Let’s say you’re a group of employees who care deeply about climate change, and your company isn’t doing enough. You have identified specific areas where if changes were to be made, it would make a significant difference - because it would reduce company emissions in a big way, and / or it would send a far-reaching signal to other companies in the sector, to your customers or other stakeholders.
You’ve tried going to individual leaders and making your case for change - but change is hard, and so far your efforts have not been met with enthusiasm.
If you're keen to persist and hold your company to account, there are a number of tactics to get your company to listen. One of these is writing a letter to management. In this article, we explore how well-crafted letters can be an effective medium to make companies accountable for and achieve meaningful progress on climate-related issues (and more) at your company (and beyond). We look at both internal and open (public) letters - when to use one or the other, how to go about writing a powerful letter, and distribute it far and wide so it drives your desired outcome.
You can learn more about building collective power and how to use your job to accelerate climate solutions at work in our playbook here.
Pre-requisites for writing a letter
Groups decide to write letters, not individuals. So before getting your pen and paper down, you need to build your sense of a cohesive group, and have a shared purpose.
As a group, you need to have a conversation about how much people are willing (and able to) take risks. From there, you can start collaborating on drafting the letter. The letter itself can be used as a tool to bind your group around your shared purpose and help the group formulate your ask. It is also a way for management to understand what they are dealing with ; it makes visible the size of the group that wants change.
What’s the purpose of a letter?
Letters as a tactic generally have a dual purpose:
- Achieve your goal (or make progress towards it)
Letters usually work better when there is a single objective (or “ask”) associated with them. A helpful framework for setting your goal is SMART objectives. A SMART objective is:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Relevant, and
- Time-Bound (best to choose an objective that can be achieved in 6 months to a year)
- Build collective employee power within the company
Letters are a great way to build collective power. Signing a letter is (relatively) easy, so that’s an easi(er) way for people to get involved, and once they’ve signed they are now invested in your campaign, so you can keep them engaged for future actions. And, the more people who add their name to your letter, the more it shows leadership how many people care about the issue and the importance to act.
Internal or public?
At some point in the process you will need to decide whether to keep your letter internal or go public with it, and whether the signatories' names will be disclosed or not - especially if you go public.
An internal letter is a tactic that sits on the more “collaborative” side of the climate leadership toolkit. When the company explicitly and publicly wants to do the right thing, keeping things internal is probably the best place to start. The letter can be addressed either to the CEO directly, or to senior leaders in various departments. You can try to organise meetings off the back of the letter, to find common ground and productively address the issue, or to get leadership to address the issue at a company all-hands. This approach can be summarised as “politely making trouble”.
If leadership doesn’t respond adequately, the open letter can be an escalation tactic.
The official definition of an open letter is “a published letter of protest or appeal usually addressed to an individual but intended for the general public.” Open letters can be very effective. Some have changed the world.
In our context, an open letter is a letter written by a group of employees, addressed to senior leadership but shared with the media in order to reach a wider public audience. Employees have used them to get employers to take action or take a stance on a range of issues from diversity & inclusion, AI risks, AI military use, RTO policies, climate change, and more.
If you do decide to go public with your letter, you will need to be upfront about this with people, so they know what to expect and can make an informed decision about putting their name on the letter.
Though being public can provide some level of protection against retaliation because there is safety in numbers, there is always an element of risk. Make sure that you acknowledge this, and have open, honest conversations about this with employees. Never minimise someone’s fear and feelings about risks.
Steps for launching your letter
1. Get together
Have conversations with people who think and feel the same way as you do. Or, if you have already organised into a group, talk about drafting a letter.
2. Formulate your ask. To get to the core of your problem, try an exercise called “6 times why?” Every time you have to describe your 'problem', ask why it needs to be solved. Then, try to get to a doable request, an actionable ask (SMART), and a timeframe for action. You don't want rumours to circulate when you're still in draft mode.
3. Start a draft
Start a shared document and draft your first letter. Make sure it's a safe space for collaborative online working. Work with each other on several iterations until you are all happy with the result. Think about who the management can contact as the sender of the letter.
4. Decide on your distribution mechanism
Have a conversation about whether you would sign this letter and how many people minimum would need to sign it for you to feel 'safe', ie. not suffer retaliation. Think about how the letter should be sent. It needs to be digital for many people to sign). Whose email account? (is there an employee who is leaving? How will you get signatories?
5. Engage your allies
Start/continue with one-on-one conversations with allies, people you know feel the same and see if they are willing to sign (we notice that raising this during lunch breaks, outside the office helps at first). If yes, write to other organised groups in the company - like ERG groups, works councils or green teams. If not, consider whether it needs another iteration.
Agree on a minimum number of signatories before sending and confirm this with signatories.
6. Start collecting signatures
Make sure you return to people for signatures as more people sign. Give people a deadline to sign to make sure it doesn't get shared before you're ready to send!
7. Get ready to send.
Once you've reached your minimum signatories - get ready to hit send. Be available if management does respond.
Tips and best practices for impactful letters
- Make it personal. Employees from Immediate Media wrote and handed in a letter - along with a copy of the “Uninhabitable Earth” by David Wallace-Wells - to their CEO to ask him to consider what the company could do to address the growing climate crisis.
- Balance logic and emotions. Rational arguments and a story. Presenting really well crafted arguments, backed with data and insights is important. But equally important is building a story. A helpful framing for this is the Story of Self, Story of Us, Story of Now. More information about this framework here.
- If going public, protect yourself ; avoid disclosing confidential or sensitive information.
- If you’re considering going public, give leadership the opportunity to act before you hit publish.
Examples of employees open letters on climate-related issues
SBTi staff and a controversial carbon offsets policy
In April 2024, a group of employees at climate standards-setting organisation SBTi circulated a letter to protest the organisation’s board decision to allow companies to use carbon offsets towards net-zero targets. The letter was signed by an "overwhelming majority of SBTi staff”; it stated that the move was not backed by science (which is somewhat ironic for an organisation called “science-based targets initiative”), demanded the statement be withdrawn, and called for the CEO’s resignation over the controversial plan. It was shared with sustainability publication Greenbiz.
A few months later, SBTi CEO stepped down, and the organisation backtracked on the policy.
McKinsey consultants do not want to enable the world’s largest polluters
In 2021, more than 1000 McKinsey employees released a letter calling on the firm to stop advising fossil fuel companies on further expanding their businesses. The letter prompted the firm to respond with a memo and agreed to discuss the firm’s direction on climate change. The consulting firm found itself once again in the spotlight in 2023 for its role at COP28 pushing the interests of its big oil and gas clients.
Amazon employees for climate justice
In 2019, more than 8,000 Amazon employees signed an open letter urging Jeff Bezos and the board to adopt a climate plan that matched the scale of the crisis.
The letter marked a turning point: it was the first time such a large group of Amazon workers had publicly challenged leadership on climate grounds. Soon after, Amazon announced its Climate Pledge, aiming for net zero carbon by 2040. While far from perfect, the campaign showed how employee pressure could push one of the world’s most powerful companies to act.
Read more about the AECJ group’s story here.
Googlers
Inspired by their Amazon counterparts, a group of Google employees sent a letter to CFO Ruth Porat asking for a commitment to net zero emissions by 2030 and to cancel contracts with fossil fuel companies.
Are you part of an employee sustainability group and wondering how to accelerate your impact? Why not check out our new Climate Leadership playbook, sign up for our next Academy cohort or join one of our free online workshops to gain the skills, confidence, and community to turn your climate ambition into impact that lasts.
Are you working on an open letter to your company, or have published one? We’d love to feature your action - get in touch with us at info@workforclimate.org
