CROWDSOURCING SUSTAINABILITY

About Crowdsourcing Sustainability

Who is This Site For?

Crowdsourcing Sustainability is for anyone who:

  1. Understands how dangerous and imminent climate change is.
  2. Realizes the path society is on is unacceptable.
  3. Wants to do what they can to help!

If you want to help reverse climate change you’re in the right place!

We are a community of people from around the world united by a cause that’s way bigger than any one of us. Whether you want to learn about climate change and sustainability, share your knowledge and stories with others, get inspired, or connect with people who share your vision of a better world, you can do it here.

The best way to join the movement and be a part of our quickly growing community is to sign up for the weekly email, “What on EARTH?!” and begin exploring the “Essential Ideas” posts.

How does it work?

It’s simple! Crowdsourcing Sustainability combines the collective energy, intelligence, and actions of people around the world to crowdsource more sustainability into the world.

All of our content focuses on one of two things:

  1. Understanding the problem (climate change).
  2. Ways to effectively solve it (sustainability).

How did this get started?

After working in cleantech for a few years I left my job to explore the world for a bit. I was ready for a change, love traveling, and wanted time to grow and figure out what to do next. Before leaving, my friend Greg asked me to write an article on sustainability for his new blog.

Now, I should mention my “professional” goal is to help eliminate as much greenhouse gas emissions as I can, as quickly as possible. So, I was pretty stoked about the idea of writing an article on sustainability. I had A LOT to say – way too much for one article. Over the course of my trip, the idea evolved from a single article to starting a blog, to finding a way to start crowdsourcing sustainability into the world by unleashing the power of individuals everywhere. But it was still just words in my journal.

Hi! I’m Ryan Hagen – the sustainability nut who dreamt this whole thing up. I love games, space, awesome people, learning, think life is precious, and am going to stop talking about myself now because it makes me super uncomfortable 🙂

Fast forward six amazing months in Southeast Asia and I found myself low on money in Australia. I had a decision to make. I could either find a job in Australia and continue my adventure, or I could stop to focus on building the sustainability community I’d been thinking about for months – although I had no idea how to make a living doing it (and still don’t).

Ultimately, I knew I’d regret it if I didn’t at least try to build the community. Climate change is going to cause millions of people an unbelievable amount of suffering, and I (humbly) believe that what I have to say is valuable in our efforts to reverse climate change. I figured in the worst case scenario my work would only be seen by my friends and family, and that alone would be worthwhile.

So, I listened to my heart and went for it. I decided to try to bring this dream to life!

…in other words, I flew home and moved back in with my parents.

Why am I worth listening to?

I do my research, ask the experts when I have questions, and only write what I can reasonably defend. That being said, there’s no way I can be perfect (duh). But, when I inevitably do mess up, I’ll own it and fix it because I want to be accurate. Actually, I need to be accurate for this community to grow – so if you see anything questionable, please let me know!

I’ll be the first to admit (proudly) that I’m still learning new things about climate change and sustainability every day. But after studying it in college, working in cleantech for three years, and, most importantly, having devoured countless books, articles, podcasts, scientific papers, lectures, events, and documentaries in my free time out of sheer curiosity over the last five years – I have a pretty decent handle on the subject. I can teach you enough to be dangerous 😉 And for those who know stuff I don’t, I’ll be thrilled to learn from you!

As I said before, I’m trying to help eliminate greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as possible. If you like the sound of that, you can watch the adventure unfold here. You’ll see the good as well as the “bad”, and I’m sure we’ll have some fun along the way!

I hope you’ll join me and, much more importantly, the Crowdsourcing Sustainability community on this critical journey to reclaim the future!

A great way to get involved is by signing up for the brief email that I send out every week (check it out below!). And if you’d like to learn more about Crowdsourcing Sustainability, head on over to the “Why & How” page.

What on EARTH?!

A fascinating, concise, and generally uplifting email on sustainability and climate change. Each one has 5 categories:

Exciting
Alarming
Random quote
Take a sustainable action
Highlighting someone awesome

I won't send you too many emails - that'd be annoying and a lot of work. Powered by ConvertKit