Executive Summary
Mozilla is a mission-driven organization that creates privacy-respecting products and strives to help make the Internet a “healthier, happier place for everyone.” Mozilla is made up of a passionate workforce that values environmental stewardship and launched an internal Environmental Champions program in 2020 to take a grassroots approach to increasing Mozilla’s sustainability.
To accelerate the progress of the Environmental Champions program, Mozilla partnered with 3Degrees to equip participants with the necessary tools to take action within their respective business units.
3Degrees conducted a series of nine training and discussion sessions for the Environmental Champions,engaging participants in conversation on the following resources:
- The context required to critically consume sustainability-related news and continue learning from it over time
- The tools and education needed to identify opportunities to reduce emissions across Mozilla
- A framework to seek approval for sustainability projects
- Recommendations on how to build internal buy-in for proposed projects
The program generated a compilation of peer-derived ideas and sustainability themes to jumpstart climate action from within Mozilla. The Environmental Champions who participated stated that they completed the educational series feeling more optimistic about our shared climate future.
Read the full case study below.
Background
Mozilla consists of the non-profit Mozilla Foundation and for-profit Mozilla Corporation, which serves the public benefit goals of the foundation by making privacy-respecting products (like Firefox) that help make the Internet a “healthier, happier place for everyone.” Mozilla is made up of a passionate workforce that values environmental stewardship, accountability, and transparency on both the corporate and philanthropic sides of the organization.
Because of employees’ desire to take action to reduce Mozilla’s environmental impacts, in 2020 Mozilla launched an internal program called the Environmental Champions, with a mission of empowering employees to increase sustainability both at Mozilla and in their own lives outside of work. The Environmental Champions self-select and commit “to set positive examples and highlight sustainability as a catalyst of innovation” within their own teams. Mozilla partnered with 3Degrees, a certified B Corporation that holds similar values, to accelerate the progress of the Environmental Champions program in equipping employees to take climate action, specifically.
Challenge
The Environmental Champions all shared a common interest in driving sustainability impact, but they came from various departments at Mozilla, were located all over the world, and held varying degrees of existing sustainability knowledge. The diversity of participants required 3Degrees to create interactive sessions that covered foundational information while also providing opportunities for Champions to test and apply their knowledge. 3Degrees also offered discussion prompts, extensive supplementary resources, and office hours sessions to give the Champions opportunities to delve further into topics of interest and explore how their expertise might set them up to take certain climate actions and develop initiatives in their respective departments.
“As someone with little previous knowledge around sustainability, I found the 3Degrees training to be insightful and easily digestible. The team did a great job of translating complex concepts/information into easy to understand presentations. The team also did a great job of applying concepts to our company’s business model and emissions.”
— Daniela Barbera, Mozilla Environmental Champion
How We Helped
Education
3Degrees conducted a training series for the group on corporate climate and sustainability action made up of five educational sessions, coupled with office hours sessions for Champions to engage in deeper discussion. The training sessions focused on the following topics:
- Foundations of climate science and climate action
- Frameworks and tools for corporate sustainability and climate action
- Measuring and reducing greenhouse gas emissions
- Climate justice, digital rights, and environmental policy
- Sustainability at Mozilla
3Degrees provided pre-read materials ahead of the sessions and supplied extra resources following each session, giving Champions access to in-depth learning from credible sources. These supplementary resources also empowered the Environmental Champions to effectively conduct conversations with colleagues and others outside the program about needs and opportunities for climate action.
By growing their familiarity with key sustainability concepts, terms, and frameworks, the Environmental Champions were better equipped to consume and interpret climate-related news, respond to climate denialism, consider criticisms of climate action, and identify emissions impacts and reduction opportunities related to their roles at Mozilla.
Engagement
Throughout the education sessions, 3Degrees first provided context about climate action and emissions reductions, then challenged the Champions to brainstorm various ways each member could take action and drive meaningful sustainability improvements from within their current role.
Next, 3Degrees developed a framework for the Environmental Champions to formally propose new sustainability initiatives, gain approval for dedicating time to them, and build internal buy-in to support implementation of their ideas. This framework served as the foundation for a lively final brainstorming session, during which the Environmental Champions discussed ideas for real projects they could pursue individually or in teams to advance sustainability at Mozilla.
Those project ideas included initiatives like:
- Offering thoughtful, sustainable incentives for employees who voluntarily increase their personal or work-related sustainability – such as using renewable energy at home, improving energy efficiency at home, or unplugging devices before leaving the office for the weekend – and collecting data on these initiatives’ impact.
- Optimizing business travel to reduce emissions, either through knowledge-sharing (e.g., developing a tool that enables travel planning to minimize emissions) or an incentives program.
- Leveraging Mozilla products to collect and publicly share high-quality educational resources to increase climate awareness, such as credible articles on climate and sustainability topics, the emissions impacts of using the Internet in different ways, or certain web-based products’ sustainability metrics.
The Environmental Champions stated that they completed the educational series feeling that the project ideas they had generated together were a reason to be more optimistic about our shared climate future.
“This training was a great opportunity to meet with colleagues who share the same concerns about climate change and willingness to fight against it in the workplace. It combined great content with interactive sessions, allowing us to apply the knowledge we acquired to the context of Mozilla as well as building a sense of community.”
— Titouan Thibaud, Mozilla Environmental Champion
Results
The full package of materials – the training sessions in combination with the supplementary resources, office hour discussions, project brainstorming, and sustainability project proposal framework – gave the Environmental Champions a jumpstart to work on projects to help Mozilla move forward on sustainability. Key takeaways for Champions included:
- The context required to critically consume sustainability-related news and continue learning from it over time
- The tools and education needed to identify opportunities to reduce emissions across the Mozilla organization
- A framework to seek approval for sustainability projects
- Recommendations on how to build internal buy-in for proposed projects
- A list of peer-derived ideas and sustainability themes to jumpstart climate action from within Mozilla, upon the training series’ conclusion.
“Sustainability requires a complete 360 degree approach to be fully successful and to yield positive impact. There needs to be commitment from leadership, a reciprocal exchange of information and expertise from the outside into the organization and vice versa. Last, but certainly not least, there needs to be grassroots engagement from within the employee population. We consider our Mozilla Environmental Champions partners in making the right decisions around sustainability in the most inclusive ways. The 3Degrees Program is an investment in our Champions and in our ongoing progress and success.”
