The Pivot to Purpose: The Climate Crisis is Invigorating a Workforce Focused on Climate Tech
Finding a job that directly addresses the climate crisis can be a powerful antidote to climate doom.
The Great Engagement
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Upon its release in early April, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the most recent (Working Group III) IPCC report “a file of shame, cataloging the empty pledges that put us firmly on track toward an unlivable world.” And he put the blame on governments and corporations for failing to act and leaving “a litany of broken climate promises.”
While his biting proclamations made headlines, the part of his message about running toward “an unlivable world” is not new. Past reports have said the same thing. The window to act has been closing for years. And, in fact, our chances of reducing greenhouse gas emissions fast enough to keep warming to below 1.5 degrees Celsius—the goalposts set by the Paris 2015 climate negotiations—are dwindling.
But here’s some good news: There is an upwelling of people, both mid-career and early entrants into the job market, who are quite eager to pick up governments’ and corporations’ slack and devote their work lives to confronting climate change at innovative startups.
The even better news: our fellows understand and embody that mission–and they are hiring.
“We are here to stop climate change, and we don’t have time to waste. What we all work on for the next ten years will have a massive impact on human lives.”
The Antora Energy team celebrating their recent Series A fundraising.
Everyone knows about the so-called Great Resignation. But what we see in the Activate community and across the science innovation ecosystem is a Great Engagement. As much of the workforce confronts burn-out and re-evaluates career goals, climate tech startups are seeing growing interest from mission-driven candidates who are transitioning from another sector.
Antora Energy (co-founded by Andrew Ponec and Justin Briggs, Cohort 2018, and David Bierman Cohort 2017) captures the growing interest in climate work perfectly on its careers page: “We are here to stop climate change, and we don’t have time to waste. What we all work on for the next ten years will have a massive impact on human lives.”
The Fellow View
Andrew Hsieh (Cohort 2016), CEO of battery inspection technology startup Liminal (formerly Feasible), says he is seeing a shift in job candidates’ attitudes and motivation. “Early on, we hired some people who were great in terms of technical skills, and they really helped build the product. But then when a better paycheck came along, they were peacing out.”
Andrew Hsieh (Cohort 2016), Liminal (formerly Feasible)
That experience taught him how important it is to really understand candidates’ motivation. “There is a lot to say about mission alignment—it’s why people want to join and then stick around,” he says. But as he sees the number of job-seekers hunting for purposeful work grow, Hsieh is also seeing more candidates committed to Liminal’s mission to accelerate the clean energy transition by decreasing the cost and improving the quality of battery manufacturing. “We’re seeing more people who say, ‘this role matches my skillset and I really want to have an impact on climate’,” he says.
Team member at Liminal, co-founded by Andrew Hsieh and Barry Van Tassel (Cohort 2016).
Hsieh’s commitment to working on climate change solutions started when he was an undergrad. While he knew he wanted to work in applied science, he considers himself an accidental entrepreneur. Strong industry response to a study about the battery inspection technology that he and co-founder Barry Van Tassell (Cohort 2016) developed, and subsequent encouragement from an advisor, made it clear that entrepreneurship was a path he and Van Tassell could take.
Our mission at Activate is to lower the barriers to science entrepreneurship and empower fellows to take those first steps toward a career that marries their background in science or engineering with their motivation to reinvent the economy, whether that’s by decarbonizing industry, creating new, low-carbon products, or learning to lead change across vital industries.
Collectively, our fellows’ companies have hired more than 600 people to date, and that number is growing quickly as those companies scale.
Kristin Taylor (Cohort 2020), Radical Plastics
While many fellows join straight from academia, for some Activate Fellows, the fellowship was a key part of their personal transformation to more purposeful work. For Kristen Taylor (Cohort 2020) that meant a move from conventional to biodegradable plastics by launching Radical Plastics. For Tim Latimer (Cohort 2018) it meant transitioning from the oil and gas industry to co-founding Fervo Energy to advance geothermal energy.
Tim Latimer (Cohort 2018), Fervo Energy
Latimer believes the oil and gas workforce needs to play a key role in the clean energy transition. Oilfield workers and engineers have many directly transferable skills. Plus, if they are left behind, the transition will have failed communities that developed around fossil-fuel industries. “We can’t force communities into sub-optimal choices where you either have your economy, or you have your environment,” Latimer told Emily Kirsch on the Watt It Takes podcast. “If we can’t offer people better solutions, then we’re not doing a great job as an energy sector, as a climate sector, in helping people where they are.”
The Investor View
Matt Eggers, Breakthrough Energy Ventures
Matt Eggers, an investor at Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV), says the startups in BEV’s portfolio are seeing huge interest for open roles. “I’m hearing from a lot of mid-career people, folks who have had tremendous careers at companies like Google or Salesforce,” he says. “They’ve made money and are looking out at the world, and their kids are asking them questions about the climate. They want to be working on big projects that really matter—and they feel a misalignment between those big projects and their current roles. What really matters, and where they want to redirect their energy, is climate.”
In fact, after fielding more inbound requests than he could handle from people looking for roles in climate tech, Eggers penned an inspirational LinkedIn post that encourages people to take time, reflect, and then “come back and join the greatest transition in human history since the industrial revolution” because every sector has a role to play in transitioning toward a world of “abundant and distributed energy, clean food, water and air, harmony with nature, and rapidly increasing standards of living.”
“We’re seeing more people who say, ‘this role matches my skillset and I really want to have an impact on climate.’”
And it’s not just mid-career tech workers who want to join the transition, he says. “People in their 20s are just starting out, and they already want that sense of purpose—they’re not solely focused on career and earning potential,” he says.
Connecting Across the Climate Tech Community
Team member at Sublime Systems, co-founded by Leah Ellis (Cohort 2020).
What both mid-career and early-career entrants have in common, aside from an interest in climate, is a sense of urgency. As the IPCC reports and myriad other studies show: this work can’t wait.
That sense of urgency is what motivated Jason Jacobs, a fitness industry founder whose concern about climate change led him to launch the My Climate Journey (MCJ) podcast and community. Since its founding in 2018, MCJ has launched a venture fund and a subscriber community of nearly 2000 people who want to learn quickly and get involved—in many cases through a career transition—by accessing exclusive content and a vibrant Slack community. A tweet from Jacobs early last year catalyzed a project called Climate Draft, a volunteer effort that connects mid-career people from tech with clean-tech startups.
Other resources for climate-focused job seekers include:
Our own job board, which includes roles at fellow-founded organizations as well as at Activate, has offered more than 500 roles since we launched it in early 2021, and currently includes around 220 open roles across 35 fellow-founded startups.
Work on Climate is a community for people interested in a job or taking a more active role in policy. It hosts a large Slack (+7,000-member) group, events, and educational programs.
Climatebase launched as a job board but has expanded and is now “a climate career accelerator” with a fellowship program that provides networking and education.
Climate Tech VC offers climate tech perspectives and resources, including two deeply-reported weekly newsletters and a job board.
BrownGirl Green’s Green Jobs Board, headed up by climate advocate Kristy Drutman.
On Deck supports founders in climate and other sectors through fellowships and many other programs.
Of course, the climate-tech startup community is just one partner in the effort to advance the clean energy transition. Drawdown Labs, the Project Drawdown program focused on helping the private sector advance climate solutions, recently released Climate Solutions at Work, which it calls a how-to guide for employees looking to make every job a climate job.
No matter your areas of expertise, there are opportunities to find–or create–purposeful work to address the climate crisis. “If you’re an HVAC repair tech, you could go work on heat pumps,” says Eggers. “If you work at a bank, you should work to advocate for green banking.”
Erica Hennes, Gradient
Finding a job that directly addresses the climate crisis can be a powerful antidote to climate doom. But the path to more purposeful work is seldom linear. Plus, mission-focused jobs should still allow us to maintain personal wellness and balance, as Erica Hennes, chief revenue officer at Gradient (co-founded by Cohort 2017 fellow Vince Romanin), eloquently describes in a recent LinkedIn post.
In it, she looks back — "I’ve struggled at times to find my way, moving from job to job, trying to find the right product with the right team. I’ve taken plenty of jobs just to pay the rent, not because I wanted them..." — and offers advice to folks who are struggling to find their best roles. She recognizes the inherent trade-offs, as well as the rewards. “If I am going to take time away from my family for my career, I’ll always be proud that I’m trying to make a difference in climate change for future generations.”
Hennes says that at Gradient, all the pieces came together for her. “I finally found the right company, with the right product and the right team. I can’t wait for this next chapter of Gradient."
We can’t either.
Know a job seeker? Send them this article. Know an innovative scientist or engineer ready to launch the next great climate tech startup? Send them our way–applications for Cohort 2023 open this fall.