The 2020 rollercoaster: between exhaustion and success
The good thing about 2020? It is almost over.
It has been difficult and disruptive and I can’t count the times where I was just so exhausted, tired, frustrated, sad, angry, exasperated — at the world, at isolation, lockdown, the emotional drain, anything and everything.
Yet, as I wrote a brief recap for my colleagues at Mozilla to reflect on all the things we achieved in terms of sustainability, I suddenly had to sit back and realise that though I may be emotionally and mentally exhausted, I am also incredibly proud of what we’ve been able to pull off. And not just because of 2020. These achievements would be successes in any circumstance. Thank you to everyone who contributed and helped put us on track!
The Mozilla Environmental Sustainability Programme at a glimpse
We launched in March 2020 and in collaboration with people from across the organisation set ourselves a strategy with 3 main goals:
- reducing the impact of our organisation where possible, mitigating the impact we can’t avoid,
- training and developing our staff to build with sustainability in mind, and
- awareness raising, internally and externally.
Having never done Greenhouse Gas emissions (GHG) assessments before, we learned so much by developing a clear and concise Data Management Plan that not only adheres to Mozilla’s privacy policy and lean data practices but also identified data and information gaps, necessary tooling and access rights to develop a GHG inventory. Internally, we worked closely with the Legal and Trust teams as well as Data Engineering, while in addition we recruited and onboarded expert consultants to help with the technical and strategic requirements.
Once the foundations of the programme were in place:
- We organised and participated in the Global Digital Climate Strike.
- There’s a growing glossary of terms and ideas to help us navigate this space.
- We announced our efforts publicly, sharing strategic goals and the principles we set for ourselves (be humble, open, optimistic, opinionated).
- A first cohort of Environmental Champions joined us in June 2020.
- Thanks to a fantastic collaboration with the Mozilla Hubs team, you can now take virtual tours through the Museum of the Fossilized Internet.
- As part of our GHG assessment the Sustainability team worked with over 60 individuals and also ran a Commute and Remote Work survey that 500 people took the time to respond.
- In August, we launched a sustainability speaker series, that so far has featured talks on how to develop a climate strategy, climate justice and the role of business, and climate misinformation, as well as a few internal lunch&learns.
- In September, we kicked off the wrangling and curation process for MozFest 2021 that for the first time ever will also feature a sustainability space.
- A second cohort of Environmental Champions joined us in November.
- The release of Mozilla’s 2019 GHG baseline report was definitely a milestone.
In 2021, we will
- pledge our climate commitments publicly.
- work with each department on their implementation plans to meet reduction targets.
- engage our Environmental Champions more visibly, connecting experts and ideas to drive change.
- publish our 2020 GHG assessment and evaluate our progress to inform ongoing reduction targets.
- continue our awareness raising efforts and build out more co-design and collaboration processes for all staff.
And in the meantime, we ask people to think about potential action items
- How can we strengthen our remote culture and incentivise an even more sustainable set-up?
- How can we adjust our travel criteria and limit travel to necessary-only?
- What about making all Mozilla catered food locally sourced and vegan?
- What steps would we need to take to achieve zero waste in Mozilla spaces?
- Are there tools that can support us to be a paper-free organisation?
