2021 - CAT & Anti-racism

June 2021


Ideas on how to do better:

  • In the past, we had a volunteer in a “community advocate” role, but (as far as I know) there haven’t been any code of conduct problems. And we never did a good job of letting people know that the role exists.

  • We (the organizers) have also talked about finding volunteer hosts/moderators to manage specific channels & to help people feel welcome/get involved. I think #introductions and the local channels would be great channels to start with.

  • We could actively recruit and collaborate with other community groups.

  • We need to make it clearer how people can get involved & take the lead (or start their own thing!) in CAT. Or maybe hire a real community manager.

  • Past CAT Salon on climate/tech/race

  • CoC update

  • Use tools that are accessible for many different locations / levels of access (e.g. people with less reliable access to internet – could they dial in with their phones? How can we collaborate across different continents?)


Questions to answer

  • How can we ensure our communities are a safe space?

  • How can we lift up voices of members in our communities that come from marginalised backgrounds or are at the frontlines of the climate crisis?


1 – What is your stance on BLM?

The CAT community supports the movement. In the volunteering team as well as a community we’ve been on a journey of continued learning about anti-racism and social justice. We created different spaces for anti-racism conversations and we recognise that our work is far from done. In the tech industry dialogue is often dominated by cis-het, white men and with a large amount of our members identifying with this group, it’s important to us to share resources, educate and ensure that we highlight a diverse set of voices in our community. As part of that we created a set of speaker ideas for our CAT Salon series.


2 – Do you have a Diversity and Inclusion Strategy?

Diversity & inclusion is part of our core community values. We operate an intentionally safe and inclusive environment at all times, for people of any gender, identity, ethnicity, religion, socioeconomic status and/or other possible historically exploited differentiators. Protecting this is, and will always be, core to our community value system.

To ensure privacy in our community, we follow the Chatham House rule and we have our code of conduct and a procedure in place if our code of conduct is violated.

Beyond that our volunteer organising team is in the process of re-working our theory of change which will influence future D&I strategy for the next 3-5 years.


3 – Do you have an internal anti-racism strategy/commitment?

Unfortunately the only commitments and strategies we currently have are spoken / not documented commitments (e.g. focussing on diversity in the speakers we invite to our events, ensuring that we offer events in both western- and eastern-friendly timezones, etc.). As part of the previously mentioned work on our theory of change we will be more focussed with the programmes we offer as well as the strategies with regards to anti-racism within those programmes.


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Past community statements & announcements

Asian Community Solidarity Statement (March 2020)

In light of the recent shootings in Atlanta, we wanted to say a few words:


ClimateAction.tech stands with our Asian community. We re-confirm our commitment to anti-racism and to create an inclusive community for climate action. Racism and violence are not and will not be tolerated here.


To the Asian members of our community, you are welcome here. If something makes you feel unsafe or like you’re not welcome — please reach out to any of us organizers (@mrchrisadams, @melissa, @asim, @HeatherB, @Sandra) so we can take action.


In the organizing team and as a community, we’ve been learning about anti-racism and social justice over the past year. We’ve had conversations in CAT Salons and shared resources in our #antiracism channel. We recognize that the organizing team is from the West and we welcome other voices and perspectives. Next we will be updating our values statement and we welcome any feedback & assistance. Keep an eye out for updates in our #2-general channel. Please join our #antiracism channel to share resources and what you’ve learned on your journey.


If you want to help, we recommend these actions:

  • If you are in a region where anti-Asian racism is happening, please take the situation seriously. Listen to voices from the Asian community

    • Diversify your feeds & lives (more on this on our anti-racism Outline page – log in with your CAT Slack details)

    • Consider whether those you know are often out in public and at risk for harassment. Is there a way that you can help?

  • Reflect on whether there is bias against Asians in your community or workplace. A breakdown of different biases, like the model minority myth and the bamboo ceiling, can be found on the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American website: We are not a stereotype.