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New to climate tech? Our favorite climate tech resources and communities

by Steven Zhang · updated Jul 10, 2024

New to climate tech? Here are some resources to help you get started.

Courses

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.

Terra.do climate bootcamp

Virtual communities

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.

In-person events

For in-person events, check out:

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.

Articles, books, & podcasts

Finally, here are our favorite resources for learning about the space:

  • Climate Solutions + Climate Careers offers a systematic, analytic sector-by-sector overview of climate solutions, with links to articles, podcasts, and resources organized by emissions sector, and curated databases of startups working in sectors and sub-sectors
  • 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