Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
Justin Hardin is the Co-founder and CTO of Climatebase, which describes itself as the #1 place for climate employment. In this fireside chat, Justin dives deeper into the inspiration behind building one of the most popular climate jobs boards on the internet and how diversity plays a role in the climate space.
Here’s what we’ll cover:
As one of the platform’s leaders, Justin is helping communities around the world make climate their career.
Editor’s Note: This fireside chat took place in 2021. Any details referencing Climatebase reflects the state of the platform within that year.
How did you become interested in sustainability and climate change?
Before Climatebase, I was an engineer for 6-7 years. I grew up with the default knowing that climate change is an issue. I didn’t understand why people were still debating it, but I had a fatalistic attitude. I originally thought there was not much humans could do to solve the problem.
I realized it was a matter of perspective. We tend to approach climate at a policy level, but I saw others looking at it from a product level—like Tesla convincing people to drive a car that emits less carbon. Seeing other organizations working to take action against climate change inspired me to also work on this problem.
How has your upbringing influenced your thinking?
Being involved in different communities and always trying to learn influenced my thinking. I grew up in the Bay Area and I’ve always learned externally. I was able to see two sides of the coin: 1) how are people trying to survive and 2) how are people improving the world? My experiences sparked my interest in trying to make an impact on climate at an organizational level and making those opportunities accessible.
What is Climatebase and how does it work?
As of now, we are a free, online jobs and employment platform. We are working on getting organizations on board, manually auditing them, and posting any climate jobs on our website. We segment the organizations based on Drawdown Solutions.
We view Climatebase as a resource for employment and for anyone who is curious about the work that is being done within the climate space.
How did Climatebase start off?
We’re taking all the skills we’ve learned from the tech industry and bringing them into the climate space.
Before Climatebase took off, our co-founder, Evan, was transitioning jobs and wanted to work for climate companies. He took the traditional job-hunting route (through LinkedIn, Indeed, etc) and realized that these types of jobs were difficult to filter. He started generating a spreadsheet of organizations specifically in the climate space, which later blossomed into a career fair, a job fair, and eventually, the Climatebase platform.
We wanted to create a solution for people who want to take action at work, but still need the financial capacity to support their lives. That’s why we decided to focus our solution on employment.
What inspired the Climatebase team to focus on creating a job platform and improving the pipeline to climate careers? How did you settle on this idea as a solution to climate change?
Finding a career is one of the biggest challenges our generation is facing and I believe it’s important to make it easier for people to access job opportunities.
We have a lot of people in the world who want to make an impact on climate, but also need to support themselves and their families. Not everyone can work on a passion project, so we want to help connect these people to amazing organizations and help them make an impact in the climate space.
How do you curate companies for your platform?
We are manually curating organizations to verify that all information is credible. This involves researching the organization's website, funding status, etc.
In the beginning, we originally Googled around. Now, organizations can sign up for an account with us, which allows us to verify them before they’re able to post a job. We’re able to do our research based on their account details.
At this time, there’s no other way than to manually curate, even if we scale in the future.
Who is your audience?
Our initial audience was a climate tech audience because that’s the easiest people we could reach first when launching a tech product. However, my vision down the line is to reach out to the everyday person and get them on board. It’s not just people who are the most tech savvy that will solve this problem. The future isn’t just tech employees—it’s going to take everyone.
How do you approach early community building, especially for people looking for jobs in the social impact space (ie. a space that might not be the norm in job hunting)?
We want our community to be anchored and our current anchor is employment. We give people the opportunity to interact through profile customization and events. For instance, people can make personal profiles like Linkedin to share information about themselves and build their network.
How can we expand climate career opportunities to people who are struggling financially and who may not have the luxury to fully commit to solving climate change?
It’s important to consider the following: How can we tell someone who is trying to pay next month’s rent that they should worry about a problem like climate change?
Framing the problem as a worry is probably not helpful. We need to frame it as an opportunity. Instead we should ask: What can they do in their community to help the situation?
If people have the luxury and privilege to work on climate, they should use that to empower others. For example, people in the tech industry are comfortable financially, but they don’t know how to make a difference. They may be inclined to undervalue their skills; however, they can create solutions that can be broadcasted to many people.
I acknowledge that even though climate change is a universal problem, many people have other worries and priorities that make it difficult for them to think about climate change beyond a surface level.
What is your experience in diversity in climate? How do you see yourself bringing in your diversity?
It’s an objective fact that the climate space is predominantly white. Given my background, I’ve never felt afraid of being in a room with people who are different from me. I understand that’s not always the case with every person.
The climate space still has a lot of work to get more people involved. I see myself and Climatebase doing more outreach and elevating marginalized voices on the platform. This can show that every individual regardless of race and identity can be a part of the change as well. We need to show diverse communities that opportunities are available to them as well.
What tips or observations for people trying to get climate jobs?
Everyone has their own skills that can be transferred into climate companies. Skills can include design, software engineering, communications, etc. Sometimes passion can help you stand out, but skills really help you differentiate yourself from others.
What is your future vision for Climatebase?
The long term vision is to become a centralized place for the everyday person who is googling how to make an impact on climate change. Moving forward, we envision getting more people involved and making a solid community on our platform passionate about action on climate change.
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