About Us
Our History
In August 2019, the CEO of Farmers for Climate Action challenged a lifelong veterinarian by asking – What is the veterinary profession doing to address climate change?
A few weeks later we had a team of passionate people from our profession and held our first formal meeting in early September 2019. Veterinarians and vet nurses possess a fantastic skillset that makes us ideal for addressing the climate crisis; we’re energetic and empathetic, we have scientific knowledge and understanding, we’re great communicators and we’re trusted by the community. The only question was how do we engage these wonderful individuals and get them working together to solve such a daunting problem?
The solution was to create a new organisation dedicated solely to this cause, and by November 2019 Veterinarians for Climate Action had become a legal entity, was registered with the ACNC and had a full time employee working to build our organisation.
In December 2019, we put a call out to friends and followers and created our Board. We are formulating frameworks to create community organisations across the country, address sustainability in the hospital and train our supporters in media and communications.
We would love you to join us and contribute to solving such an important issue.
Our Structure
Veterinarians for Climate Action is set up as a Company Limited by Guarantee and is registered as a charity with the ACNC. We are also a member of the Climate Action Network Australia.
We are governed by a Board of Directors, which is in turn elected by our formal members. Our Board of directors is responsible for providing leadership and direction to VfCA and bears ultimate legal responsibility. Our governing constitution can be viewed here.
Below our Board sits three sub-committees:
- Reaching-In Sub-Committee. This group is responsible for our Community Groups, our Climate Smart in the Hospital program and improving climate literacy within our profession.
- Reaching-Out Sub-Committee. This group is responsible for policy and campaign development, media and changing the conversation.
- Treasury Sub-Committee. This group is responsible for overseeing the legal, financial and risk aspect of our organisation.
We currently operate in Australia, however we’d love to talk to you about reaching out into other countries as well!