We are Australia’s leading climate advocacy organisation for parents, carers, families and all who care about a safe future for kids. We educate and empower our supporters to make the climate safer for every child. Founded in 2019 by six regional, rural and urban mums in four states and territories, we’ve grown rapidly to fill a critical gap in the climate movement. We are a parent organisation, run by parents for parents.
• Our mission: We’re on a mission to empower millions of Australian parents to champion climate action within their communities, the media, business and politicians.
• Our vision: A safe climate for our kids to thrive
• Our community: Locally active and nationally connected. With over 17,000 supporters, and local groups in every state and territory, we represent families from across the political spectrum, in every Australian electorate, and from diverse socio-economic backgrounds.
Our approach
We are proudly non-partisan, solutions focused and we create inclusive, collaborative and safe spaces for parents to be empowered as climate advocates. Our political independence and relationship-building approach gives us the power to engage with all sides to build long-term cross-partisan support for climate solutions. We have established ourselves as the first point of entry for parents new to climate action, as well as the home of thousands of seasoned parent-advocates – many of whom started their journey with us. We make climate action possible and attractive for millions of parents who are too busy or hesitant to join other climate groups.
Our Unique Role: The Power of Parents
Parents are innately motivated to support issues in our children’s interest and we make decisions now to look after our children’s future. It’s our job. However, currently only a quarter of parents in Australia are already engaged in supporting climate action. A further quarter – around 1.68 million families – are concerned about climate change, but not active on the issue. Engaging this huge number of parents can shift the balance towards greater public support for climate action.
We empower parents to act.
Parents face particular challenges in expressing their concerns and being represented in decision making. Obstacles include a limited time to act, competing issue priorities, a lack of opportunities to engage, and a lack of support to engage whilst managing all of their existing responsibilities. Parents for Climate specialises in activating disengaged and disenfranchised parents by helping them overcome these barriers to action. And by growing the number of connected and engaged parents in strategic locations, we can build targeted pressure on elected representatives in state and federal parliaments.
Our impact record
Our Solar Our Schools campaign helped secure over $70M in funding for solar and batteries in schools across NSW, TAS and WA since 2020.
We secured the commitment of more than 135 federal election candidates from 20 different political parties and independents, including 22 elected representatives from both major parties and the crossbench, for our Solar Our Schools policy proposal.
Our local groups held 85 meetings with candidates ahead of the federal election, including 50 meetings in marginal electorates, to discuss Solar Our Schools.
Our local action groups engaged thousands across 45 events in the lead up to the federal election to raise the importance of climate action with communities and candidates.
We helped make climate a top priority for communities in our focus electorates, as demonstrated by a strong swing to parties with stronger climate policies.
Our parent spokespeople and campaign moments featured in over 100 media hits ahead of the 2022 federal election campaign.
State and federal politicians from both major parties have asked us to keep up our work, as it helps support them to push their parties for stronger climate policies.
Our values
All families, people and cultures belong in our organisation. We welcome everyone who cares about kids’ well-being. We value diversity of membership and views.
We use our limited time effectively and make work sustainable by supporting and nurturing each other and ourselves.
We are stronger together as a team, supporting each other with trust, kindness and respect. Every individual has an important contribution to make and celebrate.
We are family-centred. We make participation easy for everyone by understanding and accommodating people and their families.
We are strategic and use results to inform our actions and increase our impact.
We have a strong culture of respect, inclusivity and care
Who we are
Parents for Climate is a nationally registered charity. Our charitable purpose is the protection and enhancement of the natural environment and the provision of information and education about the natural environment, particularly in relation to climate change. Our core team of staff, Board and volunteers work remotely. However, we are locally active and nationally connected with over 17,000 supporters, and local groups in every state and territory. We represent families from across the political spectrum, in every Australian electorate, and from diverse socio-economic backgrounds.Additional information on our governance and charitable status can be found here.