By Laura Latorre (Training & Community Coordinator, OPF), John Carrol, Anusha Sridhara and Kevin Chenoweth (Climate Strategy Collaborative)

The Challenge

As organizations face growing pressure to address climate change, the need for practical sustainability expertise continues to grow. Yet many professionals looking to contribute to this work face a common challenge: knowing where to start and how to translate climate knowledge into real-world impact.

A group of OPF Academy alumni saw an opportunity to put their skills into practice. Rather than wait for the right opportunity to emerge, they built one themselves.

The Climate Strategy Collaborative (CSC) is an independent sustainability consulting initiative born from the OPF Academy alumni community — a testament to the network, skills, and climate expertise developed through OPFA. CSC brings together trained climate professionals to help small and mid-sized organizations navigate the growing complexities of climate strategy and turn sustainability goals into action, recognizing that many organizations have begun their sustainability journeys but are held back by the demands of daily operations.

Working alongside organizations at different stages of their sustainability journeys, CSC helps assess climate impacts, identify opportunities, and develop practical strategies that create lasting value.

The idea originated with OPF Academy alum Caitlin Oliver, and from there, a group of like-minded professionals came together around a shared vision: build something real, demonstrate their skills, and create meaningful climate impact.

What started as a practical way to apply their skills in the real world evolved into a pilot consultancy with a real client and a growing body of work.

In their own words:

“We chose to focus on SMEs because they represent 40% of the US economy and are a major source of GHG emissions, yet rarely have the resources to access large consulting firms or expensive tools. Focusing on them gives us the best opportunity to build real experience while making a tangible impact. These are organizations serious about reducing their climate footprint and the ones that need support the most.”

The Bridge

Building a consultancy from scratch takes more than passion. It requires technical knowledge, consulting skills, practical experience, and the right network.

That is where OPF Academy came in.

Within the Academy, learners don’t just learn climate concepts, they practice applying them. Through hands-on labs, peer collaboration, and real-world scenarios, learners build the technical and consulting skills needed to support organizations navigating climate action.

Learners work through practical exercises such as interpreting a company’s carbon emissions, identifying reduction opportunities, and conducting physical and transitional climate risk analyses for organizations with complex supply chains. They also connect one-on-one with like-minded professionals, often finding mentors, collaborators, and future teammates along the way.

For CSC, these experiences became directly applicable when they began working with their first client. The team quickly realized that the consulting skills developed through OPF Academy were critical to understanding their client’s needs and shaping their approach.

“The consulting skills that we picked up while going through OPF Academy really helped us to understand at a high level where the client was in their sustainability journey and what things they need most. This allowed us to tailor our pitch to their biggest pain points,” said John Carroll.

Once the work began, communication became one of the most important skills: specifically, helping the client see sustainability not just as an operational responsibility, but as an opportunity to create business value.

“We have helped GoBolt further sharpen their perspective that their sustainability commitments aren't just operationally valuable, they're a genuine competitive differentiator. ,” said John Carroll.

On the technical side, GHG accounting skills became foundational. The team used emissions analysis to assess the client’s current performance and identify meaningful opportunities for improvement. Concepts from life cycle assessment (LCA) also proved valuable in evaluating impacts and thinking through broader sustainability opportunities, even without conducting a full LCA.

The First Win

After building their foundation through OPF Academy, CSC was ready to move from learning into execution.

Their first client, GoBolt, is a technology-centric fulfillment and last-mile delivery provider operating in the logistics space — an industry facing increasing expectations from customers, partners, and regulators around sustainability.

For organizations in logistics, sustainable practices are becoming a competitive differentiator. As expectations evolve, companies need to understand where they stand against industry benchmarks, peers, and the priorities of their own customers.

CSC partnered with GoBolt to answer those questions.

The team conducted a sustainability gap analysis to map the client’s current practices against industry best practices, assess performance relative to peers, and refine their GHG inventory focused on their vehicle fleet. They also began working directly with the client’s marketing team, helping demonstrate how sustainability progress could become not only an operational priority but also a meaningful business opportunity.

“GoBolt will have a clearer picture of how their existing sustainability practices benchmark against client expectations — and a roadmap to accelerate and formalize those commitments into a competitive advantage.”

One of the biggest challenges was the research itself. Identifying industry best practices for shipping and logistics proved more complex than expected. Unlike some industries, there is no single centralized resource that defines what best-in-class sustainability looks like.

CSC worked across guidance from multiple professional bodies and frameworks, including the Science Based Targets initiative, to build a clearer picture of industry expectations — doing the research required so their client could move forward with confidence.

What Success Looks Like

For the CSC team, success is not just measured by growth: it is measured by the ability to do meaningful work while helping organizations make progress.

“This group came together because we all have a passion for this planet and doing what we can to protect it. If in the next year we are all paying our bills while doing work that really matters to us, that's what I would consider a success.” — John Carroll.

Whether that future unfolds under the CSC banner, through individual employers, or some combination of both, the mission stays the same: use climate expertise to support organizations that need it most.

CSC represents exactly what OPF Academy was built to enable: professionals moving from learning into action.

By combining practical climate skills, real-world application, and a connected community, OPF Academy helps prepare the next generation of sustainability professionals to create impact wherever they are needed most.

The Climate Strategy Collaborative is an initiative born out of the OPF Academy community. Learn more about how OPF equips sustainability professionals with the skills, network, and experience to create real-world climate impact:

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