Climate emergency

The climate leadership pledge has been created to support leaders who want to take meaningful, visible steps towards climate action in their organisations. It is offered as an open resource. You are free to use it in full, adapt or shorten it, and publish it on your own website or any other platform where you engage your stakeholders.

The pledge is designed to help you demonstrate – to your board, staff, partners, funders and the wider public – that your organisation recognises the urgency of the climate crisis and understands how it shapes your work. By adopting or adapting this pledge, you signal a clear commitment to responsible, forward-looking leadership and to contributing to a more sustainable future.

Use it as a starting point, a public statement of intent, or a framework for deeper action. What matters most is that it supports you to lead with integrity and purpose as we navigate the climate challenges ahead.

We thank CAFA for its support in developing this pledge. 

As a leader, I will:

• Acknowledge that the climate, extinction and biodiversity crises are systemic and advancing threats to the sector’s ability to create the impact it seeks
• Acknowledge that the climate and nature crises are a major source of risk for our sector’s beneficiaries and stakeholders – including increases in the severity and frequency of extreme weather events, disruptions to food and water security, economic losses, damage to physical infrastructure and natural capital, health disorders, and interstate conflict
• Acknowledge that the climate and nature crises have already and will continue to disproportionately affect certain groups, including people living in the global south, people from marginalised communities, people of colour, people living in poverty, and disabled people
• Champion the need for ambitious leadership within the voluntary sector in light of our commitment across a range of causes to improving outcomes for people, animals, and the natural world
• Speak publicly and confidently about the climate, supporting campaigns asking policymakers for change.
• Wherever possible, I will contribute to these campaigns with expertise from the communities we serve, to build an intersectional picture of the impact of climate breakdown
• Commit to sharing and learning alongside peers in the sector, taking time to review our actions and the changing situation and adapt collectively
• Publish an annual update on my organisation’s progress against climate and nature commitments, including successes and barriers, on our adaptation to risk, our contribution to climate & nature preservation, or both
• Understand how climate breakdown intersects with our mission and charitable objectives, and use this knowledge to inform the choices we make about our strategy, services, contracts, communications and campaigns
• Seek board level support to embed climate justice in our work, and update trustees on this work on an agreed timescale

Tools and templates, provided by ACEVO, our partners, and other charities to support you and your organisation to take climate action.

• Blogs by members, staff and sector experts about the climate crisis and what civil society has been responding to it. 
• Case studies: This is in response to feedback that examples of good practice inspire leaders to act, and provide helpful information about where to start. We hope that this positive messaging will provide a range of ideas about how you can approach climate action. Although the series has started, we are keen to keep it going for as long as possible – so please fill out the form and send it directly to heloisa.righetto@acevo.org.uk. If you don’t have time to fill in the form, no problem – email Heloisa and she will arrange a 30-minute session to understand your actions and write up a case study for you. Once you have approved this, we will publish it as part of the blog series.

In September 2024 we hosted our first-ever Climate week! Throughout the week, together with civil society leaders, we published content and hosted events across different platforms. Check it out.