Journey from Hackathon to Green Team — employee-led climate action 🌍

Photo by Vlad Bagacian on Unsplash

*Note: For those who prefer to watch and listen rather than read, scroll to the bottom of this article for a video in which I reflect upon this experience with my classmates at Terra.do, the online climate school.

The Context 🔮

In my most recent role as a full-time employee, my title was “Director of Community.” Somewhere throughout my 18 months in that position, my relationship with climate change shifted, and I felt compelled to take more meaningful action. But, my job was Director of Community; not Director of Climate Whatever.

What action could I take? … And, as an individual, how much impact could I make?

Zooming out and thinking bigger, I imagined:

1. the possibility of influencing the decisions and actions of our company — a global organization with 550+ employees, thousands of customers, hundreds of partners, high-profile investors, and a substantial $ budget
2. the exponential increase in potential impact when one person joins forces with a community of 500 or 5,000 people, who all consciously commit to taking action together

I was curious to see what we could do if we all worked toward being more climate-conscious and planet-friendly as a community.

The Opportunity 🚪

During my employment, a group of employees organized an internal hackathon, where everyone was encouraged to take time away from their “day jobs” and work on whatever their hearts desired. This was my chance to jump into climate action at work… Next challenge: figure out what that means. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Logic led me to a starting point…

The Challenge 🏭

If we intend to play a better role in the climate crisis, we need to know what role we play today.

How are we — as a group of humans — directly (or indirectly) responsible for the human-caused changes to the natural environment (land, water, air, etc) that are leading to a dangerously warming planet?

Again, I followed a few steps of informed logic and arrived at a plan:

1. Climate science clearly tells us that greenhouse gas emissions are the big problem, and we need to reduce them drastically. Of course, we emit stuff…but what stuff and how much of it?
2. Approximately how many tons of CO2 (and other greenhouse gases) are emitted into the atmosphere as a result of our company doing business?
3. Let’s do a carbon audit to get a sense of our organizational carbon footprint, including a breakdown of our emission sources relative to one another. 🎯

The Process 👩‍🔬

At the outset of the hackathon I pitched the idea, and six colleagues joined the movement. With support from lots of our coworkers, we “hacked” our way to an initial approximation of our carbon footprint within 24 hours. At the conclusion, we presented a rough representation of our emissions, categorized into discrete operational areas like facilities (offices), data centers (computers running 24/7), transport (flights + commutes), marketing activities (swag, etc), and more.

None of us had prior experience in carbon auditing. But we had the essential ingredients:

1. People who care
2. Time + energy
3. Diversity in experience, perspective, knowledge, and relationships.

Our core team members represented departments across the org — from legal, product/engineering (software), infrastructure (hardware), to marketing (design, community). This well-balanced composition allowed us to work efficiently, gather information quickly, and perform analysis with relative confidence.

We learned as we went. The search engine we all know too well led us to an abundance of online resources, which made the process possible. After collecting data from internal and external sources, we plugged it all in to a few different (free) online tools (e.g., “ carbon calculators” and used a spreadsheet to “run the numbers” (as they say).

The Product 📦

After the hackathon we decided to open source the model (spreadsheet) we created. We hope it will support others in their quests to heighten their organizational self-awareness and evolve into more climate-conscious companies. A handful of companies are already using it for their ESG ( Environmental, Social, and Governance) efforts. If you find value in it, I’d love to hear about your experience!

The Results ✨

Many benefits came from this initial and ongoing effort. Here are some highlights:

• Greater organizational awareness of our shared carbon footprint 👣 (obviously). This awareness became our true, new starting point and the guiding light for all future action. Without this in place, any action would be taken blindly.
• An employee community of “people who care”. Our group of 7 grew to ~20 participants in our follow-up meeting after the hackathon. To a degree, we provided each other emotional support, which is imperative because the climate crisis is a mental health crisis, too. Not to be ignored, our collective VOICE could speak more loudly than any of our individual voices alone when addressing decision-makers (a necessary act within activism).
• The “go-to people” — employees finally knew who to go to for questions and conversations about our environmental and sustainability practices, etc.
• A central repository of feedback and requests related to climate change, from community members, customers, partners, etc. For better or worse, the voices of people outside the company is as powerful (if not more) than those inside the company; it’s important to ensure all voices are heard
• New and stronger internal relationships and collaborations
• Created the company’s first FAQ related to climate, working with our Trust & Governance team (I don’t know if this ever reached “hello world” status.)
• Inserted climate-minded considerations into conversations among legal, finance, operations, and engineering — e.g., regarding future capital investment in assets
• More substantive, intentional engagement with community members around climate — in forums, social media, support tickets, etc.
• I wasn’t aware of the term prior to this experience, but we (unknowingly) assembled a Green Team! 💚

The Takeaways 🎁

• Climate action/work doesn’t have to wait until your next job. You can start now… which is convenient, because the planet needs us all to start now! No matter what we do, we can consider the climate before and as we do it.
• Climate action catches on. You’re not the only person who wants action. Be courageous and speak your voice. It might turn into a snowball of sentimental echos and empathy…and eventually, progress.
• Start small. Your first step could be as simple as holding a sharing/support circle, where people who care get together (video chat works!) and share about their personal connections to and experiences with climate change. You might be surprised how meaningful something so “simple” can be. 💚

If you read this far, thank you, and I hope you enjoyed!

If you’re curious to continue on this topic, I invite you to watch the video below, where I reflect upon this experience with my classmates at Terra.do, the online climate school.

Originally published at https://www.timfalls.org on July 10, 2020.