Count Us In

Why does Don’t Look Up have an action platform?

The planet-killing comet in Don’t Look Up is much like the climate crisis we’re currently facing. If we’re going to protect life on earth, we need to act now. This action platform was developed in collaboration with non-profit Count Us In and experts in the climate community who continue to help us evolve and strengthen the platform. The aim is to help concerned citizens take powerful steps to collectively tackle the climate crisis.

How were the steps chosen?

The steps highlighted in this platform have been informed by key scientific advisors and subject matter experts including Dr. Johan Rockström, Dr. Jon Foley, Dr. Katharine Hayhoe, Dr. Kristian Steensen Nielsen, Dr. Marshall Shepherd, Dr. Michael Mann, Dr. Peter Kalmus, Dr. Erica Chenoweth, Lindsay Crowder, Dr. Chad Frischmann, Dr. Damien Lieber, Dr. Britt Wray, Dr. Charles Ogunbode, Dr. Gary Belkin, Dr. Lorraine Whitmarsh, Dr. Susan Clayton, Dr. Genevieve Guenther, Dr. Max Boykoff, Mark Hertsgaard, Dr. Dan Lashof, Dr. Leah Stokes, Ed Chen, Elizabeth Gore, and experts from Count Us In, ENGIE Impact, Rare and Project Drawdown. For our complete list of advisors, see our Methodology Page.

What is Count Us In?

Count Us In is a global movement of people and organizations taking high impact steps to address climate change. It is supported by over 100 organizations from UNEP and Ted to IKEA and WWF. As an NGO, we are independent of any government.

What is Don’t Look Up?

Directed and produced by Adam McKay, Don’t Look Up is a comedy that tells the story of two low-level astronomers who must go on a giant media tour to warn mankind of an approaching comet that will destroy planet earth. The film uses humor to underscore the chaos that happens today when the world is in crisis. The film released in select theatres on December 10th and on Netflix on December 24th. Watch it on Netflix.

How is Don’t Look Up involved in this project?

The need for collective and individual action in the face of a global crisis is a theme that runs deep throughout Don’t Look Up and has inspired this particular Count Us In platform. This platform aims to provide people with the most impactful steps they can take to be part of a global effort on climate change.

How does Netflix limit the carbon footprint of Netflix-branded productions like Don't Look Up?

You can read more about Netflix's approaches to climate change at sustainability.netflix.com.

How did you calculate the carbon values?

The methodology for the calculation of step impact on this platform was developed in association with Count Us In with contributions from Do Nation, ENGIE Impact and Project Drawdown. All carbon emissions and calculations can be found in the full methodology published here.

Who leads Count Us In?

Count Us In has been initiated by a diverse group of organizations committed to incubating a global community that goes beyond a single name, brand or organizational objective.

Initially convened by Countdown (powered by TED and Future Stewards), Count Us In has been developed with partners, including: COP 26 High Level Champion Team, TED, UN Live, The Do, Brunswick, Do Nation, Accenture, Global Optimism, Leaders’ Quest, Something More Near, SYSTEMIQ, UN Environment Programme, Wonderlab and more. Over the last year, the Count Us In community has grown to include over 100 organizations ranging from the EU and WWF to IKEA and Tottenham FC to Extreme E and EKTARA. We are supported by some amazing Stubborn Optimists led by Christiana Figueres, including Hindou Ibrahim, Sir Tim Smit and Dia Mirza amongst others. You can see more about our community here.

Leaders’ Quest Foundation UK (UK registered charity 1104192) has legal and fiduciary responsibility for Count Us In, including budgets, managing income and expenditure, reporting to donors, and overseeing contracts with suppliers.

Why does Count Us In call citizens to act on climate change, when the biggest emitters are companies and states?

Governments and businesses must act more boldly. We know less than 200 companies and powerful governments account for a huge part of global emissions. But what citizens do will directly influence business and political leaders.

We buy from those companies and vote for those politicians. We can all do our part to make a direct difference. Taking a step with Don’t Look Up and Count Us In is a powerful way for individuals to make changes that matter - sending a signal to leaders and reducing your own carbon emissions at the same time.

As individuals, we can drive 25-30 percent of the global emission reductions needed to avoid the worst of climate change. Taking steps together lets politicians and organizations know that voters and consumers are serious, creating a cycle of positive change.

How can I take part?

Everyone can take part! Count Us In is building the largest and most ambitious citizen-led effort to avert the impacts of climate change.

Individuals: Simply sign up on count-us-in.com/DontLookUp, choose the step that’s right for you, and keep it up! You can track your progress and raise your ambition through your Count Us In profile, and see the collective impact of your actions through the Count Us In aggregator.

Organizations: Your organization or company can help Count Us In become the largest citizen climate action mobilization by joining as a partner and promoting Count Us In among your supporters, followers, members, staff, and customers. We can also help create your own whitelabelled or customized platform, linked to our aggregator.

We welcome sister initiatives and organizations with climate action platforms to join our community, and link up to our aggregator – to add up to something even bigger. Please contact us at contact@count-us-in.com for more information on partnerships, our platform and partner platforms.

What is the Count Us In Aggregator?

The Count Us In aggregator is a cornerstone of Count Us In. It adds up every step taken, showing the difference we can all make by acting together. From launch, the aggregator will report on three key data points: the (1) carbon impact of the steps taken; (2) the number of individuals taking steps; (3) and the number of steps taken.

The Count Us In aggregator creates, for the first time, an ecosystem of partner climate action platforms, combining and synthesizing their data to show the collective impact of citizen climate action worldwide – adding weight to our effort to drive policy makers, businesses and other actors to take bold action on systems change.

Data on the impact of citizens’ climate action in the Aggregator begins from January 2020, with data sourced from additional partners as they’ve joined this effort.

Count Us In will continue to develop and gather more granular impact data through its Aggregator, and make insights accessible through public data visualization tools.

How do you know people are taking the steps they commit to?

When someone pledges to take a step, Count Us In calculates the potential impact of the individual pledge and shares with users tips on how to take the step, making it easier to adopt these lifestyle shifts.

All pledges are to try the chosen steps for one month, a time-limited period which is short enough to not be too intimidating, but long enough to form habits that last. Users can keep track of their commitment, and raise their ambition through their Count Us In profile. If they don’t confirm their step at the end of the pledge period, Count Us In assumes that they didn’t complete the steps they pledged to.

How are the carbon savings calculated for each country?

Currently, carbon emissions are estimated using country-specific data for 11 locations (United States, Brazil, Germany, United Kingdom / Ireland, Canada, France, Saudi Arabia, Italy, Australia, Spain, Mexico). We currently use a global average for the rest of the world, but aim to build in data from more countries in the future. For more information about carbon emissions and calculations, you can find the full methodology white paper published here.

How is my data used?

We limit the data we collect to your name, e-mail address, partial IP address (to identify the country you’re in), and the commitment(s) you make on climate change. We'll use this information to, among other things, contact you to answer any questions you may have, measure the impact of your pledged steps, and to send you handy reminders, tips, and confirmation emails about your pledges. It is possible that your data may be used to administer the site and for internal operations, including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing and research.

If you decide you no longer want to receive any of this information, you can just let us know by emailing support@count-us-in.com with the subject line “Delete my account”. Unless you state otherwise, we'll leave your pledges on the site but anonymize them by removing all your personal data.

We’ll input aggregated data from the Count Us In platform and other partner platforms into our aggregator, developed by Count Us In partner Accenture and with support from our platform partners. This won’t include any of your personal data.

We will never share your contact details with other third parties without your explicit permission.

If you sign up to our mailing list, we'll send you occasional updates on the work we're doing or about things which we think may interest you. You can unsubscribe or manage preferences at any time through the emails we send you.

You'll find links to other websites on this site, those sites will have their own terms and conditions and/or privacy policies which you should read if you visit their sites.

You can read more about the privacy policies and terms and conditions that apply to this site.

How can I get in touch?

For general enquiries: contact@count-us-in.com For technical assistance: support@count-us-in.com