Governments have failed to mitigate climate change and waited too long to act. Today, it’s nonprofits that are at the forefront of this fight. Meet some of the most inspiring of them.

Tech To The Rescue launched the #TechForClimate campaign to unite leading nonprofits and tech companies to develop impactful pro bono solutions to help mitigate climate change. We want to highlight inspiring climate organizations whose actions are changing the world.

We also invite all climate-related organizations to join us and receive high-quality pro bono tech help. Submit your project here if your focus is in one of the following areas: Climate Education, Renewable Energy, Carbon Removal, Emissions Reduction, Clean Transportation, Air Quality, Forests/Rivers/Oceans/Land Conservation, Drought and Flood Mitigation, Wildlife, or similar.

Meet non-profits that are fighting climate change

Impact area: Clean energy, emissions reduction

1. WattTime

With WattTime, energy customers have the freedom to choose the power they consume. This is possible by WattTime’s software that automatically tracks the actual emissions impacts associated with electricity use—both in real time and with ahead-of-time predictions—enabling people to use and charge devices and appliances at times when our electricity is the cleanest.

2. The Clean Air Task Force (CATF)

The Clean Air Task Force (CATF) is an international nonprofit that promotes technical and policy change for the climate. The NGO’s mission is to push the change in policies and technologies needed to get to zero-emissions at an affordable cost. CATF conducts energy systems analysis, works with other nonprofits to litigate clean power cases in the U.S., and conducts climate outreach and education.

3. HEET

A nonprofit seeking to reduce fossil-fuel emissions, which is working with two of the US largest natural-gas utilities to install and test networked heat pumps in neighborhoods, in the hopes of scaling the technology. Its mission is to cut carbon emissions by driving systems change, and facilitate transition from natural gas and fossil fuels to renewable energy.

4. RMI (Rocky Mountain Institute)

RMI is a nonprofit founded in 1982 that transforms global energy systems through market-driven solutions to align with a 1.5°C future. The organization works in the world’s most critical geographies and engages businesses, policymakers, communities, and NGOs to identify and scale energy system interventions that will cut greenhouse gas emissions at least 50 percent by 2030.

5. International Solar Energy Society (ISES)

ISES is a UN-accredited non-profit dedicated to the advancement of the utilization of solar energy and the transformation towards 100% renewable energy. It was founded in 1954, and is active in 110 countries worldwide today. ISES aims to help its global members provide the technical answers needed to accelerate the transformation to 100% renewable energy.

6. Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL)

An international organization that works in partnership with the United Nations and leaders in government, the private sector, financial institutions, civil society and philanthropies to drive faster action towards the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG7) – access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all by 2030.

7. Solar Impulse Foundation

Solar Impulse Foundation is an environmental non-profit known for its round-the-world flight in an entirely solar powered plane completed in 2016, as well as the Solar Impulse Efficient Solution label awarded to 1000 solutions that are both profitable and good for the planet. The foundation is dedicated to improving the quality of life on Earth by fast-tracking the implementation of clean and profitable solutions to encourage decision makers to adopt more ambitious environmental targets and policies.

8. The Green Web Foundation

A nonprofit organization that’s developing tools and an open database to measure the carbon emissions of websites and cloud services to try to help speed up the transition to a fossil fuel-free internet by 2030. The organization’s objective is to run at least 80% of the internet on renewable sources of energy.

9. EnergyTag

An energy-focused startup with a mission of accelerating the shift to renewable energy. It wants to help to drive investment in technology needed to decarbonise energy grids through 24/7 energy tracking.

10. Instrat

A think tank based in Poland and focused on the local energy sector using open energy data to drive policy debate and a just transition to net zero. Poland remains massively reliant on coal-fired power stations for energy generation but this startup says it’s developing a one-stop shop for the local energy sector data “to prove that a coal-based economy is unprofitable in the short-term and absolutely unsustainable in the long-term”.

Impact area: Carbon accounting, carbon removal

11. Climate Neutral

Climate Neutral is a non-profit with a mission to decrease global carbon emissions, helping brands measure and offset their entire carbon footprints, and reduce future emissions. Their Climate Neutral Certified label helps shoppers weigh the climate impacts of the brands they buy.

12. Carbon180

Carbon180 works to fix climate change by facilitating a broad portfolio of carbon removal approaches (also known as negative emissions technologies) through policy development and advocacy, as well as business engagement and innovation support. The nonprofit’s mission is to create a world that removes more carbon than it emits.

13. 350.org

One of the largest global movements addressing the issue of climate crisis. The organization’s goal is to transit to renewable energy by building a global, grassroots movement. The 350 in the name stands for 350 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide (CO2), which has been identified as the safe upper limit to avoid a climate tipping point. 350.org wants to reduce the current level of 421 ppm CO2.

14. The Climate Foundation

The Climate Foundation is dedicated to educating and empowering people to balance carbon on land and sea on a global basis. The organization focuses on developing agricultural use of biochar to sequester gigatons of carbon for millennia, balancing carbon in the oceans by restoring natural processes at work for eons to reduce carbon in surface waters, and reversing coral bleaching on high-value coral reefs to preserve portions of these ecosystems during the high-temperature decades to come. It encourages and facilitates the adoption of renewable energy for electricity and transportation in place of fossil fuels throughout the world.

Impact area: air quality

15. Open AQ

A non-profit organization empowering communities around the globe to clean their air by harmonizing, sharing, and using open air quality data. OpenAQ aggregates and harmonizes disparate air quality data into a single format so that more people can access the data for more impactful purposes.

16. Q Air Foundation

A non-profit organization that supports disadvantaged and underserved communities, which are disproportionately affected by adverse environmental conditions. It seeks to promote environmental justice by helping to improve access to air quality data, environmental literacy, and providing technology solutions to those unfairly affected by pollution as a result of socio-economic or racial factors.

Impact area: Forests 

17. Rainforest Foundation US

Rainforest Foundation is a non-profit NGO working in Central and South America. It is one of the first international organizations to support the indigenous peoples of the world’s rainforests in their efforts to protect their environment and fulfill their rights to land, life and livelihood. For almost 30 years, the Rainforest Foundation has helped communities protect over 33 million acres of forest.

18. Cool Earth

Cool Earth is a UK-based international NGO that protects endangered rainforest in order to combat global warming, protect ecosystems and to provide employment for local people. It backs local communities to fight climate change. In 2015, it was named Charity of the Year in its category at the Civil Society Media Charity Awards and best International NGO at the PEA Awards. It is supported by various celebrities including Professor James Lovelock, Dame Vivienne Westwood, Kelly Hoppen, Ricky Gervais, and Sir David Attenborough.

19. Rainforest Action Network

Rainforest Action Network preserves forests, protects the climate and upholds human rights by challenging corporate power and systemic injustice through frontline partnerships and strategic campaigns.

20. Rainforest Alliance

The Rainforest Alliance is an international non-profit organization working in more than 60 countries at the intersection of business, agriculture, and forests. By bringing diverse allies together the organization is pursuing a deep-rooted change on some of our most pressing social and environmental issues.

21. Project Canopy

A non profit that’s aiming to become “the data broker for the Congo Basin Rainforest” — a forested area that spans 2.5 million sq km over six countries and is the world’s largest tropical carbon sink — by applying machine learning to parse satellite imagery in order to be able identify illegal logging activity in real time. The startup’s goal is to be able to provide rich, real-time analytics to local policymakers, conservation groups, NGOs, etc. so they’re armed with actionable intelligence to combat deforestation and biodiversity loss.

Impact area: land, rivers, and water conservation

22. Justdigit

Justdiggit works with local communities and partners to restore dry land. Proven regreening techniques include rainwater harvesting (digging bunds), tree restoration (Kisiki Hai / FMNR), and developing grass seed banks. Currently Justdiggit is re-greening an area the size of the Netherlands (40,000 km2) in Kenya and Tanzania but aims to impact millions of smallholders throughout sub Saharan Africa.

23. Restor

Restor is an open data platform to support and connect the global restoration movement. The organization connects people and projects to scientific data, monitoring tools, funding, and each other to increase the impact, scale, and sustainability of these efforts.

24. Well Done Foundation

The Well Done Foundation (WDF) is a United States-based non-profit environmental organization that plugs abandoned oil and gas wells, preventing methane emissions from being released into the atmosphere.

25. Drip by Drip

Drip by Drip is an organization dedicated to the wastewater problem in the textile industry. It was founded in 2018 by a network of experts from the fields of water resource management, textile production, fashion design, communication and development economics. The organization’s goal is to transform the industry and protect our natural water resources from abuse and pollution.

26. Restore The Earth

Restore the Earth Foundation, Inc. is a nonprofit with a mission to restore the Earth’s essential forest and wetland ecosystems. The foundation has helped to reforest over 100,000 acres along the Gulf Coast damaged by Hurricane Katrina.

27. The Carbon Underground

The Carbon Underground is an organization that focuses on creating the tools, alliances, and opportunities to achieve scale at efforts proven to draw down carbon and mitigate the climate crisis. It promotes regenerative agriculture at scale to help reverse the climate crisis.

Impact area: wildlife conservation

28. Wildlife Conservation Society

Best known as the nonprofit that runs the Bronx Zoo and aims to conserve the world’s largest wild places in 14 priority regions. It is working in 60 nations around the world on more than five hundred projects designed to help protect both wildlife and the habitats in which they live. These projects range from the conservation of gorillas in Africa, tigers in Asia, and macaws in South America. In recent years, WCS has actively worked in conflict areas like Afghanistan, South Sudan, and Myanmar, where agreements on wildlife resources have contributed to peace and stability.

29. The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)

The World Wide Fund for Nature Inc. (WWF) is an international non-governmental organization founded in 1961 that works in the field of wilderness preservation and the reduction of human impact on the environment. It’s the world’s largest conservation organization, with over five million supporters worldwide, working in more than 100 countries and supporting around 3,000 conservation and environmental projects. WWF aims to “”stop the degradation of the planet’s natural environment and to build a future in which humans live in harmony with nature.”” WWF has launched several notable worldwide campaigns, including Earth Hour and Debt-for-nature swap, and its current work is organized around these six areas: food, climate, freshwater, wildlife, forests, and oceans.

30. BirdLife International

BirdLife is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. Its priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding important sites for birds, maintaining and restoring key bird habitats, and empowering conservationists worldwide.

Impact area: Oceans conservation

31. Seas at Risk

Seas at Risk is a European association of non-governmental environmental organizations working to protect and restore to health the marine environment of the European seas and the wider North East Atlantic. It acts as a political and technical platform intervening for environmental groups at international political meetings, as well as at governments’ legal meetings.

32. Ocean Conservancy

Ocean Conservancy (founded as The Delta Corporation) is a nonprofit environmental advocacy group that helps formulate ocean policy at the federal and state government levels based on peer reviewed science. Its goal is to promote healthy and diverse ocean ecosystems, and to oppose practices that threaten oceanic and human life. Through several program areas, Ocean Conservancy advocates for protecting special marine habitats, restoring sustainable fisheries, reducing the human impact on ocean ecosystems and managing U.S. ocean resources.

Impact area: Food security

33. World Food Programme

The United Nations World Food Programme is the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. It is the world’s largest humanitarian organization, saving lives in emergencies and using food assistance to build a pathway to peace, stability and prosperity for people recovering from conflict, disasters and the impact of climate change.

34. Food and water watch

Food & Water Watch is a non-governmental organization group which focuses on corporate and government accountability relating to food, water, and corporate overreach. Resulting issue areas include stopping fossil fuels and fossil fuel extraction, regulating factory farms, advocating for renewable energy, fighting water privatization, stopping bad trade deals, increasing transparency in our food system, and standing up for human rights.

Impact area: general. Umbrella organizations acting for climate, climate education and advocacy.

35. Climate Cabinet Education

The organization which built the largest database of local climate action in the US, tracking voting records for 5,000 decisionmakers, and over a million other data points from clean energy jobs to public health impacts and policy decisions. It uses data and networks to identify critical leverage points, and get key players the resources they need – at scale.

36. Friends of the Earth

Friends of the Earth is an international network of environmental organizations in 73 countries. It focuses on environmental issues, highlighting their social, political and human rights contexts. The priorities are economic justice and resisting neoliberalism; forests and biodiversity; food sovereignty; and climate justice and energy.

37. Evergreen Collaborative

Evergreen Collaborative is a policy advocacy group that advocates for policy proposals while working alongside like-minded environmental organizations. It seeks to influence Congress, the Executive Branch, and federal agencies to create the blueprint to defeat the climate crisis and build a clean energy future through actionable, ambitious policy proposals.

38. Conservation International

Conservation International (CI) is an American nonprofit environmental organization whose work focuses on science, policy and partnership with businesses, governments and communities. CI has helped support 1,200 protected areas and interventions across 77 countries, protecting more than 6 million square kilometers of land and sea.

39. Climate Action Network Europe

Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe is Europe’s largest coalition working on climate and energy issues. With over 140 member organizations in more than 30 European countries, representing over 44 million citizens, CAN Europe works to prevent dangerous climate change and promote sustainable climate and energy policy in Europe. It empowers civil society organizations to influence the design and development of effective climate change policy in Europe, both in the European Union as well as in its Member States and in European countries outside the EU.

40. European Environmental Bureau

The EEB is Europe’s largest network of environmental citizens’ organizations that brings together 180 member organizations from 38 countries. EEB stands for sustainable development, environmental justice & participatory democracy.

41. Mediterranean Information Office MIO-ECSDE

An organization that acts as a technical and political platform for the intervention of NGOs in the Euro-Mediterranean scene on resources and waste, nature, biodiversity, cultural diversity, climate change, health and environment as well as on horizontal and cross-cutting issues.

42. Health and environment alliance (HEAL)

The Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL) is the leading not-for-profit organization addressing how the environment affects human health in the European Union (EU) and beyond. HEAL works to shape laws and policies that promote planetary and human health and protect those most affected by pollution, and raise awareness on the benefits of environmental action for health.

43. Transport and environment

Transport & Environment (T&E) is Europe’s leading NGO campaigning for cleaner transport. Transport & Environment (T&E) vision is a zero-emission mobility system that is affordable and has minimal impacts on our health, climate and environment.

44. Green 10

The Green 10 is a coalition of ten of the largest environmental organizations and networks active on the European level. It works to ensure that the European Union protects the climate, the local environment, biodiversity and human health within and beyond its borders.

45. Greenpeace

Greenpeace is one of the best known environmental organizations whose network comprises 26 independent organizations in over 55 countries across Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia and the Pacific. It focuses its campaigning on worldwide issues such as climate change, deforestation, overfishing, commercial whaling, genetic engineering, and anti-nuclear issues. It is known for its direct actions and has been described as one of the most visible environmental organizations in the world.

46. The Global Footprint Network

The Global Footprint Network was founded in 2003 and is an independent think tank originally based in the United States, Belgium and Switzerland. Its aim is to develop and promote tools for advancing sustainability, including the ecological footprint and biocapacity, which measure the amount of resources we use and how much we have. These tools aim at bringing ecological limits to the center of decision-making.

47. Earth Island Institute

Earth Island Institute is a nonprofit environmental organization and fiscal sponsor to more than seventy-five projects working in the areas of conservation, energy and climate, women’s environmental leadership, international and Indigenous communities, sustainability and community resilience, and more.

48. The Climate Reality Project

The Climate Reality Project is a non-profit organization involved in education and advocacy related to climate change. The Climate Reality Project came into being in July 2011 as the consolidation of two environmental groups, the Alliance for Climate Protection and The Climate Project, both of which were founded by Al Gore. Among its activities, The Climate Reality Project hosts an annual event called 24 Hours of Reality.

49. Earthworks

Earthworks is a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting communities and the environment from the impacts of irresponsible mineral and energy development while seeking sustainable solutions. It exposes the health, environmental, economic, social and cultural impacts of mining and energy extraction through work informed by sound science.

50. Climate Cardinals

Climate Cardinals is an international nonprofit working to translate climate change research and information, making the climate movement more accessible to those who don’t speak English. The organization aims to educate those who are unaware of climate change and provide them with information on how they can help combat the crisis.

Other impactful organizations 

51. Earthjustice

Earthjustice is a non-profit public interest law organization dedicated to protecting the magnificent places, natural resources, and wildlife of this earth, and to defending the right of all people to a healthy environment. The foundation ensure that those who jeopardize the health of the planet are held accountable to the law. We work tenaciously to preserve our natural heritage, safeguard our health, and promote a clean energy future.

Earthjustice has nine regional offices, an international program, and legislative policy and communications advocacy teams. We hire the best and brightest who share our passion for justice and a healthy environment for all people.

52. Green Cross International

Founded by President Mikhail Gorbachev in 1993, GCI (www.gcint.org) is an independent non-profit and non-governmental organization that works to address the interconnected global challenges of security, poverty eradication and environmental degradation through a combination of high level advocacy and local projects. GCI is present in some 30 countries and has its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.

53. Extinction Rebellion

Extinction Rebellion (XR) is an activist-led global network of nonviolent civil disobedience, creativity and regenerative culture, operating to address the climate and ecological emergency. Through climate activism, XR aims to awaken society to the scale of the emergency and demand governments and other institutions take the bold action necessary to avert it.

54. Indigenous Environmental Network

Established in 1990, The Indigenous Environmental Network is an international environmental justice nonprofit that works with tribal grassroots organizations to build the capacity of Indigenous communities. IEN’s activities include empowering Indigenous communities and tribal governments to develop mechanisms to protect our sacred sites, land, water, air, natural resources, the health of both our people and all living things, and to build economically sustainable communities.

55. La Via Campesina

La Via Campesina is an international movement bringing together millions of peasants, small and medium size farmers, landless people, rural women and youth, indigenous people, migrants and agricultural workers from around the world. Built on a strong sense of unity, solidarity between these groups, it defends peasant agriculture for food sovereignty as a way to promote social justice and dignity and strongly opposes corporate driven agriculture that destroys social relations and nature. Currently, it comprises 182 local and national organizations in 81 countries from Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas.

56. Oceanic Global

Oceanic Global is an international nonprofit that consults on sustainable operations, and engages local communities to generate measurable impact for our collective wellbeing. It is also the creator of the Blue Standard—a first-of-its-kind cross-industry standard offering open-source resources, step-by-step auditing and consultation, consumer-facing seals, and buying deals with vetted vendors to help businesses eliminate plastics and operate sustainably.

57. Our Kids’ Climate

Our Kids’ Climate is a dynamic network of 58 parent groups from 23 countries around the world, deploying diverse organizing strategies to push for bold climate action.

58. Project Drawdown

Project Drawdown presents 100 solutions for humanity to reach climate drawdown, the point at which greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere begin to decline on a year-to-year basis. Project Drawdown’s research and analysis includes the work of a broad coalition of researchers, scientists, graduate students, PhDs, post-docs, policy makers, business leaders and activists to assemble and present the best available information on existing climate solutions in order to describe their beneficial financial, social and environmental impact.

59. Sunrise Movement

Sunrise is a movement of young people uniting to stop the climate crisis. The organization’s aim is to make climate action an urgent priority in every corner of the country, expose the fossil fuel executives who have purchased politicians and blocked progress, and elect a people’s government to pass an agenda for our health, home, and future.

60. Autonomy

An independent think tank developing tools and research to tackle climate change, the future of work and economic planning — with the goal of generating data and policy solutions to underpin the shift to sustainable jobs and just, green transitions

Do you know a nonprofit that should also be on this list? Are you a nonprofit acting in the area of climate and need tech support? Register at Tech To The Rescue and submit your project. You will find all information about the ongoing #TechForClimate campaign here.

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