2022 Sierra Club Annual Report

Our future vision, 2 mins

A MESSAGE ABOUT THE YEAR

EVA HERNANDEZ
(SHE/HER)

Managing Director

Read more and watch video

I proudly invite you to explore our first-ever Sierra Club Annual Report! In 2022, we laid fertile soil and planted deep roots that will ground us as we grow a stronger movement together. I hope you feel as empowered as I do reading reflections from our inspiring leaders and incredible colleagues.

LIVING OUR VALUES

Sierra Club is a 130-year-old organization that has evolved greatly over time; this year we’ve accomplished significant organizational change. To achieve our mission, we strive to center our values and build power together. Our transformation is grounded in the belief that the only way to attain our vision of a healthy environment for all is to become a more equitable and just organization that understands that climate justice is racial justice. This year we launched our core values to create a sense of shared purpose. We’re also implementing recommendations in the Restorative Accountability Process to ensure that our organization is healthy and inclusive. And our visionary 2030 Strategic Framework lays out our plan to address the climate and extinction crises.

Sierra Club Core Values video, 1 min

Grassroots power-building video, 3 mins

UNIQUELY SIERRA CLUB

We have deep reserves of power, enabling us to enact policies that prioritize people and the planet. Our complex but nimble organization allows us to influence legislation, take legal action, and mobilize grassroots volunteers from 64 chapters all over the country. Our staff and supporters are highly engaged and have long-lasting relationships with local partners, frontline groups, and elected officials, powering our push for bold climate legislation. As a 501(c)(4) organization, we're able to engage in lobbying activities and endorse candidate campaigns through affiliated Political Action Committees (PACs). Through the Sierra Club Foundation, the independent fiscal sponsor of our charitable programs, we can access 501(c)(3) funding for campaigns to protect wildlands, shift the energy sector, and support environmental justice.

CHAPTER STRONG

The heart of Sierra Club’s enduring strength arises from our network of 64 chapters. The effectiveness of our chapters lies in their authentic local relationships in communities nationwide and in working alongside trusted partners. With a chapter in every state (plus Puerto Rico and D.C.), we’re able to harness the power of national Sierra Club resources alongside local leaders, staff, and volunteers lobbying at the state level and running campaigns in small towns, counties, and cities.

Our success in delaying the Mountain Valley Pipeline, yet again, is an excellent example illustrating the role of chapters and grassroots opposition in stopping dangerous pipelines, protecting land, water, and wildlife, and keeping communities healthy and safe.

Chapter Power video, 2 mins

PROTECT OUR ECOSYSTEM

At the heart of Sierra Club’s plan to address climate change is our 130-year commitment to protect critical wildlands and waters. We partner with frontline communities and Tribal nations to ensure our work benefits the people and ecosystems that need it most. After years of advocacy from Sierra Club, Tribal partners, and other groups, President Biden designated the Camp Hale-Continental Divide National Monument and restored federal protections to many other monuments. In California, our chapters, grassroots volunteers, and partners finalized an ambitious plan to protect 30 percent of lands and waters by 2030 to counter catastrophic biodiversity loss. And we supported plans for Tribal nations and the federal government to co-manage Bear’s Ears monument, charting the course for future progress.

Photo by Chris Cresci

with

CHRIS HILL

(SHE/HER)

Senior Campaign Director, Our Wild America

LEADERSHIP LOOKBACK

2022 was a transformational year in Sierra Club’s work to safeguard more lands, preserve our waters, and protect wildlife. We resisted attempts to expand oil and gas extraction on public lands through litigation. We expanded national monuments, supporting Indigenous partners’ calls to restore Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments, and celebrated President Biden’s designation of Camp Hale-Continental Divide National Monument. Our California activists advanced the state and national 30x30 goal. We called for durable protections for mature and old-growth trees as a cornerstone of U.S. climate policy. Our advocacy pushed decision-makers to act, identifying a presumptive path forward for restoring Snake River salmon populations. As we look towards 2023, we will build on these successes and continue to protect more nature to address the intersecting climate and biodiversity crises.

Read the full recap

“

California is leading the charge for advancing our bold vision of protecting 30 percent of lands and waters in the U.S. by 2030, and the work Sierra Club is doing to achieve this goal illustrates our strengths as an organization. Since Governor Newsom issued his executive order in 2020 setting 30x30 as a state goal, we have mobilized all players within Sierra Club—our 13 California chapters, Sierra Club California, and the Our Wild America Campaign—to help shape the state’s strategy, advocate for funding, and craft campaign and organizing strategies that will help us realize our vision for an energized, grassroots, and equity-driven movement to protect our public lands.

Photo by Jenny Binstock

from

JENNY BINSTOCK

(SHE/HER)

Our Wild America California Campaign Manager

ENSURE OUTDOORS FOR ALL

We’re working hard to reduce the nature-equity gap and make the outdoors accessible and welcoming for all. Sierra Club, along with many partners, is encouraging the administration to prioritize nature equity nationwide, particularly at the local level where 100 million people, including 28 million children, can’t safely walk to a quality park or open space. After pausing due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Outdoors Alliance for Kids’ (OAK) annual OAK Week relaunched in-person in May. Youth environmental leaders and key decision-makers gathered in D.C. to discuss future goals to expand outdoor access. And in September, the White House signed a memorandum to strengthen and support locally-led conservation projects and expand access to green spaces.

with

JACKIE OSTFELD

(SHE/HER)

Director, Sierra Club Outdoors for All

LEADERSHIP LOOKBACK

In 2022, our team led efforts to address the nature equity gap by activating more urban park spaces and expanding tree canopy in Detroit, establishing new public transit to trails routes in Los Angeles, ensuring veterans can heal in nature from Alaska to Florida, and empowering youth leaders to raise their voices with decision-makers. Our advocacy led to the Biden administration committing to expand equitable access to nature and develop an outdoor recreation task force at the Department of Veterans Affairs. The administration also prioritized the outdoors in the Inflation Reduction Act, and we’ll advocate to ensure its implementation expands nearby nature for communities who lack access.

Read the full recap

“

2022 was a year of powerful partnerships connecting Detroit Area youth with the outdoors. The Hamtramck High School Outdoor Adventure Club, led by teachers that trained with our Sierra Club Detroit Outdoors collaborative, had an inspiring year. Students learned to ski and snowboard, and then camped and backpacked on public lands from Detroit’s Rouge Park, to State Parks, to multiple National Parks. The students, from diverse family backgrounds—Yemeni, African American, Bengali, Polish, and more—are almost all new to these activities. Now they can picture themselves in the outdoors through these experiences and they are set to have an inspiring year outdoors in 2023.

from

GARRETT DEMPSEY

(HE/HIM)

Campaign Representative
Detroit Outdoors

ACT FOR JUSTICE

Through our robust policy, advocacy, and legal team, we build power and restore accountability to our democracy and economic system so that decision-makers address the climate crisis, protect ecosystems, and dismantle systemic racism. This year our Environmental Law Program (ELP) racked up many impressive victories. In one of many notable cases, the Beyond Coal Campaign, Grand Canyon Chapter, ELP, and residents from Randolph, AZ, halted the expansion of the Coolidge Generating Station, a massive 820-megawatt gas-power plant. Testimony from Black residents in Randolph, who have long struggled with poor air quality, was key to our victory—proving that justice prevails when we center local voices.

with

LESLIE FIELDS

(SHE/HER)

National Director, Policy Advocacy and Legal

Photo courtesy of Javier Sierra

LEADERSHIP LOOKBACK

Sierra Club was all about acting for justice in 2022! We racked up impressive wins and solidarity actions, working collaboratively to maximize solutions and remedies with our community allies and partners.

Our Democracy Program supported the fight to confirm Kentanji Brown Jackson as the first Black woman on the U.S. Supreme Court, and we shepherded the Sierra Club’s Voter Protection Program in conjunction with voting rights coalitions. We are committed to closing the racial equity gap and improving conditions for America’s working families; this year we supported unionization efforts for Amazon workers in Bessemer, AL, in solidarity with partners, unions, and workers' rights coalitions. After horrible leasing and permitting provisions were added to the Inflation Reduction Act, the fantastic power of our federal and state advocacy fought to remove the provisions.

Read the full recap

“

I am so proud of the tireless organizing by Sierra Club staff and volunteers, alongside our partners, to get the Inflation Reduction Act across the finish line. At the same time, the fight must continue; climate investments should NOT come at the expense of frontline communities in the Gulf, Alaska, and Appalachia. The task ahead of us is clear—we must continue to build an intersectional movement powerful enough to take on corporate interests and elect climate champions who will fight for us in Congress and at every level of government.

from

MIRANDA EHRLICH

(SHE/HER)

Federal Field Director

TRANSFORM OUR ENERGY SYSTEM

This year we’re heartened by a string of victories that will aid in the transition away from fossil fuels and shift investments into clean energy. Due to our tireless work, we've retired coal plants (363 to date), stopped gas plants, and prioritized people over pipelines.

Sierra Club and our partners stopped Manchin’s polluter side deal, significantly reduced the impact of trucking and diesel death zones, and continue to delay the Mountain Valley Pipeline at every turn. In a big win in our fight to stop gas expansion, California became the first state to end gas line subsidies for new buildings.

Together with our members and partners, we’ll continue to organize at every level to build power for sustainable wins that advance a 100 percent clean energy grid and create healthy and safe communities where everyone thrives.

with

HOLLY BENDER

(SHE/HER)

Senior Director of Energy Campaigns

and

KELLY SHEEHAN
(SHE/HER)

Senior Director of Energy Campaigns

LEADERSHIP LOOKBACK

In 2022, we took huge leaps towards transforming our power sector, “electrifying everything,” blocking new markets for gas, and ending the era of fossil fuels. The Inflation Reduction Act launched $369 billion in investments in clean energy, electric vehicles, healthy home retrofits, and direct support for environmental justice communities, and implementation work is well underway. New Jersey became the 8th completely coal-free state; Washington beat California to become the first state with an all-electric building code for new residential and commercial buildings; and New York became the first state to require all-electric school buses.

Together with our partners, we blocked or delayed over $200 billion of oil and gas infrastructure. We stopped the buildout of fracked gas export facilities, filing dozens of legal actions and organizing communities across Texas and Louisiana. We held the line in stopping the dangerous Mountain Valley Pipeline, and are doing groundbreaking work holding the oil and gas industry accountable for the failure to plug oil and gas wells from Los Angeles to Appalachia.

Read Holly’s
full recap

Read Kelly's
full recap

from

BRANDON DAWSON
(HE/HIM)

Director of Sierra Club California

“

California experienced historic heatwaves in 2022 that underscore the worsening impacts of the climate crisis and the importance of providing a clean, reliable energy system to meet demand. Sierra Club California played a crucial role in this conversation by fighting to defend investments in California’s green energy future and advocating for robust protections for communities against ongoing fossil fuel extraction. As a result, California invested more than ever before in strategies and resources that prioritize our most vulnerable communities and put our commitment to environmental stewardship into action.

BUILD A POWERFUL BASE OF SUPPORT

Our people-powered movement worked together to secure major wins for our climate and communities, and develop a stable of candidates and volunteers who will champion conservation and environmental justice.

Hundreds of thousands of passionate staff, volunteers, activists, and partners worked together tirelessly to pass the Inflation Reduction Act, securing truly transformative investments in climate action, clean energy jobs, and environmental justice. In the midterm elections, Sierra Club Independent Action leveraged our unique ability to combine local power-building with a national strategy bridging intersectional movements and climate activism to win in priority elections. We expanded statewide outreach by increasing support to chapters, strengthening local volunteer bases, and promoting environmental champions to new voters.

with

ARI TRUJILLO-JOHN

(SHE / THEY)

Grassroots Powerbuilding Unit Director

LEADERSHIP LOOKBACK

Our motto "explore, enjoy and protect" manifests in our grassroots power—in our volunteers, leaders, online networks, and in hundreds of groups across the country. From the hundreds of thousands of people we take outside to the millions of voters we engage on environmental and climate justice, in 2022 the Sierra Club helped shape the national narrative on our issues, working in coalitions to deliver legislative and policy victories, while building a new generation of activists and organizers to further the next stage of the work. In 2023, we will expand on those victories, building the power and leaders we need to further climate and environmental justice in 2030 and beyond.

Read Ari’s full recap

“

This year I was really inspired to see the joy on people's faces as they were able to connect in-person again at events, including our coalition lobby day at the Arizona legislature, outside of our U.S. senators' offices to push for climate action, and at our volunteer and partner recognition picnic. Two of our featured speakers at the lobby day were high school students who spoke about how the legislature needed to address environmental racism, climate, and water issues.

from

SANDY BAHR
(SHE/HER)

Chapter Director
Grand Canyon Chapter

from

SARAH LEIGHTON
(SHE/HER)

Chapter Director
Maine Chapter

“

Without a powerful grassroots base, the Maine Chapter wouldn’t be successful. All our efforts are focused around empowering volunteers to make change. This year, in preparation for the next legislative session, we trained and supported our volunteers. They worked for months to write legislation focused on various environmental justice issues and are now finding sponsors for the bills to get them passed. We don’t just wait for change to happen, we make change possible!

“

The Minnesota North Star Chapter powerfully increased our work on legislative elections through a first-of-its-kind collaboration with national Sierra Club. Together, we made 150,000 calls to voters—thanks to volunteers who joined virtual phone banks from across the U.S.—and promoted our endorsed environmental champions via mail, digital ads, and door knocks with climate justice partners. We won our goal to maintain a pro-climate, pro-environment majority in the Minnesota House and to “flip” control of the Senate! The new majorities will make environmental and climate victories possible. Now, we’re gearing up to get them to the finish line in 2023.

from

MARGARET LEVIN
(SHE/HER)

State Director
Minnesota North Star Chapter

TOGETHER, WE HELPED PASS THE LARGEST CLIMATE INVESTMENT IN HISTORY!

SUPPORTED

EVENTS NATIONWIDE

Photo by Ana Gorla

CHAMPIONED

CALLS TO CONGRESS

Photo by Eugenie Lewis

COLLECTED

ONLINE ACTIONS

Photo by Larisa Manescu

INVOLVED

OF THOUSANDS
OF ENGAGED AMERICANS

Photo by Anjin Herndon, Angeles ICO

THANK YOU

Thank you to all our supporters, volunteers, staff, and partners across the country who power our movement. Your dedication to our mission drives us forward and is critical to achieving our goals for a liveable planet, safe communities, and a democracy that works for everyone. We are so grateful, inspired, and excited to create powerful change with you every day.

SIERRA CLUB’S 2022 AWARDS CEREMONY
Watch our Awards Ceremony and be inspired, 59 mins

Thank you to 2013 Sierra Club Ansel Adams Award winner James Balog for the use of Stratosphere Giant for this report