Not Ready for Carbon Offsets, but piloting "Climate Uplifts" - what should I consider?

[afield]

Hey community - as I guide my company on their climate journey, we are not yet ready to look at any type of carbon offsets. In the meantime, I'm wanting to use our free product offering and any other skilled volunteer opportunities to do what I'm calling "Climate Uplifts", where we essentially give away/support climate-focused nonprofits as much as possible to support orgs working on the front lines of climate change. Have any of you done anything like this? What should I consider? Where are my blindspots in this? Thank you for any feedback you have!

[Michelle Fifis]

Great question, @afield. I would love to hear about some of our members' experiences with this process, but our Climate Action and Green Recovery Playbook would be a good resource for you to explore.

Do you have anything to add, @AdVicNathan, @Ingrid_IndexEng, @Olivia Tyler , @Stefan or @Tonya_Kraan?

[Kali N · Accepted solution]

This is a great initiative @afield - when we have done work with Education (which can have so many things fall into that space) we started with defining the boundaries of what we felt comfortably fit within that bucket, then developed a framework to assess applicants (which informed our application process), and reviewed the rejected applications regularly for the first few months to make sure we didn't reject any that we wanted to support (and if we did, we adjusted our framework).

It wasn't perfect to start, but we felt that acknowledging that it was still a new program being tweaked allowed us to start implementing change, and expanding that as we went.

@Alison_Michalk how did you start this work with Quiip?

[Alison_Michalk · Accepted solution]

@afield hello 👋  Do you mind me asking why you don't want to start with the company's own emissions measurement & reduction? There are a lot of platforms/tools that have made it considerably easier, esp due to finance software integration. Starting with your own company is a good chance to have internal discussions and build awareness around a decarbonisation plan -- rather than offsetting. I'm not sure what size your company is but this is a great resource: https://smeclimatehub.org/

In terms of pro-bono work, you've already narrowed it to climate action which is great. (We used the SDGs to narrow it to #13 Climate Action and #10 Reduced Inequalities.) You can create further eligibility requirements such as the size of the organisation you'll support (ie. capped revenue or team size), whether you want to offer ongoing support or a fixed term/project basis. And finding out how the measure their own impact so you'll have some demonstrable outcomes.  @Kali N's approach of reviewing, then refining your process so they are aligned makes a lot of sense.
 
I hope that helps, nice to connect 🙂

[afield]

Awesome! Thank you @Alison_Michalk and @Kali N ! We are in the process of doing our carbon footprint, and adopting reduction strategies as well. Thank you both for the input, ideas, shared learnings and links! And Kali, I have connected with several Atlassian team members (Ting, Jono, Taylor) about all the incredible work you do - you all are one of the most helpful, community-oriented crews around! Thank you both again 😄 

[EmilyWhite · Accepted solution]

Hey @afield -- what a great idea! Perhaps our AI for Climate Accelerator program might have some good criteria to replicate: https://salesforceacceleratorclimate.splashthat.com/. Wishing you luck! And when you're ready for those carbon markets, we created a marketplace to make it easy for our peers to dip their toes in: https://netzero.salesforce.com/s/.

[Ingrid_IndexEng]

That sounds great! We haven't specifically done what you are looking at doing but I do have some ideas.

About us: We give away 1% of our income and we have chosen three charities - one charity relating to a social need (poverty), one relating to an environmental need (endangered species) and one relating to a local need. The endangered species society produces regular newsletters, advocates, takes concrete action. We circulate the newsletters to our staff, as they ask for advocacy e.g. writing letters on issues, attending protests etc.  This means I can keep the team informed and invite people to participate if they want. 

What about researching ideas, and then talk to your staff about what resonates with them? You are sure to have some staff who want to have input. What do you care most about: people, fauna, flora ? Local issues or global issues?

- If you care about people, then think about those Pacific Islanders, who are very much affected by climate change (tornadoes, rising sea levels etc.) There are sure to be organisations/charities that support them where you could donate money.

- If you are more concerned about people in your own area, well unfortunately you possibly don't need to wait long until people are affected by climate-related issues such as flooding, fires, storms... There could be physical action that your team could take, i.e. helping people clean out their affected properties when damaged? (disaster help?)

- If you care about plants, then you could consider using part of your donations for tree-planting. A local rafting company here uses its donations to purchase seedlings, and then organises a staff tree-planting day.

- If you care about animals/birds, you could do what we do, i.e. use donations to help and then allow staff time for writing advocacy letters, attending beach clean up or habitat restoration programmes.

I hope these ideas help!

Regards, Ingrid, New Zealand