THE CHALLENGE
Bill Weihl knew firsthand that ignoring the environmental impacts of corporate actions could be devastating. He grew up in Cincinnati, where chemical spills decimated the Ohio River, and where it was risky to go outside in the summer due to factory emissions.
After getting into tech, he realized that he didn’t need to sit by and watch. “Climate change was an existential crisis that seemed so much more important than what I was working on,” Weihl said. He pivoted in his work to focus on sustainability.
The Solution
He first started these efforts at Google, where he was their clean energy czar, and brought clean energy for its data centers and helped found the Climate Savers Computing Initiative. Then he worked as Facebook’s director of sustainability.
Then, in 2020, he founded ClimateVoice. The organization works with current employees and college students entering the job market to urge companies to go “all in” on climate, and be vocal proponents of caring for the planet. The company also works to educate executives on how to use their lobbying power and public statements to do the world good, and track corporate and trade-association climate policy engagement.
THE IMPACT
More than 1,000 sustainability professionals have signed the ClimateVoice Pledge so far. The group also hosts dozens of events, panels and webinars a year on corporate political responsibility and the need for strong climate policy advocates.
Weihl has become an internationally recognized expert on how corporations can play a positive role in climate change efforts, and despite having ALS, continues to speak via AI-assisted technology to both younger workers and powerful executives, globally.
“Within a few years, I’d like to see ClimateVoice educate many thousands of employees at large companies, as well as hundreds of journalists, and have them encourage and pressure companies to support climate policies everywhere they operate,” says Weihl.
Bill Weihl
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