Industry is everywhere. In the steel beams holding up our buildings, the cement under our roads, and the fertilizer growing our food. It's also one of the most significant sources of climate and health harm.

Industry is ripe for transformation, but the movement infrastructure needed to drive transformation has not kept pace with the scale of challenge.  Compared with other parts of the climate movement, industrial work has received less sustained attention, investment, and organizing capacity. Efforts remain fragmented, and too often, progress depends on a single policy window, election cycles, or administration.

Lasting industrial transformation requires a movement built on deeper and more durable power, not momentary wins. It requires trust among communities and organizations, stronger coordination across the field, and a shared vision of what a just industrial future can look like, even before every solution is fully known.

That's where field building comes in.

What we are building

Industrial transformation will require more than strong research, well-designed campaigns, or a favorable political moment. It will require a field with the relationships, shared strategy, and collective power to turn opportunity into lasting change.

The Field Building team works at the intersection of movement building and power building. We connect organizations and leaders who may approach industry from different starting points but share a stake in changing how it operates, who benefits, and who bears its costs.

Think of industrial transformation as an archer’s target. Research helps us see where to aim. Campaigns create momentum. Communications help people understand what is at stake. Fundraising and operational capacity give the work strength and staying power.

But none of those elements can move the arrow on their own. The force comes from the field: the coalitions, relationships, networks, leaders, and organizing infrastructure capable of acting together.

Without that force, even a well-funded and carefully designed campaign can fall short. With it, organizations can move beyond isolated wins and begin changing the underlying rules of industry.

Who do we work with?

We build relationships with organizations across racial justice, labor, health, faith, and more. Our partners include:

• Climate advocacy organizations who see the emissions reduction potential our work has and how that will improve lives for all.
• Environmental justice organizations, often on the frontline of these fights, that are trying to create better lives for their communities with better health outcomes, decreased medical costs, better jobs, and more agency over their communities.
• Public health and healthcare professional organizations that understand that the climate crisis is impacting people’s lives and health now.
• Faith groups that ground industrial transformation in moral responsibility, bringing trusted voices and deep relationships rooted in a shared commitment to love of neighbor, care for workers, and efforts to ensure that future generations flourish.
• Labor organizations that see how the shared vision of industrial transformation means not only keeping but creating jobs, and increasing labor’s power.
• Community-based organizations that understand the intersection of climate, jobs, and justice with their communities’ needs.
• Racial and economic justice organizations that advocate for, and organize with, the marginalized communities that are most impacted by industrial harm.

A diverse field makes the power we build durable — able to hold even as any single relationship, sector, or political moment shifts.

Building this kind of power takes all of us. Here are some ways to get involved with our Field Building work.

• Tell Nippon Steel: We Need a Clean Steel Transition in Northwest Indiana Now
• Join a campaign network
• Join the National Industrial Transformation network

Fill out this form if you would like to join any of the above. Questions? Want to collaborate? Reach out to contact@industriouslabs.org.