Gathering at a rooftop venue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in late October, a group of Gen Z influencers and activists hosted ZCON, a two-day meeting that aims to “channel Gen Z values into action” and reinvent the conference experience. The idea is to bring together like-minded individuals, connecting nonprofit and private sector businesses with Gen Z activists, influencers, and thought leaders. Following its debut in Los Angeles in 2023, ZCON’s goal is to highlight the ways that Gen Z is particularly affected by issues impacting the younger generation, and how they are working towards solutions.
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“I see ZCON as a creative classroom where different people come together to express their forms of art, whether that’s through lifestyle, education, or activism,” Isaias Hernandez, a climate activist who spoke at ZCON in 2023, tells TIME. “And to me, it also does not just bring all these young people together, it brings brands, philanthropists, different people from the private sector, to understand the ways in which stories can be molded.”
ZCON attendees are well-versed in the ways that Gen Z and younger activists are utilizing social media and influencer culture to tell their stories and call for change.
Within panels and breakout groups, ZCON creates space for young activists to commiserate and come together For the 2024 session, the ongoing climate crisis was understandably at the center of the impact discussions, which also held a particular focus on social impact work, such as climate education and communication, as well as fundraising tactics for nonprofits. The Gen Z climate activists are aware that they do not speak for the entire climate activist space—and admit that they may not agree on everything. Yet, they still see ZCON as a space to imagine what comes next for their community, and what might be achieved in the future.
Here is what Gen Z climate activists are prioritizing in the coming year:
Environmental justice policy
Environmental justice looks at addressing the ways that the climate crisis can and has disproportionately impacted certain vulnerable groups. For Alexia Leclercq, a speaker at ZCON, environmental justice is personal to her, as she’s watched the climate crisis affect her indigenous community and other communities of color.
Though they see Justice 40—the federal government’s initiative to flow 40% of the overall benefits of certain climate and energy initiatives to marginalized communities—as a “good step,” Leclercq believes there’s more work to do.
“Now that it’s kind of like rolled out for a couple years, we’ve seen gaps in it, and how communities of color are still not getting funding the support necessary,” she says. “Okay, this was step one. How do we move forward from there?”
Hernandez also emphasizes the need for focusing on communities of color—particularly through federal policy and accountability. He sees Gen Z as the generation who will not take the “status quo” and will keep pushing for policy that cuts against things like animal agriculture subsidies and pushes for policies examining the environmental footprints of the private sector and equitable access to clean water and sustainable transportation.
“I still think that there’s a lot of climate policies that can be pushed within the environmental justice lens, and that looks into making sure that Americans, for example, have access to clean water,” Hernandez says. “And the second thing is transportation. We are increasing our population size each year as a society, and we need to be able to work with the public sector and governmental agencies to expand our public infrastructure.”
Education and job access
Another undercurrent of conversations happening among Gen Z activists centers on the need for education and access to green jobs for young people entering the workforce and wanting to combat the climate crisis.
Leclercq points to her home state of Texas—where consistent battles have been fought at the local and state levels over how climate change messaging is delivered in school classrooms.
“Project 2025 didn’t come out of nowhere,” she says. “I think it’s really important for the environmental movement to be in the classroom with a narrative that goes beyond science and merges messaging with a social and political understanding of our current state.”
Sage Lenier, executive director of Gen Z focused Sustainable & Just Future, attended ZCON with a goal in mind: How to equip her fellow Gen Z-ers with accurate and solution-oriented climate education. For Lenier, who was named one of TIME’s Next Generation Leaders in 2023, part of that education includes sharing how individuals can make an impact with their everyday choices, and making sure that the climate crisis is “everybody’s problem.”
“It is our consumption habits; it is our society. The world’s global supply chain is built on serving us,” she says, sharing her thoughts on Western societies. “I think we need to shift towards more people understanding that this [the climate crisis] needs an economic resolution.”
Jorge Alvarez, a mental health advocate who recently has been working more towards addressing climate anxiety, also focused on how hard it is for Gen Z to enter into the working force right now. He’s hearing from his peers that they need more opportunities for green jobs specifically.
“We need to fund pipeline programs, specifically for young people when it comes to green jobs, and also more people of color engagement work—period,” Alvarez says.
Read More: 7 Ways to Deal With Climate Despair
Balancing optimism and urgency
For activists like Alvarez, mental health is a core focus. Climate change anxiety is a serious issue for young people. About two-thirds of Americans (65%) report being worried about global warming, according to a January 2024 report from the Yale Program for Climate Communication.
Hernandez is also focused on climate anxiety, and says that in 2025, he’s hoping to have more conversations about how “as a community” young people can “come together to have conversations that drive action forward,” all while looking towards a brighter future.
Yet, Lenier says that this optimism must be balanced with the urgency and realities of how climate change will actually affect Gen Z in the future. “We need to start doing that work to prepare for the worst,” she says. “I think, right now, there needs to be work around, like lean, dialing in on the essentials, like food, energy, you know, infrastructure, those kinds of things, right? That’s the bare, bare, bare minimum.”