This fall, we asked you to help shape the Climate Collaborative’s programming priorities and were blown away by the response to our brief survey! 200 respondents—109 of whom came from our committed company base—provided invaluable feedback on how we can improve and grow our programs as we enter our second year. 

We are actively integrating the insights you shared into our program planning. The survey’s key findings are:

1. Companies in the natural products industry are already acting on climate change at scale. We were thrilled to see that 75% of survey respondents said that their organizations have existing approaches to managing climate change. Supplier engagement and direct emissions reduction measures were the most common climate action areas reported related to climate change.
2. You care about climate policy. 64% of respondents are already engaged on climate policy, through direct and/or indirect means. Another 20% say they need more clarity on how to best engage on climate policy issues.
3. Companies are struggling to implement packaging- and transportation-related commitments. 40% of respondents identified packaging as the most challenging commitment to implement, and 38% identified transportation as the most challenging. Lack of appropriate technology solutions on packaging was identified as a key challenge by some and lack of direct oversight into transportation was identified as a barrier by some on transportation.
4. Retailers and manufacturers need tailored support. While a majority of brands stated that the Climate Collaborative has helped them strengthen their climate change goals and actions, we have not yet been able to support a majority of manufacturers and retailers. We hope to build out specific toolkits to support these groups more directly in the coming months.
5. Resource constraints pose the biggest challenge for companies looking to ramp up their climate action. Lack of funds and other resources was the most common climate action barrier reported, with 25% of respondents identifying it as their primary barrier to action. Lack of clear metrics to set goals and measure successes was a close second, with 18% of respondents identifying it as their primary barrier to action. We know every company must constantly balance priorities and we are so pleased to see most of you continuing to prioritize climate action despite resource constraints.
6. Companies are looking for partners and solutions providers to help implement their climate strategies and want case studies showing how other companies are implementing their commitments. 31% of respondents said that access to a network of partners would most effectively help them overcome their barriers to climate action. 20% said that case studies would be the most helpful resource.

You also gave us tremendous feedback on what our priorities should be in the next year—from continuing to increase participation in the collaborative to connecting companies to affordable and accessible resources to increasing the visibility of the project to fostering broader collaboration among our committed company base and more.

Look for each of these points to be addressed in the coming months, as we build out new programming plans, partners, and tools.

Thank you again to everyone who participated! We are truly grateful for your input.