POPSUGAR Australia is dedicating the month of October to featuring the next generation of inspired thinkers and courageous individuals who are building and manifesting a brighter future — because the next gen is unstoppable. We will deliver personal essays from young Australians who are making a name for themselves, as well as inspiring thought pieces and interviews with rising talent across different industries throughout the month. Find all of our pieces here and if there’s someone you think is missing, email our editor so we can share their story — abardas@valmorgan.com.au.
Throughout my career, I’ve noticed that people react in two ways when faced with challenges or problems that need to be solved: they either sit and wait for someone else to fix it, or they step up with a positive mindset and a solutions-focus and they make the road by walking.
As the Director of non-profit climate tech start-up WorkForClimate, I work with people coming together to do the latter. We help people increase their impact on climate action by showing them how to use their professional influence to accelerate bold climate initiatives at work.
Nobody is coming to save us, except ourselves. There are no secret political bodies or industries working on the deployment of mass technological solutions behind the scenes — in fact, the opposite is true: the Machiavellian fossil fuel lobby is working hard to accelerate our demise in return for their profits. And our collective inaction makes us complicit.
But we can save ourselves, we don’t need to be complicit any longer.
Now is the moment for us to make the road by walking. To take action and leverage our influence — as individuals — to drive the systemic shift away from fossil fuels and into a renewable, zero-emissions future.
One of the most inspiring things I have learnt over the past couple of years is that there are extraordinary people inside organisations around the world who are doing exactly that: driving ambitious climate initiatives at work and building the business case for change.
They are helping their corporations make the switch to 100 per cent renewable energy, they are exploring alternative default superannuation funds to cut off institutional investment in fossil fuels, they are pressuring their CEOs to make bold net-zero commitments.
After speaking to dozens of individual professionals who are using their influence to shift the system, we saw patterns in their approaches to building the case for change. We attempted to codify their approaches and learnings in a series of Playbooks. They guide you through ‘the how’ of influencing change at work, and make it easy for you to put together and present ambitious business cases — all you have to bring is your energy and change-maker mindset.
It’s easy to become numb to the enormity of the climate crisis. But the truth is, we have more agency than we think when it comes to the solutions. As individuals, it is us who form the collective, and we don’t just vote people into positions of power — we are the ones who hold them to account.
This goes for corporate positions of power as well as political leaders (although they absolutely have the power to drive rapid solutions, and we must continue to demand progressive climate policy that is going to ensure we halve our emissions within this decade).
Business and corporate leaders rely on us — their employees — to deliver their organisational objectives and what we say, think and do matters a great deal.
If you work within a large organisation, you have the opportunity to build the case for ambitious climate initiatives. For example, if your company hasn’t already switched its operations to 100 per cent renewable energy, you, as an individual, can build the case for change that can lead to your company making the commitment.
And the more companies that make the switch, the more the idea of renewable-powered corporations becomes normalised, and the less we will cling to the outdated narrative that we ‘need’ a fossil-fuel powered transition to zero emissions.
Focusing on climate solutions as opposed to the ‘climate crisis’ is the thing that keeps me positive. Solutions are all about taking action, and action is a powerful antidote to the inevitable anxiety we all experience when we think too much about the problem.
In building a platform that equips people with the content, tools and community to accelerate their corporation’s climate goals, I get to see firsthand how impactful a single person can be in shifting the system, and getting their company to commit to bold action. It starts with a single person, stepping up and being brave enough to propose a solution.
You don’t need to step through a porthole (like I did!) to move the needle on climate. You just need the energy and the mindset to step up and start driving the solutions. You have this power.
To find out more about Lucy Piper and WorkForClimate, visit their website.
