Congratulations on beating The Cleanup Project! Now it’s time to take action in real life. The following links will help you get started.
Writing Real Climate ‘CEO Letters’
- First tip for writing a CEO letter is find out if the CEO is the right person to write your letter to. See this guide from Green America on writing effective letters to corporations for urging change: www.greenamerica.org/make-difference-where-you-are/write-effective-letter-company
- Better letters to the editor, from Australia’s leading climate-change communication nonprofit: www.climatecouncil.org.au/how-write-effective-letter-editor/
- Template letter for writing to government officials (in this case, a Member of Parliament) regarding the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report: www.hftf.org.uk/general-mp-letter
- Another general template for writing a letter to an MP about climate change; of course, you can modify it for whatever government representative you want to reach: General Template Letter (PDF format)
- An example of a letter to a university student paper regarding climate change solutions: thescarlet.org/17418/opinions/climate-change-letter-to-the-editor/
- Some publicly traded companies in the US are required to disclose climate-related information; this is an example letter that the US Securities and Exchange Commission might send to these companies. It might be a good place to start learning about legal requirements for these companies, and might inspire some questions to ask if you write a ‘CEO letter’ to a US corporation. www.sec.gov/corpfin/sample-letter-climate-change-disclosures
Other Ways to Take Action
Not interested in writing letters? Here are some other areas where you can have more impact than just focusing on your own individual behavior:
- The Systems Change Lab has zeroed in on three of the highest-leverage places that have the most likelihood of creating what they call a “climate breakthrough”: systemschangelab.org/news/release-three-super-leverage-points-offer-hope-climate-breakthrough
- For those who aren’t into reading press releases, this is another view of those three breakthrough ideas, road transport, green ammonia, and alternative proteins: www.systemiq.earth/breakthrough-effect
- If those aren’t areas of interest for you, they’ve got a list of 70 changes that will probably give you ideas on where to focus your attention: systemschangelab.org/shifts
- Similarly, Project Drawdown has a list of actions and profiles of people making change. Sort by what you want to do, whether you’re a company, an investor, a community organizer, or whatever; or sort solutions by sector (energy, food and agriculture, buildings, etc.); or just click the “Shuffle” button and see what interesting climate solution you get at random! drawdown.org/discover