On Climate
• The most common connections made were with industry peers, followed by conversations between hiring managers and potential candidates about job opportunities.
• 45% of members said that they had reached out to connect with another member in the past 90 days.
• 26% of members have connected with more than one member, and 12% have connected 5+ times in the past 90 days.

“As a UX designer, it wasn’t clear before joining that there are opportunities for me to contribute meaningfully. Being part of the Work On Climate community gave me the confidence to keep looking. Although I didn’t get my job through Work On Climate, it was absolutely part of my ability to find it.”

Jeremy Lyon

“Beyond meeting a bunch of super knowledgeable people, Work On Climate and its various sub-communities fuelled my interest in specific areas around climate change mitigation.”

Alexandros Metzler, Founder’s Associate at Puro.earth

“As a Product Manager, I was dedicated to using my skills towards the climate crisis. Through Terra.do, I met the co-founder of Product for Net Zero, and we joined forces to train product teams to incorporate climate considerations into their digital products. Thanks to Work on Climate, I was able to connect with passionate Product Managers and Designers worldwide who joined our program and began their own climate transition.”

François Burra, Product for Net Zero

Lasting change cannot be created in silos. The relationships we build are extremely valuable when it comes to getting the support we need to continue on our climate journeys, as well as ensure skills, expertise and resources are shared more widely in a rapidly growing field. For Work On Climate, we would not have come close to the impact we have achieved through what we do if we didn’t prioritize the importance of community. 

And this rings true for the entire climate talent ecosystem. System-wide collaboration between people, communities, companies and governments is fundamental towards making climate work more widely available, sought after and celebrated in the near future.

Opportunities for improvement

Feedback from our members creates opportunities for us to assess and improve how we design our programs and partnerships to offer an even better experience.

• 36% of members who found a climate job felt that Work On Climate did not have a direct impact on their job search. Reasons included certain qualifications needed for roles and companies, other existing platforms such as LinkedIn enabling more interview opportunities and geographic relevance.
• 3% of members who found work since joining Work On Climate told us their new job was not in the climate space. This is worth further investigation to understand if members are driven to contribute towards fighting climate change in other meaningful ways, including volunteering initiatives, freelance opportunities or changing their current role to be more climate-oriented.

We have already used this feedback to shape our priorities for the year ahead, and while we’re still iterating along the way, we are committed to focus on:

1. Fostering even stronger relationships between our members, through more networking events and scaling our peer mentorship program
2. Conducting more research to back up our solutions with new data and insights
3. Growing our impact in the overall climate ecosystem, particularly in the world of work

Continuing to measure our impact

In order to accelerate our mission of making climate work mainstream, the Impact Research Team is committed to conducting this survey regularly and showcasing what we have achieved over time. This will enable us to have a deeper understanding of how we can further support our members to get the most out of being part of the Work On Climate community, whether it be transitioning into climate careers, making connections, or contributing in other meaningful ways.

Our methodology

The Work on Climate Impact Research Team sent out an online survey and collected information from a sample of 280 respondents. In order to participate in the survey, respondents had to be 18 years or older, signed up to be a Work On Climate member through email or slack, and provided consent to have the submitted information stored and processed. The survey took place in December 2022.