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Like most moms-to-be, I felt a mixture of total joy and utter terror when I learned my husband and I were expecting. My own doubts about my fitness to bring a child into this world tempered the elation I felt that…well, that I’d be bringing a child into this world!

Amid that whirlwind of emotions, I also felt another pang, much deeper in my stomach: the fear that our child would enter a world where the clock was ticking. Where climate change would be an unstoppable, devastating and life-altering force. Where the world my child would live in could be very different, possibly catastrophically so. It was an awful feeling of powerlessness.

What’s the best way to combat that feeling? As we look ahead to 2022, it’s important that we get to work, bringing to bear all the resources we, as women investors, have on this problem. One of the best parts of these efforts for me over the past 15 years has been doing it in community with other women.

Taking Charge of Finances: Align Your Portfolio

The most obvious tool we have is our investments. You can’t watch a single five-minute news report on climate change without realizing we need massive investments to decarbonize our economy, from electrification and new transportation systems to affordable long-term energy storage and regenerative agriculture. To the layperson, it’s mind-boggling.

While it has taken far too long for financial professionals to see us women as key decision-makers, with women set to control more wealth in the coming years, at last that seems to be changing. So what to do with this newfound power when it comes to climate? Start a conversation with your money manager on how to begin aligning your investments with a safe climate for all. Investing in climate interventions that offer “market-rate” risk/reward and are ready for deployment also sends a signal to the financial sector about the demand for more climate-aligned products and services, which, in turn, should result in more financing for climate-positive companies and projects.

There is no shortage of women-led funds to consider. Through Prime Coalition, I’ve watched Dr. Johanna Wolfson and Amy Duffuor attract investors — families, companies and foundations — to Prime Impact Fund and find game-changing entrepreneurs working on big climate impact ideas. Other women I admire on this front are Dawn Lippert and Ramsay Siegal at Earthshot Ventures, which funds hardware and software companies in climate tech from seed through Series B, and helps them grow by connecting them to global customers, investors and policymakers.

Those of us with more resources should consider direct investment in women-led companies. I met Beth Zotter through work with science-based startups at Cyclotron Road/Activate (on whose board I sit)—now she leads Trophic, which is developing ocean-farmed seaweed as a sustainable protein. At Via Separations, Shreya Dave uses novel chemistries to help manufacturers like paper and pulp companies produce more while consuming significantly less energy. Beth and Shreya are two of many—the number of innovative companies founded by women continues to grow.

Considering Impactful Nonprofits: Make Your Giving Climate Forward

Women should also consider ways giving can shake up climate change without needing a return on their investment.

Not sure where to start? There are some fascinating nonprofits being led by women who deserve our support. They include the Solutions Project, led by Gloria Walton, which is doing incredible work funding everything from community organizing and democratically controlled rural electric cooperatives to policy work, all with the goal of reaching 100 percent renewable energy. In turn, it invests 95 percent of its resources in groups led by people of color, with 80 percent going to women-led organizations.

At Sustainable Energy for All, Damilola Ogunbiyi and her team work with businesses, governments, consumers and NGOs to speed renewable energy progress by 2030 in alignment with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG7). On a different end of the spectrum is the All We Can Save Project, founded by Dr. Katharine Wilkinson and Dr. Ayana Johnson, which is working to support and empower women leading the climate movement.

And there’s also Ceres, where Mindy Lubber has been showing us what leadership is all about for decades. Mindy leads an executive leadership team of women pushing investors, money managers, and capital markets influencers to act on climate through efforts like their Net Zero Asset Managers and Climate Action 100+ initiatives.

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