ClimateVoices Featuring Van Riker

In this issue, I’m pleased to be talking with Van Riker , who has been a marketer at Microsoft for almost 10 years and recently became the Engagement Lead for the company’s 10,000-member, global employee network called the Sustainability Connected Community (SCC) founded in 2018. Most recently, Van was honored as the inaugural winner of the Bill Weihl Award for “Climate Action At Work.” The purpose of these awards is to honor individuals who have used their climate voice and demonstrated an outstanding commitment to advocate for climate policy, both inside their company and in organizing their peers to raise their voices.

Van has demonstrated ongoing leadership by spearheading a campaign to urge Microsoft to leave the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and to lead on climate policy. He educated his colleagues about the Chamber’s ongoing climate obstruction and mobilized his peers to sign an Escape the Chamber petition. He raised awareness by posting information through various internal forums at Microsoft and having 1-1 conversations with fellow employees. In addition, Van delivered multiple presentations about this campaign inside the company and helped organize several in-person and online events. These efforts helped spur Microsoft to conduct a public audit of its trade association memberships.

Microsoft has a vibrant employee sustainability community with almost 10,000 members. Why did you join this group originally and what was the personal tipping point where you switched from being a passive member, to an active volunteer? 

Let me first say Microsoft is doing a lot and dedicating a lot of staffing and resources to the climate fight and I am grateful for that and their support of the employee led sustainable community (the SCC). I am proud to work for a company that is a committed leader on sustainability, especially at a time when we need all hands on deck.

I’ve been working at Microsoft for almost 10 years on digital stores. Previously I had a long career in the music business which included being an early employee at Rock the Vote. We helped reverse the trend of 18-24 year olds not voting and worked to get the Motor Voter bill passed. That was truly a once in a lifetime experience. I definitely subscribe to the idea that you are either part of the solution or part of the problem. 

With Microsoft and the employee sustainability community (SCC), I had been curious about getting involved, but I could rarely attend community meetings with day job responsibilities. The opportunity to volunteer for the Escape the Chamber campaign seemed like a great jumping off point and in addition to gaining a lot of knowledge, Over the past year and a half, I’ve been energized by interacting with a lot of brilliant people who are trying to do good things both within Microsoft and the outside world. That’s who I want to be aligned with and I am thankful to all the people who built the SCC platform (especially co-founders Drew Wilkinson and Holly Alpine (née Beale) ) as well as those that lead now. I have been especially energized by my co-lead on the Escape the Chamber campaign Yulia Broyhill .

Recently, I applied for a position on the SCC, as I wanted to be a catalyst for the community, and they ended up making this new position for me at the Engagement Lead. I’m working to create new connections with our community and am launching a campaign in the new year around Strength & Inspiration to highlight sources of knowledge and share insightful media, music etc. as well as individual campaigns and projects that members are working on. I believe that we all need to feel inspired and connected more than ever. 

In December, I also had the fantastic opportunity to be part of a ClimateVoice forum with members of other sustainability groups from companies like Pinterest , Meta , Google , and LinkedIn . I’m looking forward to sharing information, best practices, and learning from these colleagues and bringing that back to the SCC and Microsoft.

At that particular forum, I was also  fortunate enough to be introduced to Katherine Markova from Climate Interactive and their En-ROADS tool, an amazing climate action simulator. I am finding the tool fascinating and I’m in the midst of their online training with the hopes to present this to other employees at Microsoft as well as publicly.

Before volunteering for ClimateVoice’s Escape the Chamber* campaign, were you aware of how the U.S. Chamber of Commerce obstructs climate policy? How did you learn more about this issue and what tactics have you used to educate your colleagues?

*Escape the Chamber campaign

After meeting with ClimateVoice about this project, my eyes were opened. I was unaware of the Chamber's vast influence and their consistent anti-climate, fossil-fuel led agenda. The first step was educating other employees on this topic. We shared a website that was customized for Microsoft employees in the community, presented during monthly calls, and used the SCC forums to further the discussion. After some time, we also brought the ClimateVoice team in to present directly to employees, answer their questions, and had a highly engaged session. 

The vision has been to get Microsoft employees to sign the petition urging Microsoft to leave the Chamber and lead on climate policy. Once the word spread, we listened to the community and tried to address concerns and questions about signing the petition. 

Even though the Chamber is a U.S. based trade association, we are also engaging our international colleagues in this campaign. We want to build an inclusive and intersectional movement here, and given the Chamber’s vast influence, what happens in the U.S. has implications for global climate policy. We need our global colleagues to raise their collective voices and sign our petition. Some of our new volunteers are from Costa Rica, Ireland and India and they have seen the direct impact of the climate crisis in their community.

In a clear sign that you are having an impact, Microsoft leaders heard your concerns and conducted a first of its kind trade association audit*, which they released a year ago. Why was this an important win, and what do you want the company to do now?

*Microsoft's Trade Association Audit (January 2024)

Acknowledgement of our misalignment with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is a big step. The first step. When Microsoft publicly recognized the misalignment between our sustainability mission and the Chamber’s it was encouraging to see the company take this public stance. This kind of public challenge is fairly unprecedented.

Now we need to follow up and leave the Chamber. As previously stated, it’s been proven over time that the Chamber is only giving lip service to its members who support climate policy while opposing climate action on behalf of their fossil fuel constituents. Senator Whitehouse (RI) says it fairly succinctly, “The Chamber continues to be a menace to climate safety, and any company that considers itself a responsible actor on climate should take a serious look at whether its trade associations are fueling climate and economic catastrophe.”

I know other companies look at Microsoft as a leader. I hope if we exit the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, others will join us and use their collective influence to push forward positive action in the climate fight. 

I am truly hoping in the new year Microsoft will do so and create inertia with other companies that may have been on the fence or are already aligned with Microsoft and will partner with us.

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to tell my story. I appreciate the legacy and passion Bill Weihl has provided in the climate fight and love ClimateVoice ’s mission and vision.

Keep up with ClimateVoices – an online Q&A penned by leading climate thinkers and doers. Follow ClimateVoice to stay in the loop when additional interviews are published monthly.

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The opinions and views expressed in this interview are solely those of the individual(s) being interviewed. They may not reflect the views, policies, or positions of ClimateVoice, the employer(s) of the individual(s) being interviewed, nor of any other organizations with which the individual(s) being interviewed are affiliated. This interview is intended for informational purposes only and should not be interpreted as an endorsement or official statement on behalf of such employer(s) or organization(s).