Work on Climate (Jan 2022): Guides for Joining Climate, New Events, and New Year’s Resolutions

The positive, action-oriented community at workonclimate.org

Jan 4

Welcome to the January 2022 newsletter of workonclimate.org. Add your climate friends to our community to keep making it stronger! [Read past newsletters]

⚡ Make a New Year’s resolution to work on climate

Our new year’s resolution is to make climate work mainstream. Make it yours to find a great climate job, start a company, or attract others into the space!

Climate jobs, part-time work, and volunteering opportunities are growing at a staggering rate, so even if the right role for you wasn’t there in 2021, it will probably appear in 2022. Per State of Climate Tech 2021 by PwC, climate startups have grown to 14% of all VC investment, outpacing investment in AI startups by most metrics - and that’s just startups, many existing companies and nonprofits have exciting new climate roles.

*(image credit: PwC report linked above)*

To help you start the year off on the right foot, here are some helpful resources! 🪄

If you’re a software engineer, check out Roman Leventov’s guide
If you’re an AI professional, watch conference talks by commercial companies using AI for climate
If you’re a mechanical engineer, see Breaking into Climate as a Mechanical Engineer by Grace Li
If you’re a product manager, look no further than PM Climate Guide by the #pms community and Silvia Coimbra’s own journey
If you’re a designer, make sure to join your peers in our #designers channel
If you’re a recruiter, read our interview with Sabrina Dove-Petrigh about recruiting for cleantech and join the #recruiters community
To dispel common myths and fears, see How to Work On Climate as a Professional
Regardless of what you do in climate, keep climate justice in mind - learn the specifics from the Climate Justice 101 Guide

🥳 January events

We would appreciate it if you fill out this survey so we can put on the best possible events for you. Feel free to add any additional comments in the survey.

Upcoming events

Wed Jan 12 @12pm PT - Climate Investors Series: Ted Dillon. RSVP here.

Join Ted Dillon from Clean Energy Ventures to learn about job opportunities in climate tech. Clean Energy Venture's portfolio of climate-focused companies are looking for talent.

Thu Jan 13 @9am PT - Ecosystem & soil carbon markets: Tech & product behind Regrow Ag. RSVP here.

Join the Regrow Ag team to learn about the products & tech powering big agrifood programs, how farmers can get paid to produce food in a climate-positive way, and what's stopping us from making #regen_ag the new norm.

Thu Jan 13 @5pm PT - Book Club Session 1: Time Slot 1. RSVP here.

Wed Jan 19 @9am PT - Book Club Session 1: Time Slot 2. RSVP here .

We will be discussing Paul Hawken’s new book: Regeneration. The sections up for discussion are: Oceans and Forests. Choose either slot to attend and check #book-club for more details.

Tue Jan 18 @11am PT - Startup Office Hours. RSVP here.

Need help with strategy, product, fundraising, hiring, or marketing? Join us to get help figuring out a way past your startup's biggest roadblocks.

Tue Jan 25 @11:30am PT - Climate Communication with Rethink Sustainability. RSVP here .

Rethinking Climate's interactive workshop shares challenges and tips for honest and improved sustainability communication.

Thu Jan 27 @4pm PT - Climate Trivia Night. RSVP here.

2021 was a long year indeed. Join us to celebrate the new year with a night of trivia on Zoom. Bring a friend, a drink of choice, and your most arcane climate knowledge.

📅 Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, or Clubhouse for notifications about new events. Or auto-add upcoming events to your Google calendar. Want to host an event with us? Propose your event to our team - reach out to @Utkarsh Vaidya or @Sam Levac-Levey.

Past event recordings

Find recordings and notes at ⏯️ Past Events and subscribe to our 🎥 YouTube channel! New recordings this month:

Climate Careers: A Climate Investor’s Perspective (video)
Regenerative Agriculture Fireside Chat w/ Erik Cutter, soil & nutrition expert, and regenerative hero (video)
How (next-level) climate movements can be a game changer with Justus Baumann (video, notes)

🚀 Climate expert office hours

👋🏽 Have you booked a climate expert through our Expert Office Hours program? Or would you like to in the future? If so, we need your help to improve the program! We’re looking to add experts who are in-demand by the community, and to improve the user experience of the program. Please fill out this survey to make your thoughts count!

Get advice on entering the climate space from friendly climate experts at our Office Hours - simply book time on their Calendly. Our experts have helped over 400+ people over the past year and are fantastic at helping with both introductory and sophisticated climate topics.

Wondering what happens during expert office hours? Here are some of the posts that attendees made on #share-your-path:

Thanks so much to Luke Squire for a great office hour! Luke...had so many good insights about what it's like to be a PM at a startup...[and] questions to ask when considering a role like that ... I came away with lots to think about.
I had another great office hour chat, this time with Patrick Sheehan. We covered a ton of topics. Where to look for jobs, what to negotiate about, what aspects of a potential new employer to look into, assessing the role, skills to develop, jumping from one job to another, and much more. Grateful to have this group to find people like Patrick in!
Very grateful for my office hour expert meeting with Irina Fedorenko, a true expert in Blue Carbon, an innovator, and a genuine, caring person. ... She helped me understand the parameters for an investible project; among them, the size of the project which should be far larger than our current scope, providing reason to scale.
I had a great office hour chat with Troy Hodges. He’s using data science for cool things with the green power grid... #1 thing I picked up from Troy: the ability to problem solve with the right tools is more important than your exact background.

🏢 Get a climate job

Climate work is for everyone. The #jobs channel has seen nearly 100 new jobs this month, in a wide array of roles, such as different kinds of engineering, bizdev, recruiting, research, marketing, sales, and many others.

The jobs also span many sectors of climate, from energy and transportation to alternative materials, carbon accounting, and nature-based solutions. Most of them allow remote work!

🏆 Success stories: Hop on #i-got-a-job to share how you got your climate job, or read stories from others - and ask them how they did it! This month folks have shared their successes finding roles in business, talent, and environmental analytics.

🏗️ Become a founder

Looking to start a company or join someone as a co-founder? We have resources for you!

Hop on #founders, where lots of people post calls for co-founders, helpful resources, and share their experiences.
Want to practice your pitch & get feedback? Sign up for our Startup Office Hours or book time with an expert at Expert Office Hours.
Check out the Startup Resources library by Third Derivative and New Energy Nexus, covering topics from customer discovery to getting government funding for climate projects.

Ongoing programs

💡 Tip: Work on Climate is a lot more than Slack - we have a large resource library. See our crowdsourced Notion!

🎯 Looking for additional resources?

Check out 🗺️ WoCl How To to find other WoCl tools helpful to you as a jobseeker, climate employer, or startup founder, and #️⃣ Slack Guide to see an overview of our Slack channels. For example:

💡 Did you know that there is an #academics channel? If you are working in or interested in academia, give it a join!

💡 Do you know how to use the search features on Slack? There are tons of great connections and resources in our Slack community, but the backscroll can get tedious. Use the search features instead! Here is a quick guide.

📚 Learning groups - Work on a climate vertical

Want to learn about a new climate topic with others? Then check out our Learning Groups - they're a fun way to kick off your climate learning while meeting people who share your interest!

Our learning groups include:

🌊 Ocean Sequestration Learning Group

🧠 Social Science Learning Group

👨‍🌾 Regenerative Agriculture Learning Group

🌏 Climate Justice Learning Group

💰 Climate Finance Learning Group

And more! Get the details on learning groups and how to join here.

💎 Starter packs

What is a starter pack? A starter pack is a curated, small collection of resources designed to give you a concentrated introduction to various climate topics. Check out the WoCl Starter Packs to learn more! Some highlights include:

🚀 Help us build WoCl!

Are you getting value out of WoCl and want to give back? We are looking for help with some of WoCl's most important initiatives! See WoCl Open Positions.

🧲 Volunteer Recruiter. Work on Climate is ramping up for a big 2022 and beyond, and we’re looking for more volunteers! We're looking for help recruiting the right volunteers to fill those roles. Please reach out to @Richard Kim or @Eugene Kirpichov on Slack if you're interested in getting involved.

❄️ Program Manager for WoCl Subcommunities. Help WoCl scalably serve people in specific roles or sectors of climate by creating the resources, processes and support structures to empower organizers of our current and future subcommunities.

👩🏽‍🔬 Founding Research Lead. You'd think by now there would have been research answering questions such as: how many people want to work on climate? how many do? how many think they can? Nope, it’s on us! Help WoCl establish a research practice committed to answering these questions to better serve our members and to catalyze a shift in the entire workforce.

💝 Support WoCl as an organization. If your organization does work in these areas (e.g. recruiting, market insights) and is interested in partnering with WoCl on a pro bono basis, please contact @Eugene Kirpichov!

💝 Want to help fund WoCl programs?

👋 We are a non-profit run entirely by volunteers, but we do incur software expenses to support our programming. Please consider supporting us on Patreon. Interested in helping provide funding for a specific program or WoCl staff? Reach out to @Eugene Kirpichov or @Jeremy B on Slack to discuss sponsoring a WoCl program or intern!