I’m pleased to share that this year the Climate Collaborative will be launching a Consumer Engagement Working Group, aimed at supporting our network of companies in having meaningful conversations about climate change with the people buying their products.

Last year we surveyed our committed companies, and over half (54%) said they were struggling with how to effectively engage consumers in a meaningful dialogue about climate change. Yet consumer engagement is key for companies looking to reduce their downstream emissions and broaden the impact of their climate efforts.

At the same time, people are voting with their dollars more than ever and want to hear from companies on climate issues: In fact, seven in ten registered voters in the US want to see companies and industry to do more to address global warming.[i]

We’ve been impressed by efforts in the industry to engage consumers on climate change to date—we recognized Sambazon through the National Co+op Grocers Climate Collaborative Awards this year for their fun and impactful #PurpleforthePlanet campaign, and were lucky to have climate communications expert Ed Maibach share insights from his work at Climate Day this year.

But we know we can do more. Through the platform of nearly 400 companies that have made climate commitments through the Climate Collaborative, we can collectively go deeper in creating meaningful dialogues with consumers on how they can impact climate outcomes with their dollars and their votes, and in doing drive deeper awareness and action from the tens of millions of people purchasing from our network.

Over the next year, we’ll be focused on:

• Developing powerful, common messages for all companies to use in talking about climate change,
• Helping companies engage consumers on specific issues, from food waste to agriculture, packaging and more, and
• Sharing best practices on effective consumer engagement

Over the next year, we’ll be sharing resources on consumer engagement, hosting an event on consumer engagement in the Bay Area, and convening virtual working group meetings on the topic. If you’d like to get engaged more deeply in this work, let us know by emailing [email protected].

[i] https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Politics-Global-Warming-April-2019b.pdf