In working to build a collection of climate jobs on the web, we often faced decisions about which companies and jobs qualified as “climate” enough. Even within our company, we found several differing opinions on this question. While we reached enough consensus to be able to move forward, we recognize that this remains a gray area.
That consensus is a result of using the following principles that may not always align but all work in combination as we make this decision for ourselves.
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As a general rule, our starting point is to look for whether the primary business of a company (or the primary goal of a job within a company) has the potential to have a clear positive impact on the climate change crisis we’re in.
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That said, we don’t claim to know the answer to the above question perfectly; it is impossible to, given the levels of depth involved in scrutinizing each company and each job. As such, when in doubt, we assume positive intent.
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We lean towards big-tent because we recognize that there is no perfect climate solution today. Everything is a shade of gray. Given how far along we are in the crisis, our opinion is that we have no option but to try absolutely everything.
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We are clear: This problem needs scale. Our sincere belief is that it is just better for 100 million people to work on climate change rather than “the best 1 million people” or any other variation of that theme. This problem is bigger than all of us, and we need everyone engaged.
That scale comes with a corollary: We need to accommodate for 100 million circumstances. -
Of course, we want people to pick companies and jobs that have the most climate impact possible for their circumstance. The way that we think this can happen is by giving people the information and tools to be able to run their own calculus, rather than deciding for them. Our learning programs are designed for people to do just that; over the coming weeks and months, we plan to bring as much of that learning as possible into our job board in relevant ways as well.
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The board is not comprehensive. For every company or job we’ve listed, we’re certain there are several more that are not on the board yet. We’re growing the board every day and welcome your feedback about companies and jobs you think should be on there.
We know that people can have reasonable yet completely different opinions on this problem—we have several of them in our own company, and we respect these opinions! Every company and every job on our board has a link that allows anyone to drop us feedback if they have doubts about the climate impact of a particular job. We welcome that feedback and take it seriously.
If you have any questions, please email jobs@terra.do.
Thanks,
-The Terra.do team