When most people think about climate action, they think about emissions. How do we cut them? How do we hit net zero? And of course, emissions matter; scientists have been clear that reducing them is critical if we want a liveable future.
But if you’re an employee who wants to make a difference inside your company, emissions aren’t the most useful place to start. They’re an outcome, not a lever. The real lever is power.
As Martin Luther King Jr put it, “Power is the ability to achieve purpose.” Power isn’t a dirty word; it’s simply how change becomes possible. And right now, employees everywhere are waking up to the fact that climate action can’t be left to governments or NGOs alone. The workplace itself is one of the most powerful levers we’ve got.
But individuals, on their own, rarely shift company behaviour and power. That’s where organising comes in.
What is organising?
Organising is how we turn care into power. Harvard lecturer and social activist Marshall Ganz defines it as “leadership that enables people to turn the resources they have into the power they need to make the change they want.”
In a workplace, organising looks like employees standing together, articulating why they care, and coordinating collective action. Sometimes it’s something quieter, like putting together a business case for the organisation to shift to 100% renewable energy. And sometimes it’s louder, like filing shareholder resolutions or staging walkouts. There isn’t a single formula or playbook, and no one-size-fits-all approach.
Employee organising is also one piece of a much bigger picture. Companies exist within a web of relationships - connected to boards, investors, customers, suppliers, regulators, competitors, and culture at large. Each of these groups exerts influence in different ways, and real change happens when multiple pressure points are activated at once.
Employee organising adds a distinct and powerful layer to this mix. External actors (such as activists, shareholders, journalists, and policymakers) often push from the outside, while employees apply pressure from within. The two can act independently or, at times, in concert. When both are moving in the same direction, the effects compound: public scrutiny aligns with internal advocacy, and change becomes far harder to ignore or delay.
And employee organising isn’t just about power over – i.e. the formal authority that managers, executives, or boards hold. Power over shapes budgets, sets priorities, and often decides whether a proposal lives or dies. It’s real, and employees who want change can’t ignore it. In fact, much of organising is about learning how to influence, shift, or counterbalance that authority.
But there are other forms of power that are just as important, and these are the ones employees can grow for themselves. Power with is the strength that comes from acting collectively. Power to initiate is the ability to spark action that otherwise wouldn’t happen. Power to resist is the capacity to say no, to withhold consent, or to stop harmful practices. By building and combining these different kinds of power, employees can shift decisions that once seemed out of reach.
Why organising in companies matters
The first and most obvious reason that organising matters is that it works. History shows us that organised employees can achieve what seemed impossible when they acted alone. When thousands of Amazon workers signed an open letter and filed a shareholder resolution demanding a climate plan, the company produced one for the first time (alongside a number of other initiatives). These changes weren’t handed down from benevolent executives; they were won by employees who recognised their collective influence.
A second reason is speed. Left to their own devices, most companies will not move at the pace that science demands. Shareholder capitalism is designed to reward short-term profits over long-term resilience, which makes ambitious climate action a hard sell in the boardroom. Organising creates a counterweight to those pressures and gives employees a way to remind leaders that protecting the planet is not only compatible with business success but essential to it.
And then there’s the question of voice. A lone employee raising concerns about sustainability can easily be ignored, or told to stay in their lane. But when dozens or hundreds of people come forward together (signing a letter, attending a meeting, or backing a proposal) their influence multiplies. Collective action transforms individual frustration into a demand that leadership cannot easily dismiss.
Perhaps most importantly, organising matters because emissions do not change on their own. Behind every corporate climate pledge are human decisions: whether to fund a project, sign a supplier contract, or disclose lobbying activities. These decisions sit in the hands of people with power. Organising is the mechanism by which employees can shape those decisions, shift the balance of power, and ensure that climate targets are more than just words on a page.
Organising also doesn’t have to stop at the boundaries of one company. When employees in different organisations start sharing strategies, comparing progress, or quietly coordinating their demands, their influence multiplies. It creates a network effect - pressure building not just inside individual firms, but across entire sectors.
The essential ingredients
From the outside, organising can seem mysterious. How do groups of employees manage to influence the decisions of multi-billion-dollar companies? In reality, it usually comes down to a few simple ingredients that, when combined, create far more power than they appear to on their own.
The first is a group of people who care. Every movement starts with individuals who refuse to stay silent; in a workplace, these are the employees who look beyond their job description and recognise that their company has a responsibility to act. They may not hold senior titles, but what they bring is conviction - and that conviction is contagious.
The second is time and energy. Caring alone isn’t enough; progress requires some level of commitment. That doesn’t mean everyone has to dedicate evenings and weekends. Sometimes it’s as simple as showing up to a meeting, forwarding an article, or helping draft a proposal. Small efforts, multiplied across a group, can generate real momentum.
The third is diversity: not just demographics, though that matters, but diversity of skills, experiences, and relationships. A group of only sustainability specialists might have deep technical knowledge but miss the perspectives of finance, operations, or HR. When people with different strengths come together, their combined influence is far greater than the sum of its parts.
Top tip: How change cascades
Big shifts rarely start big; they spread through networks, one connection at a time. Research on social cascades shows that change accelerates when ideas travel through weak ties - i.e. the looser, cross-group relationships that link different clusters together.
The lesson for employees? Don’t only organise with the people you already know. Reach sideways and talk to someone in a different department, city, or company. Weak ties are often where strong movements begin! Check out Greg Satell’s book ‘Cascades: How to Create A Movement that Drives Transformational Change’ for more on this.
Learning to organise
Organising isn’t something you can master from a book or a training course. It’s something you learn by doing, out there in the real world. The ‘classroom’ is conversations with colleagues, the trial and error of setting up meetings, and the relationships that develop as you go. Progress rarely happens in a straight line, and that’s part of the point; it’s a practice that evolves over time.
In most cases, it starts small. You find a handful of people who share your concern and want to do something about it (see this One on One guide from 350 Seattle for tips on how to have these conversations). From there, the group needs to define a purpose: why it exists, what it hopes to achieve, and how it will hold itself accountable. With that foundation in place, the next step is to activate people: giving structure to the group, creating roles, and setting up working groups (in other words, building shared experiences that strengthen trust).
It’s worth noting that not everyone who cares deeply about climate issues sees themselves as an ‘organising figurehead’- and that’s okay. Every movement and organising effort needs different kinds of people. Some are natural connectors and mobilisers, while others are strategists, storytellers, analysts, or behind-the-scenes coordinators. Organising works best when these varied strengths come together. The goal isn’t to turn everyone into a rallying figurehead, but to help each person find their unique contribution.
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As this trust and confidence grows, so does ambition. The group might start reaching out to allies, crafting an elevator pitch, and building credibility with leadership. As they do this, they can start to formulate goals for their organising based on what the company is already doing (or not doing).
Achieving goals means looking beyond emissions metrics and identifying leverage points - the small interventions that create bigger systemic shifts. That might be pension funds, lobbying stances, or service contracts with fossil fuel clients (see here for an overview of the five goals that we suggest pursuing).
Then, it’s time for power mapping; figuring out who makes the key decisions, who influences them, and where the leverage points lie (you can learn more about how to do power mapping here). With that knowledge, employees can test tactics, escalate when necessary, and apply their collective weight where it matters most.
In practice, this doesn’t always unfold in neat stages. It’s messy and iterative, with setbacks and breakthroughs along the way. It can be both collaborative, and where needed, disruptive (see this guide for more details on the types of tactics, from cooperative to adversarial, that you can pursue). But the sequence shows how isolated concern can grow into coordinated power. You start with care, build purpose, activate people, and over time, you’re in a position to shape decisions that once felt completely out of reach.
Tip: Representation in your group
When forming your working group, think about the makeup of it. How representative of the demographics of your workforce is your group? Are you listening to all voices and taking their views to leadership? A lot of working groups are underrepresented by people of colour, Indigenous people, or non-binary folks. And yet the climate crisis tends to disproportionately impact exactly these communities. Those most impacted by the problem must have a seat at the table.
Invest time in relationship-building to create a diverse team, and to be intentional about how you’re organising. Your movement will only be stronger if it has diverse leadership.
Real-world examples
One of the clearest demonstrations of workplace organising comes from Amazon. In 2018, a small group of employees formed Amazon Employees for Climate Justice (AECJ), convinced that polite suggestions weren’t enough to move the org where it needed to go. Their first move was a shareholder resolution, quickly followed by an open letter signed by 8,700 colleagues. The actions drew headlines and reframed Amazon’s internal climate debate.
The group kept escalating: public appeals at shareholder meetings, mass participation in the 2019 Global Climate Strike, and bold defiance when two leaders were threatened with dismissal. Under mounting pressure, Amazon announced its Climate Pledge - a commitment to net-zero by 2040 and 100,000 electric vans. AECJ proved that organised employees, using both the power with of solidarity and the power to resist harmful practices, could force one of the world’s biggest companies to change course.
At Pinterest, climate organising looked different but was just as powerful. A lead client partner created PinPlanet, the company’s first climate-focused employee group. Rather than protest, they worked through culture, linking climate change to Pinterest’s mission of well-being and highlighting issues like climate anxiety that affect its users. By tailoring messages for different teams, from sales to design, PinPlanet made climate action feel relevant to everyone’s work. Over time, sustainability became woven into Pinterest’s identity, showing how cultural influence and storytelling can shift a company’s direction.
Another example outside the climate space is at Microsoft, where employee organising reached into one of the most politically charged issues of our time. In 2025, under pressure from employees and investors, Microsoft made the extraordinary decision to cut off the Israeli military’s access to its Azure cloud and AI services, after revelations that the technology was being used in mass surveillance of Palestinians. Worker-led groups such as No Tech for Apartheid and No Azure for Apartheid organised protests, petitions, and direct pressure campaigns that highlighted the company’s complicity. The move was unprecedented: one of the world’s most powerful tech firms withdrawing services from a military client because employees demanded accountability. It demonstrated the willingness of workers to make sacrifices, to risk retaliation, and to push their company to align its actions with its stated values.
Together, these cases highlight the spectrum of organising inside companies. Amazon shows the impact of disruptive resistance - employees using power with to act collectively and the power to resist to challenge harmful practices, forcing leadership to respond. Pinterest illustrates the quieter influence of cultural organising, where employees used the power to initiate to spark conversations and embed climate action into the company’s identity. And Microsoft demonstrates how sustained employee pressure can influence even the most formal power over structures. By combining solidarity (power with) and principled refusal (power to resist), workers managed to push one of the world’s most powerful corporations to end a military contract.
Each points to the same lesson: when employees act together, they can shift outcomes that once seemed immovable.
Top tip: check out the work of Drew Wilkinson, who helped build and scale Microsoft's first global employee sustainability community, organising employees to encourage the organisation to lead on climate.
Conclusion: Why start now?
The global climate clock is ticking, and the choices companies make in the next few years will shape the world for decades. Most organisations will eventually act, driven by regulation or market pressure - but speed and direction are still very much up for grabs. Employees have a role in shaping both.
In the article, we explored how emissions are what we measure, but power is what makes change possible. And organising is the way employees translate concern into power, making sure decisions reflect more than short-term profit and that the right things get prioritised. The good news is that it doesn’t take huge numbers to begin; even a small, committed group can shift how a company approaches climate and other social or environmental issues.
In sum? Organising is the way people who care, with limited time or resources, punch above their weight. It is how ordinary workers become a climate force that leaders can’t ignore. The real question is whether we are willing to wield it?
Are you keen to level up your organising skills to make lasting change at your company (and beyond)? 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.
