Speeding up climate action and passing bold, strong climate policy may sound like an ambitious goal—and it is. But four entrepreneurial University of Vermont (UVM) alumni set out to do just that when they founded Run On Climate.
Run On Climate believes that change starts at the local level. Since 2021, the nonprofit has helped elect 30 climate champions—people who have been working on climate issues and want to make a bigger difference in their community—to local offices and worked with more than 50 policymakers across 16 states. It has also helped pass more than 200 local climate policies, including a renewable heating ordinance in Burlington, Vermont for new construction.
Headquartered in Burlington, Run On Climate works with local elected officials, such as city councilors, mayors, and county commissioners, to help them develop, pass, and implement municipal policies. But their reach extends out of state as well. According to executive director and co-founder Jack Hanson ’16, who graduated from UVM’s College of Arts and Sciences with a major in environmental studies, the organization is now active in about 40 cities and counties across the country.
“There are so many different ways to address climate change through local policy,” Hanson says. “It could be anything from improving building codes to implementing zoning ordinances to adding electric-vehicle charging stations.”
Recognizing the power of wisdom-sharing, the organization also works to connect local leaders to one another through their Local Climate Policy Network, making it easy to directly support one another by sharing their own experiences. So, for example, if someone is working on a tree-canopy protection ordinance in one municipality, Run On Climate can connect them with someone who just passed a similar ordinance in a different locale.
Run On Climate was founded in 2021 by Hanson and three other UVM alumni: Phoebe Melchiskey ’21 (global studies major), Carter Neubieser ’19 (public communications major), and Sarah Sciortino ’21 (environmental studies major). “Carter and I met when working at an environmental nonprofit in Vermont,” Hanson says. “Then he ran for city council in the ‘student ward’ [Ward 8] in Burlington, and I ran his campaign.” Neubieser lost that time but won the next time he campaigned and is now serving a second term.
Sciortino became involved in the organization while doing environmental climate organizing as a student at UVM. She was also a big part of Hanson’s own successful city council campaign in 2019, run by Neubieser.
Melchiskey, who went on to attain a master’s degree in teaching secondary education from UVM in 2025, says that when she first heard about Run On Climate, she loved the idea and the momentum they had. So, she reached out to Hanson, who welcomed her into the fold.
The group found that there were very few organizations that were focused on city- and county-level climate policy. “We wanted to fill that gap within the climate movement and exclusively focus on local policy,” Hanson says, because they felt that was where they could have the greatest impact.
One of the biggest challenges to getting Run On Climate off the ground was fundraising. They started with a GoFundMe campaign. “It was just grassroots, crowdfunded with people we knew,” Hanson says. “Eventually, we began to get some grants and foundation support, and now we’re starting to get some corporate partners as well.”
Run On Climate has been steadily putting all those funds to good use. From 2022 to 2025, the cities and towns they work in reduced emissions by about 10 million metric tons—equivalent to the energy use of around one million homes for a year. “We obviously can’t take credit for all of that, but we played a role in it,” Hanson says. They also helped pass the Green New Deal for Cambridge, Massachusetts, which requires all buildings to work toward cutting their emissions to zero and includes an ordinance that ensures access for residents to free job training to work in building decarbonization or other green jobs within the city.
Run On Climate believes strongly in providing hands-on experience to young people interested in climate work, so Hanson and Melchiskey launched an internship program in 2022. “We’ve since trained more than 250 interns and fellows, many of them UVM students,” he says. “We now have interns from a few dozen different colleges across the nation.” (Several of those interns started the UVM Run On Climate Club on campus to get students more involved with the Burlington City Council.)
While in the program, interns work on different teams. The electoral team helps research and identify climate champion candidates and works on their campaigns. The policy team works with local policymakers and activists to develop and try to pass municipal policies. The social media team runs social media outreach.
Hanson himself interned with environmental organizations and participated in environmental activism while he was a student. “I gained a lot of experience and also made many connections with great people,” he says. “Those experiences at UVM really set me up to be able to launch Run On Climate.”
Melchiskey, who worked at Run On Climate until spring of 2024, is now a high school social studies teacher in Washington state. She says the people she met and opportunities she had at UVM enabled her to help build Run On Climate into what it is. “My junior year at UVM, I worked as a legislative research assistant,” she says. In that role, she was able to see policy drafted in real time and make connections with local politicians—valuable experience she was then able to draw on.
“So many local policymakers are overburdened,” Hanson says. “I was on Burlington City Council when we launched Run On Climate, and I was living this firsthand. There’s a lot more you can do if you have outside support.”
Run On Climate is providing that support. “We’re helping municipalities across the United States move faster and further and better in regard to climate policy, reducing emissions, moving away from fossil fuels, and creating more sustainable communities,” Hanson says. And it all began with an idea, a passion to make a positive impact, and four industrious UVM alums coming together to make it happen.