Our Mission

Empowering drivers to commit to climate-friendly choices and ultimately making huge 4-seater cars socially unacceptable choices.

Evolution

In a world where success is judged by many on the basis of material possessions, the social pressures to conform can be overwhelming. This is reinforced by marketing and advertising – very little car advertising is based on vehicle performance, it’s all about images of glamourous lifestyles – resulting in people buying bigger, more expensive cars than they need and larger, heavier and more fuel hungry cars than the planet can afford. The same pressures also make it difficult to discuss driving something smaller without getting drawn into awkward conversations which many people would rather not have.

CarClimatePledge.org was started by Martin Burgess to help overcome this social pressure to buy bigger and faster (faster being a useless concept on congested, speed limited roads!) by visibly explaining the choice to drive a smaller vehicle and allowing these views to be respected. If the messaging starts better conversations about other ways of energy saving, that’s great!

Martin started his career as an accountant in the 1980’s. By then he was already a lapsed member of the Ecology Party (forerunner of the Green Party), the last time he was involved in a political organisation. Afterwards, he worked as Finance Director of a number of businesses before obtaining an MSc in Food and Water Security (2015) and a PhD in Behaviour Change (with particular relevance to energy use) from Aberystwyth University in 2019. He currently works for the Environmental Change Institute in Oxford.

CarClimatePledge.org is not intended to 'make money' or to remunerate anyone involved in its organisation. It has applied for charitable status. Any income from sticker sales is and will be reinvested in spreading the word. CarClimatePledge.org is very much a work in progress: Martin would be very interested to hear from individuals with branding or social marketing experience interested in developing the initiative.

Photo: Oleg/Unsplash

Photo: Ziyao Xiong/Unsplash