As I write this letter, Hurricane Ida is pummeling Louisiana and Mississippi. Fires are raging across the western U.S., and around the world. Flooding earlier this summer killed hundreds and wreaked havoc in Germany, Brussels, and China. And drought is devastating farms across the west. All of these events are fueled by climate change which makes droughts and extreme precipitation events more common, hurricanes more powerful, wildfires hotter, and the fire season longer. Of course, so many of you are LIVING these events. Our hearts go out to you.

With the recent release of the groundbreaking report from the UN IPCC, there is no longer any doubt of the threat posed by our changing climate. But the good news in the report is that we still have a small window of opportunity to lessen or even stop the threat. There are solutions to prevent the worst impacts, but our window is closing which is why we must act now. As Laurence Tubiana, an architect of the Paris Agreement said, “Scientists did their job, it is time for leaders to do theirs”.

Over the next month, the U.S. Congress will debate the most important climate legislation in a generation. This could be the only bite at the apple that our leaders take for many years.

If you have ever considered using your powerful voice as a business, now is the moment.

Our community is responding in the way we know best---collaboratively. We have partnered with Fossil Fuel Media to create the #Call4ClimateNOW campaign. More than one hundred of your peers have joined the campaign to reach out to their stakeholders, including their employees and the people who buy their products and services, to call on our lawmakers in D.C. to urge them to take bold climate action NOW! B Lab, 1% for the Planet, ASBC, and Ceres have partnered with us and are engaging businesses in the campaign.

Join Clif Bar, Aveda, PCC Markets, Grove Collaborative, Ben & Jerry’s, Legacy Vacation Resorts, and many more businesses from across the U.S. in the #Call4ClimateNOW campaign launching on September 8^th.

Find information on the campaign, access the toolkit, and sign-on here.

Next month, our new Executive Director, Courtney Pineau, will be at the helm full-time and we will usher in a new era at the Collaborative. Courtney is eager to meet you all! If you are planning to attend Natural Products Expo East and would like to meet Courtney, let us know at [email protected], and be sure to check out our programming in Philadelphia too.

In the meantime, join us by bringing your company’s voice to the choir calling for bold climate action!

For a brighter future for all,

Nancy

At the Climate Collaborative, we've been celebrating the announcement of our new Executive Director, Courtney Pineau, this past week. Courtney joins the CC from Green America’s Center for Sustainable Solutions where she led their Climate and Agriculture Networks. She has worked extensively with businesses in the food and agriculture sector and stakeholders throughout the entire supply chain for more than fifteen years. Courtney’s experience creating collaborative networks will help take the CC to the next level providing support to businesses in our transition to a clean, green, and just economy.

Courntey will be stepping in to support two exciting specially funded initiatives along with our other programming that is free through the generosity of 80 companies, individuals, and foundations. Thank you to all our donors!

The next two years are critical if we are to have any hope of staying below the 1.5^o C increase in global temperature that scientists say we must in order to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. The Collaborative is poised to assist your business and our industry to contribute to drawing down greenhouse gas emissions. However, if you haven’t donated, we need your support. Join our donors by contributing in whatever amount you can with our pledge form here!  

We're excited to profile our donors and officially introduce Courtney to the community at Expo East, where we'll have two 45 minute sessions on Friday, September 24th. We're still finalizing our programming, but hope to see many of you there!

Take care, 

Katherine

By now you have probably seen the headlines from the leaked upcoming IPCC report: “Crushing climate impacts to hit sooner than feared”. It might sound like something out of a Hollywood sci fi film, but as those who are living today with the record-setting heat waves, drought and fires in the West and the flooding in the South know all too well, it is anything but futuristic fiction.

The leaked draft makes clear that “climate change is happening now, is accelerating and posing unprecedented threats to human and natural systems — and that taking fast action can still avoid the worst economic and ecological impacts.”

Numerous studies have shown that voluntary corporate action alone is not enough to reduce emissions at the pace and scale necessary to prevent catastrophic climate change. The task before us is far larger than the incremental work of a few investors and companies, or even the entire natural products industry. A systemic change requires a systemic solution and that means both private AND public commitment. It requires government leadership. We have the technologies and the solutions. We are not scaling them up fast enough. Solving the climate crisis is no longer a technical problem. It is a political one and it needs a political solution.

If you have EVER thought about stepping up to advocate for climate action, NOW IS THE MOMENT. 

The most important climate legislation in a generation is going to be decided between now and late fall. It is clear that there is an enormous need for more pressure to be applied to Congress with the message “We have no time to wait. We need you to lead now.” This is our political moment. We don’t know when we will have it again.

Over the past year, working with our partners like ASBC, Ceres and America Is All In, the Climate Collaborative has greatly scaled up opportunities for you to engage your lawmakers— and wow have you risen to the challenge. We are asking you once again to step-up to use your powerful voice as a business leader. Please join your peers from the business community as well as leaders from cities, states, tribal nations, and the institutions of higher ed, healthcare, faith and culture from across the country at what we hope will be the largest virtual climate Hill Day ever.

We have partnered with our friends at America Is All In and Ceres to make this as simple and painless as possible for you. It is free and absolutely no previous experience is necessary. You simply “zoom-in” when it is convenient for you and if you choose, share your story of why climate action is important to your business. The key is to be counted as a business leader that is concerned about climate change!

REGISTER HERE and attend all or part of it.

Schedule

• Monday, July 12^th 1-5 pm ET/ 10 am - 2 pm PT Advocacy Training and Briefings
• Tuesday, July 13^th and July 14^th Virtual meetings with Congressional and Administration offices will be held via Zoom throughout the day.

Whether you are a seasoned pro at speaking to your elected officials or this is a completely new experience, we hope you will consider joining us!

What Makes Congress Listen?

The business community is a powerful influencer in Washington, and the voices of small and medium sized businesses are particularly important. Research confirms that the most powerful influence on members of Congress are personal (and virtual) visits from their constituents, telling their individual stories, and providing information on the impact of legislation on their district[1]. Your members of Congress need to hear from you— what climate disruption means to you and your business, what you are doing about it, and what you want them to do about it.

We hope you will join us!

[1] Source: Congressional Management Foundation

Earlier this week we gathered for our virtual climate programming at Natural Products Expo West. Traditionally, Climate Day at Expo West is our favorite time of the year. We love getting together with the wider community for panels, keynotes, and celebrating the work that you and your peers are doing to create a green, clean, and just world. While this year looked a bit different, I'm still feeling energized, inspired, and more committed than ever about the potential for our community to come together to collectively act on climate and scale our impact. 

Below you can read about 2 NEW initiatives that were announced: the Climate Campaign and UNFI Climate Action Hub. These initiatives have the potential to create transformative change; one to mobilize Americans to call on our elected officials to lead on climate, and the other to scale carbon emissions reductions throughout the natural products industry. 

We're so excited to go on this journey with you all!

Be sure not to miss the groundbreaking IEA report that came out last week! We may look back at this report as one of the most important milestones and turning points for the climate movement. The historically conservative IEAs report made clear that we must stop investment in all new oil, gas, and coal immediately. It sent a shockwave through the energy and finance world. 

It sure feels like humanity may indeed act in our own self-interest to prevent the worst impacts of climate change in what the United Nations has called this "decisive decade". It's not a moment too soon. 

Take care, 

Caitlin 

Last week was truly momentous on the U.S. climate action front, with the U.S. pledging to slash its emissions by half by 2030--twice the amount pledged as part of the initial U.S. Paris climate goal. We may look back at this moment and realize that this was the turning point when our nation committed to a path to solving the climate crisis.

This community helped make it happen! Your advocacy helped keep climate a top priority for the administration, and ensured climate provisions made it into the December stimulus bill. The America Is All In statement last December started a drumbeat of business demand for a stronger U.S. response to climate change, and last week's business letter, signed by 100+ CC companies, made front-page news in its urgent call for U.S. leadership on climate. It may feel that signing a letter doesn't make a difference, but I hope you can see with these examples just how important that simple act is. 

Now let's get to work. 

I hope you've signed up for the climate programming at Expo West where we will focus on three of our biggest levers -- justice, our supply chains, and engaging our stakeholders. 

Onward!

Nancy

The big announcement this month is that the CC is seeking a new Executive Director, and we want your help finding the best candidate out there! You can find the job ad here. Please share it on your LinkedIn and through your personal networks. We know this community has fabulous relationships with leaders who could usher our work into its next phase, so we thank you in advance for helping us in this search! I'll be stepping back in late April to take on a new role with the Rocky Mountain Institute as their Corporate Engagement Director, and I will truly miss working with every one of you!

However, this won’t be slowing down our programming or work around that transition, starting with a fabulous virtual climate programming session at Expo West--RSVP here if you haven't already! You can also expect to continue hearing from us about new resources, webinars, and advocacy opportunities. Our fantastic team of Caitlin Oleson, Programs and Operations Manager, CC intern Mackenzie Marcotte, CC Co-founder and Advisor Nancy Hirshberg, and our fantastic board, will be carrying our work forward until our new leadership steps in. 

I can't wait to see what's next in our work--you have all given me so much hope in our collective ability to transform how the food system tackles climate change. Thank you for being part of this community!

Have a great weekend, and take care,

Erin

This month brought more positive news on the climate front, with the U.S. formally rejoining the Paris Climate Accords. More than 700 companies in the CC partner network signed on to support this back in December through the America is All in Statement, and I hope every one of you stops to celebrate this win!

We also saw these past few days, with the horrific storm in Texas, how unprepared our nation's power infrastructure is for climate change. There will be upcoming infrastructure-related advocacy opportunities; if you want to stay in the loop, be sure to sign up for our new policy newsletter below.

Lastly, if you missed them, I highly recommend catching up on two must-watch webinars we held this month: Our climate justice webinar featured an exclusive deep dive into the new B Lab Climate Justice Playbook, and yesterday's food waste training served as a masterclass for the new ReFED Insights Engine, a new tool that can help every company in our community better define their food waste strategy. Be sure to give us your feedback on both; we'll be covering these topics throughout the year to come. 

Have a great weekend, and take care,

Erin

We are less than one month into 2021 and just a week into a new administration, and already there are some bright spots on the climate horizon: The U.S. is back in the Paris Climate Agreement. A new suite of executive orders on climate is expected today, banning drilling leases on federal land, creating an emissions reduction task force, naming climate as a national security priority, conserving 30% of federal land and water by 2030, and more. This builds on the ambitious climate plan that President Biden has outlined.

All of this is happening alongside research showing that a growing, substantial majority of Americans support climate policies, emissions reduction strategies, and investments in clean energy--and that 86% of voters support providing federal funding to help farmers improve farming practices to protect and restore the soil so it absorbs and stores more carbon.

We can't miss this opportunity to act, with both political will and consumer support backing climate action. This will be a vital year for every company in our community to think through how you are showing up to support federal efforts, communicating climate priorities to your consumers, and collaborating across your supply chains to deepen climate engagement and action. We have a narrow window and so much potential to make meaningful strides in improving our industry response to climate change and our national response. 

I hope you'll start by joining next week's climate-justice-centered webinar for a sneak peek at resources and leading expertise on how to apply a justice lens to all your climate priorities. We hope to see you there!

Take care, 

Erin

I hope you are all about to head into a few days of much-needed rest and relaxation. I imagine many of us relish saying goodbye to 2020; as we do that, I just want to thank you and say how grateful I am to you and to the whole CC community this year, for continuing to be so committed to pushing forward on climate action. 

You can see below the results of this year's Tracking Progress update, which showed that CC companies have been resilient in the face of COVID, with 70% still actively implementing commitments. More than a third of respondents reported that their climate efforts have been unchanged by the pandemic, or that they've redoubled their efforts. 

This level of continued commitment and progress is no small feat. You can read more of what we've done, from welcoming 217 new companies into our network to partnering in the largest business advocacy day on climate ever in this short blog. We have even more planned for 2021, so stay tuned! 

And, if you are able and don't yet support the CC, I hope you'll consider making a tax-deductible donation to keep our work going as we look toward next year. Every bit helps in keeping the work we do free and accessible to thousands of companies. 

Thank you for being part of this community! I hope you have a wonderful holiday, and can't wait to get back to work with you all in 2021. 

Take care,

Erin

I hope you had a safe and happy Thanksgiving. Amid the challenges this year has presented, I have never been more grateful for you and the community we've built at the CC. Thank you for your continued dedication to climate advocacy and action. 

It's incredible to see the 2,500+ strong climate commitments you've made to date--on packaging, regenerative agriculture, food waste, and more. In the next year, we want to increase our impact even more. With your help, we have a real opportunity to build an ambitious national response to climate change as part of the COVID economic recovery. If you'd like a primer on how we may get there, you can watch this short video of Dr. Leah Stokes, recorded for CC companies. 

For all the companies receiving this, there is also one easy way to indicate you stand strong for climate action: Join 300+ of your peers in signing on to the We Are All in Letter, signaling that the COVID recovery and climate action must go hand-in-hand. You can sign on anytime before Tuesday, December 8. Thank you in advance, and know that all of us at the CC are proud and grateful to work with you, and we are looking forward to the year ahead.

Take care,

Erin