I hope this finds you healthy and safe. With a continued spate of wildfires ravaging the west and hurricanes in the southeast, this year continues to highlight the ways in which climate change is actively threatening our lives and livelihoods. 

We have more work to do than ever, but the global response to COVID-19 is already providing a roadmap of just how possible an ambitious national response to climate change could be. 

Less than a week from the U.S.'s formal pullout of the Paris Agreement, and an election that will determine the next national phase of climate action, we are busy planning how to give you pathways to act and advocate in the coming months, from sign-on letters to advocacy opportunities and new tools to help you act on climate. Stay tuned to hear more, and please share your ideas and feedback with us. 

We loved hearing from many of you as part of our Spark Your Day breakfast meetup on October 13, which featured speakers from General Mills, Lundberg, and companies from across our network. One big and hopeful takeaway was that many of you are not only not slowing down on climate this year, but rather are ramping up your commitments and work. Thank you for everything you are doing, and we look forward to helping you keep it up!

Take care,

Erin

Living in California these last two months has put into stark relief the fact that climate change is not a future-tense problem, but an immense present-tense problem: It is happening now, all around us.

I'm heartened to see a few signs of hope and progress this month. Governor Newsom recently announced California will phase out the sale of new gasoline cars by 2035. Last week, Walmart, the world's largest retailer, committed to reach Net Zero emissions by 2040 and become a regenerative company--without using offsets. Climate change even received unprecedented time and coverage in last night's presidential debate. And companies like Patagonia are finding creative ways to raise their voice in opposition to climate denial.

If you are leading any climate advocacy efforts in the coming weeks, we would love to hear about it. In the meantime, I want to close by sending out a huge thank you to the companies that have stepped up and become CC donors this year. You are enabling everything we do, and if this year has shown us anything, it's that we must continue to come together and keep pushing toward a more equitable, low-carbon future. So thank you!

Take care,

Erin

I am writing from a smoke-filled California, where another fire season makes it impossible to forget the urgency of our work. Climate change is happening all around us, and I hope all of you who have been affected by the fires and gulf storms the past few weeks are staying safe and healthy. 

And to all of you, thank you for being part of a community committed to bold, urgent climate action! If you're wondering how to have a bigger impact in your efforts, we hope you'll take part in getting out the climate vote. This fall, we'll keep sharing opportunities to engage in advocacy, and we'll convene virtual regenerative farmer roundtables, packaging sessions, climate justice talks, more, so stay tuned (and if you haven't already, consider making a policy advocacy commitment)! We also want to hear from you--send us your ideas and feedback at [email protected]. 

In late September, Climate Week (the largest global climate summit in 2020) will go virtual for the first time ever, so you can join from right from your home desk or couch. There are already events up covering packaging, climate justice, climate policy, and more--most are free. You can see the full schedule and sign up here. We hope to "see you" there!

Take care,

Erin

I hope this finds you healthy and safe, and that you've found some time to enjoy your summer. It's been moving and powerful to see how engaged and motivated this community has continued to be over the past few months, and that hasn't slowed down!

On the policy front, Vice President Biden announced a $2 trillion climate plan earlier this month, laying out ambitious to tackle emissions across the electricity, transportation, and building sectors and integrating climate justice measures as core to the plan. Just last week, 79 of you signed on to support renewable tax credit inclusion in the upcoming stimulus, sending a vital signal to Congressional leaders that businesses back a clean energy future.

We've also seen hundreds of people sign up for next week's advocacy training--if you're not yet one of them, sign up here! You won't want to miss the special address from Tom Steyer or the best practices shared by our friends at Ceres, ASBC, and BCL. Make sure to watch Stonyfield Co-founder Gary Hirshberg's message calling on the industry to get involved below. 

We hope everyone will be making their voices heard supporting a climate-smart COVID recovery in the coming months. We'll be working hard to make doing so as easy as possible for you.

Take care,

Erin

I hope you are continuing to stay healthy and safe. We've reached the halfway point of 2020, and what a year it's been already. There are so many vital issues requiring our time, attention, and action right now.

Thank you for continuing to champion climate action in your work amid it all. It is more important than ever, and this year has shown clearly how no issues exist in a vacuum. Climate change is a racial justice issue, and climate action is vital to preventing another system shock like this pandemic.

Because the next crisis will likely be a climate crisis, and we have so much opportunity before us to ensure we are prepared and resilient in the face of future crises. We will be providing you with new opportunities to engage on this front in the coming weeks, so stay tuned!

In the meantime, make sure to check out our new impact report, where you can see a snapshot of our community's progress three years in. If you like what you see, please consider supporting our work this year. We do need your help: We've seen tremendous growth in commitments and programming, but it's been a difficult year financially, and we are asking any who can to step up and support our community's work.

You can see sponsorship benefits and levels here, and commit to being a donor here. We'll profile you every chance we get! We currently have just over 50 sustaining donors, and we are hoping to reach 100 donors this year. Thank you to any and all who can support our community's work and help us reach that goal!

Have a great July 4, and stay healthy!

Best,

Erin

I hope this finds you continuing to stay healthy and safe. I want to send out an enormous thank you to our network for your quick action this month, which gives me great hope for our work ahead on climate.

The response to our call for participation in LEAD on Climate this month was incredible. More than 120 companies from our network joined, and all of you were integral in making it the largest business advocacy day on climate ever. Our community made up over a third of the 330 total participating companies and took part in over 80 meetings calling for a climate inclusive path forward from COVID-19.

I'm proud to stand in community with you, and can't wait to share upcoming opportunities to continue engaging on this vital work! In the meantime, we have a lot of new resources below--including a virtual roundup of our Climate Day Resource Fair! I hope you'll find it useful, and I hope you continue to find ways to stay motivated and hopeful this month. 

Best,

Erin

My heart goes out to all of you as we close out what I know has been another busy and stress-filled month for our community. Thank you for working to keep our vital food supply chains running.

This month marked the 50th anniversary of the first Earth Day, when 10% of Americans came out to participate. Its success helped the passage of the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act. Half a century later, the COVID-19 crisis has brought us to another crossroads moment on climate change, and I'm so grateful and inspired to see hundreds of you stepping up in response to it!

In our call last Friday Bill McKibben shared how critical it is for the economic recovery from COVID-19 to build in resilience to climate change. We also presented our plan to build back better from this crisis, and I'm thrilled that within a week 50 of you have stepped up and committed to being part of the upcoming LEAD on Climate virtual climate democracy event.

Your quick response gives us so much hope. Please continue to share your ideas and needs with us. We can't wait to get to work supporting all of you.

Warmly,

Erin

I hope this finds you and your loved ones healthy and safe. It has been a tumultuous month, and, in the midst of it, I'm so grateful for the strength of the community we've built here at the Collaborative and to you for being part of it.

It is clear that even as we respond to COVID-19, there remains a more urgent need for climate action than ever. Even today, an announcement is expected which will roll back auto pollution standards in the United States. Christiana Figueres, who led the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in the delivery of the 2015 Paris Climate Accords, emphasized in a fantastic Time article this week how vital it is for us to not let the climate movement be derailed by the coronavirus pandemic. Instead, she lays out a roadmap of ideas on how we can learn valuable lessons from the global response to it, which we can apply to strengthen our work combatting climate change.

This week, I am already energized by the ways in which this crisis has made us all think creatively about the ways we connect with each other virtually. We'll be trying new ways of doing that in the coming months and hope you'll be there with us. In the meantime, we have pulled together a number of new resources--including a compilation of our favorite past webinars to in-depth interviews--for you to check out below. Have a great week, everyone, and stay healthy.

Warmly,

Erin

I can't wait to see many of you next week at Climate Day. If you can't be there in person, be sure to tune into our livestream in the afternoon!

We'll be sharing a big slate of announcements highlighting huge progress in the climate movement you're building with us.

Alongside that, as we go into Climate Day, I have been reflecting on how it truly feels like we're at an inflection point in how businesses are responding to climate change--both globally and within our industry. The signs of this are everywhere, and over the next year, I see a vital opportunity to turn the energy around public climate commitments into concrete collaborative projects and actions, on policy advocacy, regenerative agriculture, food waste, consumer climate engagement, and more. I hope you'll check out some of our work in these areas below, like our newly published packaging case studies.

I hope we can all bring this will to work collaboratively with purpose next week. We'll see you there! 

Warmly,

Erin

We are busy gearing up for our best Climate Day yet, and I hope we'll see each of you there! We've truly got an incredible line-up: You'll hear from youth climate activists, the CEOs of Seventh Generation, Patagonia, and Danone North America, and we'll convene panels on some of the biggest issues we're facing in the industry, from packaging solutions to regenerative agriculture, food waste, and business innovation. Make sure to RSVP and save your spot, if you haven't already!

Ahead of Climate Day, we are in a race to reach 500 companies committed to action--an incredible milestone ahead of the three-year anniversary of the Climate Collaborative's launch! If you know of a company that hasn't yet made commitments, we invite them to join the community here and be part of the announcement.

Good luck in the lead-up to March! In the meantime, don't miss out on our latest webinar recording below, on regenerative agriculture. It was our most oversubscribed webinar yet, and to those of you who weren't able to join the session live, we hope you'll catch up on it here.

Warmly,

Erin