With the recent release of the powerful IPCC report, there is no longer any doubt about the unavoidable impact of our changing climate.  Inside Climate News summarizes the report explaining that “This summer’s extremes are only a mild preview of the decades ahead” and “no part of the planet will be spared”. But perhaps the report’s most powerful finding is that we still have a small window of opportunity to act to stop things from getting even worse. As Laurence Tubiana, one of the architects of the Paris Agreement said this week in response to the UN IPCC Report: 'Scientists did their job, it is time for leaders to do theirs.'

The next six weeks provide the most important opportunity in a generation to pass important climate legislation to put our nation on a path to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

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

Businesses from across the U.S. are joining the Climate Collaborative, B Lab, 1% for the Planet, and the American Sustainable Business Council (ASBC) in the #Call4ClimateNOW campaign which asks Americans to call on our nation’s lawmakers to support efforts to address the threat of our changing climate. On Aug 11^th, the campaign launched with a briefing which included author and journalist Bill McKibben, Anne Kelly of Ceres, and Sarah Silverman of Numi Organic Tea. 

During the month of September, businesses will reach out to their stakeholders, including their consumers and employees, to encourage them to call their Senators and Representatives to ask them to support bold climate action and to invest at the scale of the crisis NOW.

Bill McKibben said at the campaign kick-off webinar “This is crunch time politically. We have no time to waste. If for some reason you’ve been keeping your powder dry, now is the moment. We need you like we’ve never needed you before.”

Ceres Vice President of Government Relations Anne Kelly echoed Bill’s remarks about the urgency of the next six weeks and how important it is that our lawmakers in Washington are flooded with calls from their constituents. “We need to be pushing for these with our lawmakers telling our customers, our consumers, our peers, our neighbors to be making the kinds of calls that this campaign is planning.”

Nancy Hirshberg presented compelling results from a Climate Collaborative survey showing that the public wants to know what they can do to help, and they will reward companies that are proactively addressing the climate crisis.

Climate Collaborative staff and contractors are working hard to develop the campaign assets including providing your business with a toolkit with images, sample social posts for Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, and talking points.

We hope you will join Stonyfield, Numi Organic Tea, Dr. Bronner’s, Happy Family, Legacy Vacation Resorts, Nature’s Path and many more who have signed on to the campaign.

The campaign is made possible by generous contributions from Giannuzzi Lewendon, Whipstitch Capital, Gary & Meg Hirshberg, Loft Growth Partners, Natural Products Consulting, aiim, All Natural Strategies, and Jessica & Decker Rolph as well as other investors and businesses.

To learn more, watch the August 11th webinar briefing or download the campaign overview here.

Register for the campaign here.