PLATINUM2025

The Change Climate Project

Choose climate leadership everyday

aka Climate Neutral   |   San Francisco, CA   |  http://www.changeclimate.org

Mission

The mission of The Change Climate Project is to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions by sparking high impact corporate climate initiatives. We administer a trusted climate action label for consumer brands, The Climate Label, and offer an accessible set of greenhouse gas management tools used by people to build awareness and support for climate action within their companies.

Ruling year info

2019

CEO/Secretary

Austin Whitman

Main address

548 Market St # 32099

San Francisco, CA 94104-5401 USA

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Formerly known as

Climate Neutral

EIN

83-3404014

NTEE code info

Management & Technical Assistance (C02)

IRS filing requirement

This organization is required to file an IRS Form 990 or 990-EZ.

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Communication

Programs and results

What we aim to solve

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

Global greenhouse gas levels are setting new records every year, and in response, net zero commitments have become a foundational piece of global climate strategy. This has given rise to several issues that we working to address. First, the expectations for climate action are often unclear and poorly communicated to individual stakeholders, and can be difficult to interpret, evaluate, and compare. Second, many businesses that wish to take action find themselves stumped by the complexity and intimidated by knowledge gaps. Building organizational budgets and expertise burns valuable time. Third, voluntary action requires a business case, which is often absent. Consumer preferences strongly favor climate action, so we work to turn it into a commercial incentive for consumer brands.

Our programs

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?

The Business Emissions Evaluator

The "BEE" is a low cost software tool accessible to any corporate user that greatly simplifies the complexity, reduces the time, and lowers the time it takes to calculate a brand-level carbon footprint and develop ways to reduce corporate emissions.

Population(s) Served
Adults

The Climate Label is a consumer label for climate action that enables consumers to identify products that come from brands that actively fund the climate transition through a mix of projects within their supply chain and around the world.

Population(s) Served
Adults

Where we work

  • Europe

  • North America

  • Oceania

  • United States

Our results

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.

Number of entities served by expertise

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Related Program

The Business Emissions Evaluator

Type of Metric

Output - describing our activities and reach

Direction of Success

Increasing

Number of carbon emissions mitigated (estimated by tonnes of CO2 equivalent)

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Related Program

The Climate Label Certification

Type of Metric

Outcome - describing the effects on people or issues

Direction of Success

Increasing

Number of US Dollars mobilized for the climate transition

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Related Program

The Climate Label Certification

Type of Metric

Other - describing something else

Number of national media pieces on the topic

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Related Program

The Climate Label Certification

Type of Metric

Output - describing our activities and reach

Direction of Success

Increasing

Number of US dollars spent on direct compensation

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Related Program

The Climate Label Certification

Type of Metric

Outcome - describing the effects on people or issues

Direction of Success

Increasing

Our Sustainable Development Goals

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

Learn more about Sustainable Development Goals.

Goals & Strategy

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.

Charting impact

Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.

-Get a trusted climate label on every consumer product
-Make consumers everywhere aware of the label and get them to choose it
-Make Scope 1-2-3 measurement universal practice for all companies
-Get all consumer brands to fund net-zero GHG reduction progress at a level that matches their emissions

We created The Climate Label and certification to inspire individuals and motivate businesses to measure their carbon emissions and fund climate solutions in an open, standardized, credible, and independent framework. Our roadmap spurs action by companies and translates clearly to consumers, and contains a set of accessible tools that are giving companies a way to accelerate climate action.
We do not certify long term pledges or actions that are limited in scope. Our certification is underpinned by three important program strategies:
1) Transparent measurement and certification technology tools. Our carbon measurement and certification platform makes it easier to calculate carbon footprints, and tracks companies throughout the certification process. We provide the same insights that large budget enterprise software-as-a-service companies offer, because we use many of the same data and methodologies, which are provided by public or non-profit entities. Consultants and software companies make money by presenting this data to users at a high cost. They have an incentive to make carbon measurement seem both more complex and mysterious than it actually is. Our approach is built around a commitment to openness, transparency, and accessibility.
2) With a multi-channel marketing strategy, we are building consumer awareness of the certification more effectively than other climate labeling organizations. We lead campaigns that run both direct-to-consumer and indirectly through our certified companies. We emphasize simplicity, clarity, and credibility in our brand identity, and we have built more consumer awareness in just two years than several of our closest peers have done in more than a decade.
3) Our volunteer-based sustainability service model. We have built the recruitment, training curriculum, and deployment model to supplement our team’s capacity with the skills of volunteers. This enables us to provide on-demand support throughout certification, which for many companies is the first step (and potentially the most overwhelming) in climate action. This type of attention is critical for keeping companies engaged in the process and minimizing attrition. The volunteer model allows us to provide high quality service cost-effectively. It also enables sustainability professionals to gain valuable experience.
4) A peer-to-peer network of climate professionals. We invite certifying companies to join an online community of peers to share knowledge and collaborate. We believe this information exchange will be an especially important way to ensure that companies are successful at developing and implementing future emissions reduction projects that have not yet been identified.

The team is led by our CEO, who has 17 years of experience working in climate and clean energy at state, federal, and international levels. His experience includes senior roles in finance, technology, and policy. Our staff of 7 people have backgrounds in sustainability, clean energy, and communications. Our Board of Directors brings deep marketing experience, knowledge of supply chains and manufacturing, and startup experience, as well as expertise in market-based climate protection. In addition to the core team, we have assembled two dozen advisors who have expertise in carbon markets, corporate sustainability, and climate.

Over 330 companies have achieved our certification, and we have directly catalyzed investment into over two million tonnes' worth of carbon credits.

We have helped close to two thousand companies develop a carbon measurement report.

We have mobilized hundreds of sustainability professionals to make climate change a pillar of their sustainability programs.

In the next 18 months we are planning to:

- Build the systems and scale to be able to support one million businesses over the next five years
- Drive increased consumer awareness of the power of climate action by businesses of all sizes, by creating tens of millions of consumer impressions, thus building market pressure on consumer businesses
- Expanding our resources and content available to help decarbonize products and supply chains with a particular focus on the opportunities and constraints faced by consumer businesses

How we listen

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

Seeking feedback from people served makes programs more responsive and effective. Here’s how this organization is listening.

done We demonstrated a willingness to learn more by reviewing resources about feedback practice.
done We shared information about our current feedback practices.
  • How is your organization using feedback from the people you serve?

    To identify and remedy poor client service experiences, To identify bright spots and enhance positive service experiences, To make fundamental changes to our programs and/or operations, To inform the development of new programs/projects, To identify where we are less inclusive or equitable across demographic groups, To strengthen relationships with the people we serve, To understand people's needs and how we can help them achieve their goals

  • Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?

    We collect feedback from the people we serve at least annually, We take steps to get feedback from marginalized or under-represented people, We aim to collect feedback from as many people we serve as possible, We take steps to ensure people feel comfortable being honest with us, We look for patterns in feedback based on people’s interactions with us (e.g., site, frequency of service, etc.), We engage the people who provide feedback in looking for ways we can improve in response, We act on the feedback we receive, We share the feedback we received with the people we serve, We tell the people who gave us feedback how we acted on their feedback

  • What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?

    We don’t have any major challenges to collecting feedback, The people we serve tell us they find data collection burdensome, It is difficult to find the ongoing funding to support feedback collection,

Financials

The Change Climate Project
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Operations

The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.

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lock

Connect with nonprofit leaders

Subscribe

Build relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.

  • Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
  • Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
  • Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations

Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.

The Change Climate Project

Board of directors
as of 8/22/2025
SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

Austin Whitman CEO/Secretary

Change Climate Project

Kate Paine

Posie Holmes

Lisa Rosen Director

Peter Dering Co-Chair

Posie Holmes

GE

Board leadership practices

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.

  • Board orientation and education
    Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? yes
  • CEO oversight
    Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? no
  • Ethics and transparency
    Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? yes
  • Board composition
    Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? yes
  • Board performance
    Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? Not applicable

Organizational demographics

Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.

Leadership

The organization's leader identifies as:

Race & ethnicity
White/Caucasian/European
Gender identity
Male, Not transgender
Sexual orientation
Heterosexual or Straight
Disability status
Person without a disability

Race & ethnicity

Gender identity

Transgender Identity

Sexual orientation

Disability

We do not display disability information for organizations with fewer than 15 staff.