New to climate tech? Here are some resources to help you get started.
If you're looking to learn about climate tech in a collaborative environment, we recommend the 12-week Terra.do Climate Change Learning for Action boot camp course.
Many ClimateTechList users and climate tech founders have taken the course and met future employers and fellow founders through the course. ClimateTechList users get a 15% discount on the course. Details here.
These slack communities are great places to ask questions and meet other people interested in climate tech:
- Work on Climate, aka WoCl. Free, membership form for Slack group required, a few thousand active participants. Work on Climate also has an excellent wiki and free expert office hours. Here's a fast company article about the community
- MCJ Collective, aka MyClimateJourney. Membership form and a small fee for Slack group required, a few thousand active participants.
- Anecdotally, we have found MCJ to be a smaller but more experienced community, especially for founders (perhaps due to the fee required). Although, WoCl has more people. Best to join both :-)
- Jack Fritzinger has compiled an excellent list of all other Climate Tech communities here.
- Jonas Tobiassen of the Climate Finance Podcast has another list of Slack communities here.
- For university students and recent grads, College to Climate is empowering the next generation of climate professionals through its flagship Launchpad program, monthly meetups, and online Slack community. To learn more visit: https://collegetoclimate.co
- OpenDoorClimate is a directory of thousands of climate professionals making themselves available to chat with climate career seekers.
For in-person events, check out:
- Boston Climate Tech Newsletter: weekly grassroots/crowdsourced newsletter compilation of climate tech events in Greater Boston. Run by Steven Zhang, creator of ClimateTechList
- Colorado Climate Tech: Social and sponsored meetups to connect interested professionals with the mature and growing climatetech companies of Colorado, primarily in the Denver/Boulder area.
- New York Climate Tech Newsletter: weekly grassroots/crowdsourced newsletter compilation of climate tech events in Greater NYC.
- Portland: Climate Curious is Portland's monthly climate social club, connecting a vibrant community of entrepreneurs, activists, investors, and folks who just want to learn more about how they can get involved in addressing the climate crisis.
- Seattle Climate Tech: Monthly meetups for folks interested in or already working in climate, run by a rotating cast of community hosts.
- SF Bay Climate Tech Newsletter same as above, but for the San Francisco Bay area. Both NY and SF Bay Climate Tech are run by Alec Turnbull and Sonam Velani
For other cities, check out the geographic-specific Slack channels for MCJ and WoCl's Slack workspaces.
Email us us if you'd like to add your city's climate tech newsletter or meetup to this list.
Finally, here are our favorite resources for learning about the space:
- Read Speed and Scale from John Doerr
- if we had one go-to book to read on climate change mitigation, this would be it. John is a very well-known VC in Silicon Valley and popularized OKRs as a concept
- Listen to episodes in the My Climate Journey (MCJ) podcast - MCJ is our go-to climate tech podcast. They've interviewed almost all the top climate tech companies that have started in the last few years and have a good mix of policy and other non-tech experts in climate
- Climate Tech Careers
- an aggregator of various programs, job boards, and communities to help you start a career in climate
- The Clean Energy Transition, A Guide
- a trending hit in the climate tech community piece on positive second and third-order effects of a clean energy future
- Climate change (extreme risks) - 80,000 Hours- an in-depth analytical guide on the problem and solutions
- How to Save a Planet | Gimlet podcast if you want a non-tech perspective
