MY WORK
I work for Planet Earth but provide consulting services for employee engagement through the Climate Leadership Collective, helping organizations make sustainability part of everybody's job. I work with employers to create top-down programming to engage the entire workforce in sustainability, and with employees to create bottom-up initiatives to make every job a climate job. I weave together elements of change management, leadership development, communities of practice, and green skilling to transform sustainability from an operational task driven by a single team, into a cultural value every team and employee feels responsible for and empowered to contribute to.
With 10 years of experience in sustainability from nonprofits to Big Tech, I bring the unique ability to work directly with CSOs and other senior leaders and dig into the weeds with everyday employees, drawing from my lived experience. I spent 7 years at Microsoft where I co-founded the company's first global employee sustainability community and grew it to 10,000 members - one of the largest and most influential green teams in the world - while cementing its status as a central part of the company's sustainability strategy. In a past life, I was a singer in a punk band and an eco-pirate, sailing the ocean with Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.
BLOGS
What I Learned From Getting Laid Off, a March 2024 blog outlining my journey from getting laid off from Microsoft, to how I started my own consulting business, with lessons learned along the way. Deeply personal, a little spicy, and arguably funny, this is a side of me you don’t see professionally as often.
ClimateVoice: Connect the Dots, a Jan 2024 newsletter that outlines the critical role employees can play in ensuring their companies align their climate policy positions and advocacy with their sustainability commitments.
Inside Job: Crafting Climate Careers Without Changing Employers, an original blog from Jan 2024 that shares practical tips any employee can use to advocate for more sustainability resources in their company to create climate job opportunities.
Employee Engagement for Sustainability, an original blog from November 2023 that explains the importance of engaging all employees in a company’s sustainability efforts.
The Critical Role of Employee Sustainability Communities and How to Build One, an original blog from April 2023 that explains the importance of employee sustainability communities and shares best practices on how to run them effectively.
Make Sustainability Part of Everybody's Job, an original blog from February 2022 that explores why sustainability should be a part of everybody's job and how to make it happen.
Plastic Free Oceans 2: A Hackathon project with Microsoft and The Ocean Cleanup, a blog from 2019 outlining a multi-year Hackathon project I ran with TOC to help them use technology to rid the world’s oceans of plastic pollution.
PODCASTS
How a punk-rocking paralegal harnessed employee power to green Microsoft, a 30 min podcast from Degrees via the Environmental Defense Fund about my journey into creating my own climate job and empowering thousands of others to find their path.
Coffee & Change: Climate Change and Essential Activism with Drew Wilkinson, a 1 hour podcast going deep on my journey from the underground punk scene to the heights of corporate sustainability and what the experiences have in common.
Powered by the People: It Rarely Hurts to Ask, a 40 min podcast oral history of how the Microsoft employee sustainability community was founded.
FEATURETTES
Meet the Seattle punk rocker who wants your boss to take action on the (fastcompany.com)
Climate at Work: The Power of Community Organizing Masterclass video
Climate at Work: Building Impactful Workplace Sustainability Communities video
"We don’t give up easily. ‘No’ doesn’t intimidate us.", Microsoft Life article
Drew Wilkinson followed his dream in pursuing Microsoft Hackathon project video