2023
Click above to view our 2023 Impact Report.
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2022, what a year for climate solutions!
From the passing of the monumental Inflation Reduction Act to the great realignment of big tech talent to climate — we are so fortunate to be on this journey with all of you!
While the impending recession may have resulted in a climate market slowdown for the first time in history, this year still proved to have a lot to write home about. Climate innovation sparked like never before, and we’re seeing the most brilliant minds transition their careers to focus full-time on climate solutions. This is only just the beginning.
Internally, we have spent the year prioritizing long-term growth and optimizing our processes to fully act on our mission of getting as many people working on climate solutions as humanly possible. In 2022, we placed dozens of people in climate jobs and engaged over 42k job seekers!
A huge thank you to our customers, job seekers, and supporters for all your help in spreading our climate jobs mantra across countless industries, sectors, and states! We are so grateful for each and every one of you and are thrilled to continue to grow and make an impact alongside all of you.
With that, here’s a quick reflection on ‘22 and a whole lot of excitement for what’s to come in ‘23!
Cheers,
Brendan
WHO WE ARE
Climate People is a ClimateTech recruiting firm dedicated to decarbonizing the economy by mobilizing a workforce transition to work on climate. We hire and recruit across a wide range of climate sectors.
NYC CLIMATE WEEK
A few team members had the honor of attending the Nest Climate Summit at NYC Climate Week in September. We networked and learned alongside some of the most influential climate leaders and caught up with some climate friends (hey, Carbon Collective and Pique Action)!
TEAM OFFSITE IN BOSTON
We all got together in early May for an offsite in Boston! We spent the week brainstorming, collaborating, and dreaming up the future of Climate People (& had so much fun doing it!)
BROWNING THE GREEN SPACE FOUNDING MEMBERS
In 2022, we became of founding member of Browning the Green Space. BGS is a coalition of clean energy and climate companies that have made a pledged commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ) in support of a just energy transition for Black and Brown communities.
CARBON COLLECTIVE COLLABORATION
In 2022, we launched a sustainable 401(k) corporate account with Carbon Collective! We work tirelessly to reverse the harms of climate change through our everyday work. We are thrilled to partner with Carbon Collective because they allow us to ‘put our money where our mouth is’ and invest in a future that directly aligns with our sustainability initiatives.
→ Read the case study!
OUR TEAM
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WHO WE ARE
Climate People is a ClimateTech recruiting firm dedicated to decarbonizing the economy by mobilizing a workforce transition to work on climate. We hire and recruit across a wide range of climate sectors.
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WEBINAR SERIES RECAP
We launched our quarterly climate job seekers webinar campaign! We hosted four webinar panels (with 1,388 registrations & 989 attendees) that shared actionable advice for those looking to transition their careers to climate!
NET ZERO LIFE: SEASON 3
Between May 3rd and July 19th, we powered season 3 of the NZL podcast, including 10 episodes that featured lessons, ideas, and philosophies from sustainability leaders, moving the world closer to net zero. The episodes have been downloaded over 7,000 times across 109 countries.
BADASS WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS
We sponsored VertueLab’s 5th annual BAWE event and hosted a follow-up networking event for attendees! The event spotlighted women who run science startups. It convened movers and shakers with different types of businesses, science backgrounds from low to high-tech, and non-traditional funding and support expertise.
1 PERCENT FOR THE PLANET
One Percent for the Planet is an international organization that allows members to collaborate with environmental nonprofits. Climate People is a proud member and donates 1% of every placement fee to an environmental nonprofit of the candidate's choosing. In 2022 we donated a total of $11,736 (including 1% annual fees) and supported Honnold Foundation ($3,507), Soul Fire Farm ($3,834), & Environmental Voter Project ($3,395). We added Browning the Green Space to our portfolio at the end of the year.
GIVING TUESDAY
We had five candidates who did not wish to select a nonprofit to donate to, so we used that money to donate $2,500 to the Environmental Voter Project for their Giving Tuesday campaign.
TEAM VOLUNTEER DAY
Four of Climate People’s team members phone banked with the Environmental Voter Project for their “Get Out The Vote” midterm campaign. We volunteered for 2 hours and made ~200 calls each to encourage people to get out and vote!
→ 51% of Candidates are women/BIPOC
→ 39 Candidates placed in 2022
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HIRING OPPORTUNITIES
→ Mission Alignment: There are very few recruitment firms that are laser-focused on ClimateTech.
→ Urgency: We need to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. It's essential to place the right talent quickly to meet these needs.
→ Competition: Competition for experienced tech talent is hyper-competitive across all sectors.
→ Scale of Opportunity: We need 100 million people working in climate by 2030.
CLIMATE PEOPLE'S SOLUTIONS
→ We're a niche recruiting agency
→ We provide tailored ClimateTech industry insights
→ We lead with an optimistic approach to climate
→ We prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion
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AN EMPLOYER-CENTRIC MARKET
For the first time ever, the ClimateTech industry experienced a market downtick (-3% from ‘21 with $40b+ invested). However, innovation spiked in ‘22 (the deal count was +40% compared to ‘21).
BIG TECH LAYOFFS
Although the numbers may not be entirely in favor, there was a cultural shift leaning climate’s way. Over 40k tech workers were laid off in 2022, opening the door for leading talent to consider a career in climate.
→ Read more
→ 8 Press Mentions
→ 19.3K Social Following
→ 10K Job Applications
→ 10 In-Person Events Attended
→ 18.8K People in our Network
→ 42K Website Views
→ 293 Climate Tech Career Catalyst Members
JOB SEEKER CONTENT
2022: the year of the climate job seeker! Last year, we prioritized job seeker content and provided thousands of learners with actionable advice for kickstarting a career in climate. From webinars to TikToks, we used every medium imaginable to share success stories, tried-and-true advice, and much more!
→ Check it out!
1-MINUTE CLIMATE SNIPPETS
To bridge the climate talent gap, we launched this campaign to break down climate jargon and level the playing field. In 2022 we defined 39 climate concepts.
→ Read some!
A LOT TO TALK ABOUT
In 2022 we were mentioned in various news platforms such as:
→ The Butterfly Effect
→ Fortune
→ SyKom
→ Canary Media
→ CNBC
→ Nerd Rabbit
→ Authority Magazine
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NEW WEBSITE
We launched our new and improved website with our customers as the center of the design! We’re so excited about the:
→ Easy-to-navigate job board
→ Client-optimized talent portal
→ Comprehensive 1-minute climate snippets
→ Job seeker resources
→ Deep dives into the climate sectors
BACKGROUND:
Salient works to help people and organizations better understand and prepare for the increasing volatility of climate change. They combine ocean data with machine learning and climate expertise to deliver the world’s most accurate sub-seasonal-to-seasonal weather forecasts 2 to 52 weeks in advance.
Founded in 2019, this new company is growing rapidly and needs a team well-suited for adaptability and impact.
COMPANY OVERVIEW:
→ Funding Stage: Seed
→ Climate Sector: Climate Intelligence
→ Number of employees: 1-10
HIRING ROADBLOCKS:
→ Salient was experiencing massive growth and needed to act quickly.
→ They conducted multiple interviews and had difficulty finding the right candidates.
→ They needed to enhance their team’s diversity.
RESULT:
→ Five placements across various executive positions and in nearly every department.CEO, CPO, COO, SWE, and SDR
→ 4/5 placements were female.
→ Nominated them for a national news feature with CNBC.
TESTIMONIAL:
“We had a great experience working with the team at Climate People,” Matt said. “They calibrated on the C-Level roles quickly and found us amazing candidates.”
BACKGROUND:
Lowell Bander, the self-proclaimed “newbie climate evangelist,” was referred to us by another mission-driven recruiter. Lowell came out of a role at a FAANG company where they worked for five years. Lowell is highly skilled in PHP, Hack, JavaScript (React, Flow), SQL, GraphQL, Mercurial, HTML, CSS, etc., making them a highly desired candidate for nearly every hiring manager.
APPROACH:
Lowell was referred to our founder and CEO, Brendan, after they had already begun interviewing. Given Lowell’s impressive background, we knew that urgency was of the essence. Brendan quickly got Lowell out to interviews with two of our clients. Over the span of one month, Lowell had nearly made it to the offer stage with four separate companies. Lowell had to work with Brendan on reprioritization to ensure they were not getting burned out from the process. The Climate People team remained in close contact with Lowell to ensure that we were not only accounting for their requirements but making it a smooth and stress-free process as they were balancing so much.
RESULT:
Lowell accepted a role as a Software Engineer at Lumen Energy, where they will use their niche skillset to address inefficiencies in the energy and grid sector.
TESTIMONIAL:
"I think probably the best bang for your buck if you're a software engineer looking for climate tech would be working with Climate People so your job search is distilled down."
LEARNING FROM OTHERS
In 2022, we conducted exit interviews with every candidate we placed in a climate job. These exit interviews were shared across all of our social media platforms in hopes of sharing their stories and inspiring others to consider a career in climate.
→ Watch the playlist
DIRECTOR OF PEOPLE OPPS AT PERSEFONI
"I think of Brendan and Climate People as being a partner and a consultant. They send us people who are going to be excited and successful within our sustainability initiatives. It's a really nice partnership."
→ Courtney Reynolds
CHIEF OF STAFF TO THE CTO AT WEAVEGRID
"For us, mission alignment is the first filter, and no other recruiter was able to understand that or deliver on it. Climate People is a whole different animal, filling a gap that is otherwise totally missing."
→ Beau Cronin
HOW WE'RE EXPANDING ALONGSIDE THE INDUSTRY
In our early days, we mainly focused on software and data roles as we saw a significant demand and comparable disconnect between open positions and available tech talent. We recognize that climate career opportunities extend well past software. There's a significant demand for climate talent in almost every field and all climate problem areas.
In 2023, Climate People is extending our services to incorporate a deep tech and scientific recruiting practice.
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BARRIERS TO WORKING ON CLIMATE SURVEY RESULTS
📝 BACKGROUND: We need 100 million people working on climate by 2030.
📝 SURVEY: We pinpointed what's preventing people from taking a job in climate. We must address these barriers.
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2022 RESULTS
Climate People is committed to making an impact, not just on the environment but on all of the stakeholder groups impacted by our business. We have decided to incorporate the B Impact Assessment into our annual review process in order to help us better understand our social and environmental impact and use that as a benchmark for setting annual goals.
The B Impact Assessment was created by B Lab, a nonprofit organization that certifies private corporations that are committed to a high level of social and environmental accountability. They're best known for administering the B Corp Certification, which is only awarded to organizations with a verified score on the B Lab Impact assessment of 80 points or higher. Climate People is not yet in a position to qualify for certification, but we're proud to have made progress in the last year to move closer to the certification level.
Our 2022 results are self-reported and have not been verified by independent, third-party evaluators. This year, we received an overall score on the assessment of 65.5 points. This is an increase of 6.8 points from 2021.
2022 REFLECTION
In 2022 we were largely focused on formally outlining our values through the development of a robust and inclusive employee handbook and the introduction of more structured employee evaluation processes.
We set targets for more rapid growth last year but reassessed midyear to focus on building our team, website, and system process for ultimate impact in 2023 and beyond.
2023 IMPROVEMENT GOALS
In 2023 we aim to improve our scores in the workers and community categories by making formal commitments to diversity and inclusion targets, improving employee training and development, and finding more opportunities for employees to volunteer their time toward environmental advocacy and action.
OVERARCHING GOALS FOR 2023
Demand for green talent is expected to outnumber supply within five years. By 2028, we will have more climate jobs than we will have people to fill them, and hiring will be the driving limiting factor for scaling climate solutions.
We're here to combat this! In 2023, we aim to continue acting on our sole mission of getting more people working in climate solutions!
→ We aim to place 90 people in climate roles in 2023
→ We plan to donate $30K to 1% For The Planet nonprofits in 2023
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