Recent Achievements

Fund the City CAP Campaign

Our goal was to successfully implement the Charleston Climate Action Plan, and we saw two major choke-points blocking implementation: staffing and project funding.
We fought for some key budget requests from the Office of Sustainability to be funded, such as:
- Sustainability & Resilience Grant Writer - $70k a year
- Communication and Community Engagement Manager - $60k a year
- Compost Program Expansion - $20,000
- EV Charging Expansion - $70,000
- Tree Survey - $400,000
We organized partners and our members to send letters and emails to council in support of the budget items, got 1-on-1s with council members to secure their support, and showed up to the City Council meeting preceding the budget vote to get our asks over the finish line.
In the end, all of these requests were approved!

In 2021, we passed a Charleston County Climate Action resolution with Councilman Middleton calling for a community-centered, equity-based Climate Action Plan. Now, the County is working on its CAP!

We’re proud of the climate activist community we’ve helped build in the few years we’ve been active.
We hold monthly meetings on the last Wednesday of every month to keep members engaged and involved, featuring action sessions and guest speakers.
We hold the yearly event the Surge Sessions, a night of TED-esque talks from local climate experts, leaders, artists, and changemakers.
We hold the yearly event Tour de Earth Day, a bike ride around downtown Charleston featuring many local partners and urban ecostops such as gardens and creeks.
We collaborate with the environmental community, boosting actions from partner organizations like Charleston Moves, Coastal Conservation League, Conservation Voters of South Carolina, and more.
We collaborate with the justice community, working with partners like Charleston Black Lives Matter and the Lowcountry Action Committee through the People’s Budget Coalition.

In 2021, we passed a Climate Action Resolution in James Island. This year, they installed solar panels on their municipal buildings as a direct result of the resolution.
We helped spread Charleston’s compost dropoff program to Isle of Palms.
We rallied support behind the Mt. Pleasant GREEN Commission.

We’ve been publishing the Lowcountry Climate Magazine, Surge, since 2022. Issue 5 was recently released in partnership with Charleston City Paper, significantly multiplying our impact.

The program is meant to promote and facilitate sustainability in our local businesses, through data & action, education, communication, connectivity, and a registry.
We’re aiming to move as many businesses as we can up the ladder of sustainable practices, as well as recognize and lift up businesses that are leading in the field.
We want to be a resource for consumers looking to reward sustainability as well as leading local businesses towards matching the City of Charleston’s goal of 56% GHG emission reduction by 2030

We’re collaborating with CCL on a radio show for Ohm Radio highlighting local visions for an aspirational, eco futurist Lowcountry.

We’re developing the Environmental Justice Profile (EJP), a comprehensive accounting of EJ issues a community can face, what mapping and measuring tools are available for diagnosing them, and ultimately, working with communities on appraising their EJ challenges and organizing for solutions.