Sophia Kianni, Founder, Climate Cardinals; Youth Advisor, UN Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change
Interviewer: Lindsey Stanberry, FORTUNE

Impact Initiative 2022 - Translating Climate Activism 

Conferences

Okay, so english, maybe the international language of business and science. But if you're one of the billions of people in the world who doesn't speak english, how do you access uh critical information uh about things like climate uh enter climate Cardinals and international nonprofit with thousands of volunteers that translate climate information you know into over 100 different languages. We're gonna ask the 20 year old founder about the importance of that of getting non the non english word out. And we're also gonna dive into her work as a U. N. Youth advisor, please welcome to the stage. Sophia Kiani, founder of Climate Cardinals Youth advisor to the U. N. Uh in conversation with fortunes Lindsay Stansbury. Welcome. It's so excited to have you here. You are so impressive. 20 you're a junior at stanford. You are on the U. N. Advisory council. The youngest member, correct. Um can you tell us about climate cardinals and what you what you're doing? Yeah, of course. Uh So climate Cardinals is a nonprofit that I founded when I was a senior in high school and it was inspired by my experiences growing up visiting Iran when I was in middle school. So both of my parents are from Iran and I grew up visiting my grandmother's house in the summers and after my sixth grade class on climate change when I went back to Iran, I was really looking at the situation through a new lens where I realized that the air pollution there that was hospitalizing thousands of people was really a symptom of the climate crisis and that temperatures in the Middle East were rising more than twice the global average. Um and even more horrifying was the fact that my relatives didn't know anything about climate change or global warming. They had never heard those terms. And part of it was because there was a lack of resources available in Farsi, which is Iran's native language. So I worked with my mom to translate climate resources into Farsi so that I could teach my relatives about climate change, which is how I came up with the idea for climate cardinals. So you're all over the world translating climate literature into all different languages. How did you get started doing this? How did you mobilize such a huge audience? Well, initially I started out by volunteering with some of the largest grassroots climate organizations in the world. So I worked with Greta's Fridays for future and extinction rebellion and I realized that pretty much all of those organizations only had their resources available in english. Um and with my experience in Iran as well, in my senior year of high school, I decided to work with a few of my friends to launch climate cardinals. Um and we actually ended up launching on Tiktok and on the very first day that we launched our launch video went viral and it reached a couple 100,000 people and we had over 1000 people signed up to work with us. And so now three years later we actually have had over 9000 young people with an average age of six, sign up to volunteer with us, but it was really always kick started because of social media and because we were able to use Tiktok and instagram and all of these organic marketing campaigns, $0. And I'd spent to reach hundreds of thousands of people. That's amazing the power of social media, right? I want to open it up to the audience. Um if anyone has any questions, um you know, the media paints a very wide picture of gen Z, I'll say that lots of different opinions on it, but I think one of the big topics of conversation that I see is that gen Z is so motivated by climate change, that they're even considering not taking jobs or taking specific jobs. What do you think that, you know, the members of this audience can be learning from your generation about the climate crisis? I think really what makes my generation so unique is that we do have a very value oriented way of approaching work in the sense that at stanford, I've seen increasingly, my friends are hesitant to take jobs that they feel like are from companies that are greenwashing or who aren't really true climate champions. Uh and I think it's really setting a precedent for how companies need to start thinking about engaging with the next generation of youth consumers. Uh and I did a lot of work, I worked as a senior partner of social impact of gen Z marketing agencies. So I consulted for a number of different fortune 500 companies and I did find that those that were the most willing to engage directly with young people and to create youth advisory councils to have young people in high level senior positions, they were more likely to be receptive to feedback and act implement and engage with their audience in a way that I think was very beneficial for them. And similar to how the U. N. Has a youth advisory group on climate change, I think that it is setting a precedent where if businesses are targeting gen Z consumers, then it makes sense to actually engage that audience and make sure that you're developing a product or a service that they're actually going to be receptive to. Do. We have any questions in the audience and I have, I have plenty for you. Sophia are there any, you know, there's a lot of criticism of Gen Z2, is there any stereotypes that really drive you particularly crazy? I think there are a lot of stereotypes. Um I guess I think the notion that um young people are lazy and they waste their time on social media is completely untrue in the sense that part of what I think is so different about activism specifically in this new era is I had this conversation with Sylvia Earle who's a hero of mine and has been a pioneer in the environmental movement and what we talked about was that it used to be that you would have a climate scientist or a policymaker go on tv and they would talk about the urgency of the climate crisis and nobody would listen because it wasn't engaging, it wasn't compelling. And now we have a situation where a young person is able to go on Tiktok make a seven second video and it's able to reach millions of people and people are genuinely compelled. And I think social media has completely revolutionized the way that we look at social impact when even, I don't know if you guys remember when that video went viral of the turtle with the straw up its nose and it ended up sparking all of these mass bands of plastic straws and all it really took was one video being shared widely across social media to have that insane impact. And so I think we are the Tiktok generation. That's completely true, but I don't think that it should be held in with this negative connotation. But I do think that the way that young people have been able to leverage social media to push for social impact initiatives has been truly incredible and I think it's revolutionizing the way that we look at activism, What are some of the challenges that you find motivating this audience though? I know that you have so many young people who are signing up, but do you find that they sign up in a moment of anxiety and then don't follow through? How do you keep them engaged? Well, climate cardinals has been able to translate over 750,000 words of climate resources into over 100 languages. And we've grown to 9000 volunteers in over 40 countries. And this has been sustained growth over the last three years. Uh, and so I I would definitely say that young people are enthusiastic, they want to work, they want volunteer service hours. Um, and I think it has not been difficult to motivate people at all. And I get dozens of emails every single day from young people from all over the world who asked me if they can work with climate cardinals, how they can get involved because young people genuinely truly care about climate action. And it makes sense when you look at the science and the research, when it's saying that my generation is experiencing the impacts of the climate crisis at a rate three times higher than our grandparents, of course we're gonna be compelled to want to take action. Of course we're gonna start grassroots organizations that are schools. Of course we're gonna start global nonprofits because we have no other choice, especially when we've seen the lack of action by corporate actors, by politicians. We feel like we want to take our future into our own hands. We've talked a little bit about um fortune apathy. This feeling that that we can't fix this problem. I think that that while it's wonderful to see you and the climate cardinals really like take big next step. We're also hearing from people that you know they don't care about their careers, they don't necessarily care about saving for future because there may be no future. What do you say to people who feel an apathy about um taking action? That's actually been one of my rallying calls and one of my biggest learnings at the U. N. Is that we need to get more people from being apathetic towards the climate crisis towards becoming activists. And that's another thing where I think the word activism has gained a lot of negative connotations over the last few years, but I truly believe that everyone can be an activist and there is no specific definition attacked the term in the sense that I didn't wake up one day and end up advising the U. N. And having a global nonprofit. It was a series of steps in an iteration. And I think similarly all it really takes for someone to begin their journeys and activists is to take that first step to evaluate how can I change my corporate culture in a way that I think is better for the younger generation or better for the planet. And I think about it often through the lens of how my friends look at it. Which is that my friends who are studying fashion for example, they're looking at how they can engineer more sustainable textile. And then my friends were studying computer science and engineering. They're looking at how they can improve modeling for making solar panels more efficient for example. And so across all different disciplines there is the potential and power to make impact. It really is about identifying what is your specific cause initiative and how can you make, how are you best positioned to make the biggest difference where there are dozens, if not hundreds, of thousands, of climate organizations. And I never wanted to duplicate the efforts of another organization, which is why I started climate cardinals because we're the first and only organization that's working to translate climate resources into now over 100 languages. And I I often also say if a group of ragtag teenagers that congregates through social media can do this work with very little budget, imagine the impact that a concentrated effort by governments policymakers, scientists and corporate leaders could have, especially with so much more money and so much more influence. And so we've been able to mobilize this global movement just from my childhood bedroom and I very much expect that a similar momentum and similar impact can be achieved if not to attend fold scale from corporate boardrooms. But I think that it comes with having a level of accountability but also having a vision and being in tired. I had to be inspired by schooling through my Tiktok feed to feel like I can make an impact and I think similarly, it really starts with feeling like you're in a position to make an impact and then taking those first steps and hopefully be power of young people and what we've been able to accomplish can inspire you guys to also feel similarly that you can be poised to make an impact. I always say never underestimate the power of a teenage girl, they really are going to rule the world one day. Um question Well, thank you so much. I, I am deeply impressed, like everyone else I see you on online etcetera. So I educate board of directors, executives etcetera. And from time to time I hear, well look at all these young people, they got all the ideas they will come and they will save the world. Should we just wait for you guys or should we do something? Well, I don't know why you would wait for us when you have an opportunity to directly engage with us, which is something that I've been really adamant about championing in the sense that if I, as an 18 year old have had had the opportunity to be appointed to advise the head of the United Nations and I'm now 20 almost turning 21 then I think every single Ceo should also be taking up the same mantle of realizing that we are not just the future, we are now and we're already making such a tremendous impact and I think there's also a lot of value that bringing young people into conversations can have. I mean I'm invited to conferences like this all the time and so often I have people come up to me afterwards and say, oh I'm so inspired, like this has really changed the way that I'm thinking and I counter that by saying, well imagine the impact that this sustained conversation would have. And that's why it helps to establish the different youth advisory boards and different youth initiatives to actually directly have people engage with young people. Because I do think that there is a sense of urgency that is created when it comes to sitting down and talking to someone who could be your daughter, who could be your granddaughter and hearing their legitimate concerns. But then also in addition to concerns, hearing about solutions. I mean so often I talk talk to companies and I talked to them about the potential of social media and Tiktok and they're like, oh we, we never even thought about making a Tiktok account and things like that are actually really important. I mean look at dueling, go look at some of the more recent successful examples of companies successfully leveraging social media to really resonate with gen Z. And so much of that comes with having like a young intern or having a youth advisory group that's able to give that strategic guidance, Maybe fortune needs a youth advisory group. Another question, Yeah, Ross wants Ceo Athena Music wellness, I'm focusing wellness education. So I like to hear what James's thoughts and what James's actions in terms of mental health. Thank you. Mental health is such an important topic specifically within climate because increasingly psychologists are saying that young people are suffering from a phenomenon known as eco anxiety, which is a debilitating fear about the state of the climate crisis. And I do think that when you look also at what companies are doing, rare beauty has made mental uh impact, for example, a core pillar of what they're doing and I think it's part of the reason why they have become such a fan favorite among young people. Uh and also when we look at telehealth services, for example, that's another really big thing where young people are increasingly attending on line therapy and looking for more accessible ways to improve their mental health. So I do think it's a really huge emerging space and mental health and conversation surrounding mental health are really a priority to young people because I think it also comes along with a sense of increased transparency and accountability that we're increasing, looking for uh in companies, but also in our day to day conversation. Sophia, thank you so much you, this is so incredible, you're such an inspiration, I really appreciate you coming here. I don't you're such an amazing representative of gen Z, I'm not sure when you sleep. Um I definitely don't think I get enough sleep, but you know sometimes you have to give and take, but life is about balance. Thank you so much. Thank you. Well now we all have to do list um and it's time to take a break, so this is the perfect timing. Um we're gonna take a break from the main stage conversation. You'll have 25 minutes to catch up with old friends. Make new ones, have some coffee, coke products. Um we'll see you back here at the main stage at 12:00. Thanks.