Who We Are

Founded by legendary conservationist John Muir in 1892, the Sierra Club is now the nation's largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization -- with more than two million members and supporters.

Our successes range from protecting millions of acres of wilderness to helping pass the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and Endangered Species Act.

More recently, we've made history by leading the charge to move away from the dirty fossil fuels that cause climate disruption and toward a clean energy economy.

Mission Statement

To explore, enjoy, and protect the wild places of the earth;

To practice and promote the responsible use of the earth's ecosystems and resources;

To educate and enlist humanity to protect and restore the quality of the natural and human environment; and to use all lawful means to carry out these objectives.

Achieve Ambitious and Just Climate Solutions

Solve the climate crisis in a way that protects the environment and also is enduring, fair, and equitable.

  • Transition to 100 percent clean energy.
  • Maximize energy efficiency across all sectors, including transportation, urban design, and land use.
  • Return greenhouse gas concentrations to a safe level below 350 parts per million.
  • Address non-energy emissions such as agriculture and methane.
  • Protect and rebuild the capacity of forests and other lands to absorb excess carbon dioxide and provide more robust climate resilience by supporting biodiversity and natural system functions.

Explore, Enjoy and Protect Our Nation's Lands, Waters, Air and Wildlife

  • Steward our natural resources to safeguard them for present and future generations
  • Protect and restore wild lands and waterways to provide large and connected habitats in all ecosystems that will withstand climate change, and also provide suitable habitat for the protection and restoration of rare and endangered species.
  • Defend our wild heritage, onshore and offshore, from extractive energy development. Put an end to damaging mining, logging, and other highly disruptive resource exploitation practices.
  • Protect our air, water, land, and communities from pollution. Promote environmentally sensitive land use and urban design to minimize sprawl, provide a healthy environment for all, and minimize resource use.
  • Ensure that all who live in the United States have access to natural areas, including in or near their communities, as well as the opportunity to experience the natural world through Sierra Club outings or in other ways.
 

Engage and Support a Broad, Diverse, Inclusive, and Powerful Movement

  • Attract and empower a base of supporters and activists strong enough to challenge the status quo and accomplish our ambitious programmatic goals
  • Engage the public, civil society, the business community, and other partners who share our values. • Lead in diversifying the environmental movement to re ect the demographics of our society.
  • Have the clout to in uence public perception and public of cials on our core issues, and to elect and hold accountable environmentally committed leaders at all levels of government.
  • Help our activists, local communities, and allies win on the environmental issues most important to them. Engage in strategic alliances on broader issues if this can help further environmental causes and remain consistent with our values.

Become an Ever Stronger, High-Performance Organization

Function as a high-performance environmental organization by building on our legacy and embracing innovation

  • Build powerful, capable, diverse, and inclusive volunteer leadership nationally, in every state, and in major metropolitan areas. Diversify the staff at all levels and develop and support clearly de ned values, leadership, and core competencies to excel in their elds. Build a strong partnership and mutual respect between volunteers and staff.
  • Foster an organizational culture that promotes results, accountability, learning, transparency, and good governance.
  • Enhance the democratic and grassroots nature of the Sierra Club in a manner that balances centralized and decentralized power, on-the- ground and online mobilizing, and bottom-up, top- down decision-making.
  • Maximize the effectiveness of our campaigns at the local, state, national, and international levels. Leverage all of our capacities, including communications, digital strategies, policy, organizing, and legal.

Ensure our Financial Strength and Sustainability

Ensure that the Sierra Club and its entities have a combination of diverse, secure, sustainable, and exible funding.

  • Win on our priority work and, where feasible, leverage our resources to help our movement allies win, too.
  • Adapt to change as new opportunities and challenges arise.
  • Invest in organizational capacity.
  • Ensure that all of our chapters and groups have the nancial resources and opportunities to succeed.