More on Environmental and Climate Action Archives

“Stuff Is Broken. Let’s Fix It”: Sandra Goldmark on Why We Need the Circular Economy

Posted on August 15, 2023August 21, 2023 by Greg Behrman

Every day, the average American produces five pounds of trash a day.

It’s a number that might not seem like a lot, but at scale, it’s staggering: By the end of one year, America as a nation has produced 268 million tons of new trash — enough garbage to fill 12,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

And of those millions of tons of new waste that end up in our landfills, less than a third of it is recyclable. That means that solving this problem will take so much more than just recycling better, and more often — it’ll take radically rethinking our relationship with how we purchase, what we purchase, how frequently we purchase, and perhaps most importantly, what we do with the things we have when we’re ready to throw them away.

In honor of Earth Day 2021, NationSwell is launching a content series exploring solutions from the Circular Economy, which the Ellen MacArthur Foundation defines as “a systemic approach to economic development designed to benefit businesses, society, and the environment. In contrast to the ‘take-make-waste’ linear model, a circular economy is regenerative by design and aims to gradually decouple growth from the consumption of finite resources.”

To kick off this series, I spoke with NationSwell Council member Sandra Goldmark, Director of Campus Sustainability and Climate Action for Barnard College, who quite literally wrote the book on the Circular Economy. Here’s what she had to say.

NationSwell: Thank you so much for speaking with me, Sandra. To start things off, would you be able to define the Circular Economy for our readers?

Sandra Goldmark: A big part of what we do as humans is extract resources from the earth. We turn them into things, and use them, and then we’re done with them. Right now we operate in a linear system where those goods just go right back into the earth, in the form of landfill.

But a circular system, and a circular economy, are different. When we move towards a circular system, we harness those resources and feed them into new processes, products, or goods. And along the way, increase, access, health and benefits for the human communities working on those goods. There’s no material that is ever considered unused. Just like in the natural world, every by-product or outcome of any process gets fed back into another process.

Why do we so urgently need to shift towards a circular system as soon as possible?

Right now, thank God, we are really beginning to take some serious strides on climate change. Biden has laid out a really impressive infrastructure plan. We are all of a sudden looking at transitioning our entire car fleet essentially to electric vehicles over the next 10 to 20 years.

However, if we build all that infrastructure, build all those new cars, build all those energy efficient appliances with the old linear model, then yes, we’ve switched to renewable energy, but we have not eased the pressure on the natural resources, which is a huge problem. We can’t approach our new climate plans as though switching to renewables is the only thing we need to do to be truly sustainable. We need to adopt a circular economy by building new systems and infrastructure and objects with existing, pre-extracted resources — rather than extracting new ones.

In your book, you talk about how the Circular Economy advances equity. Can you talk about how?

My entree into circularity really came from thinking about waste and environmental impacts. But as soon as I began actually looking at it, I realized very quickly that you can’t separate the human, the social impacts and the environmental impacts of these broken practices. Not that they’re one in the same, but they’re so closely linked that you really can’t look at one without looking at the other.

Look at a garment that you might buy. If it is cheap and poorly made, that means that the person making it was paid very, very little. That means that most likely the community where it was made was facing some negative environmental impacts from the manufacturer of that garment. And that means that most likely it won’t last very long and it will go to landfill.

And so if you start thinking about a different kind of garment, one where the person making it was paid a fair wage, where the true cost of the materials and the distribution of it from an environmental standpoint was paid for, you might be looking at a more durable garment. One that is, for example, repairable, where all of a sudden, a local artisan where you live might earn some money fixing it and where it could be passed on to somebody else when you’re done with it — maybe at a lower cost than the original price for a new garment.

And so all of a sudden there are these cascading benefits to rethinking what we pay for the objects that we make. Can we pay a little more to have new objects that are higher quality? Can we pay to have things fixed? Can we pay to have systems for circulating things within the community? And thereby increasing wages for manufacturers, increasing access to quality goods at the local community level and creating local jobs… it’s all there as soon as you start to look.

And in fact, the roots of the problem are also all about how much we’re paying people. Like, there’s no way we’re going to have repair shops exist again in the United States in a robust way if we’re competing against these artificially low wages overseas. So fighting for fair wages overseas is actually, when you’re looking at a circular model, is also a way of fighting for local jobs. Those jobs can be in the reuse and repair sector. It doesn’t have to be an either or. It doesn’t have to be like overseas jobs versus ours. It can be both.

What are things that individuals can do right now to live with circularity in mind?

This is the easiest thing in the entire world. Every single person in the United States today can radically reshift the amount of used goods that they buy, decrease the amount of new goods they buy and increase the amount of used goods. When they buy new, they should make a real effort to buy things that are sustainably and ethically made. And that those new purchases can become much more rare and used goods should be the majority of your stuff diet.

What can businesses do to develop healthy models for growth? And what might you say to an entrepreneur who might be thinking right now, “Sure, circularity is great and everything, but isn’t this all bad for my bottom line?”

We need to rethink our business models for businesses large and small. Most businesses that make and sell stuff are locked into a model where their entire source of revenue is manufacturing and selling more and more new goods. Now, if those goods are green or sustainable, great. But if your only business model is always about selling more new stuff, it’s not going to work. We need to build business models that have some revenue from good new stuff, some revenue from reuse/refurbishment, some revenue from repair/reuse/recycling. We need to have a diversified business model where businesses are actually making money from something other than selling new goods.

What’s the policy side of this? What can we support at the federal or local level?

So the policy part of that is huge. I always like to think about it as small and big. On the small level, there are local municipal level policies that can make a big impact. Pay-as-you-throw waste pickup, mandatory composting, all of these kinds of policies that will incentivize the right behavior. We could begin to be giving tax breaks to repair service providers, to reuse businesses. That’s more like at the city or state level. At the federal level, in this new infrastructure bill, we need to be plugging a huge amount of money into circularity, not just green manufacturing, green remanufacturing. And at the global level, the number one thing that we need to do is demand better international labor standards.

Sandra Goldmark is Director of Campus Sustainability for Barnard College.

Five Minutes With Taj Eldridge, Managing Director of Climate Innovation at Jobs for the Future

Posted on June 28, 2023September 19, 2023 by NationSwell Team

The NationSwell Council is made up of social impact-oriented leaders and changemakers who are committed to pioneering solutions in order to better their communities — and the world around them. In NationSwell’s latest series, “5 Minutes With…,” we sit down with members of our community whose exemplary leadership deserves a deeper dive. Here’s what Taj Eldridge, Managing Director of Climate Innovation at Jobs for the Future, had to share with us on green jobs, meeting the demand for a skilled workforce, and the power of dissenting thought:

NationSwell: What does the future of nature-inspired innovation look like, and what can we do to ensure that that future is as equitable and inclusive as possible?

Taj Eldridge, JFF: The future of climate tech looks like America. Here’s what I mean by that: Historically, we’ve thought of the idea of tech as something affiliated with Silicon Valley—Sand Hill Road and the Bay Area. Climate tech will be more about the entire country, with a local-to-global approach of providing tailored solutions to help our planet and, more importantly, every person living on it. This very idea of geographic diversity, along with programs like ‘Climate Resilient Employees for a Sustainable Tomorrow’(CREST) that we at JFF are managing, will ensure that this re-imagination of climate tech is both inclusive and equitable. 

NationSwell: How does the work you’re driving today help to build that future?

Taj Eldridge, JFF: CREST is a 5-year, $25 million project of the Ares Charitable Foundation led in partnership with JFFLabs at Jobs for the Future and the World Resources Institute. This work aims to close the gap between the demand for a skilled workforce for green jobs and the number of people prepared for these opportunities. It focuses on ensuring that people without traditional credentials and varied geographical representation are a priority in green job creation and training for this generation and the next. We recently released Growing Quality Green Jobs as part of CREST, which shares why a just transition requires removing limitations around how we define jobs and skills needed to build a climate-resilient workforce.

NationSwell: What inspires or motivates you — personally and professionally — to do this work?

Taj Eldridge, JFF: My motivation around this work comes from this idea I always mention on how climate change impacts us in three ways: the call for justice, personal wealth, and public health.

The call for justice, for me, calls attention to the fact that communities that public and private institutions have underserved bear the brunt of the climate impact. But these communities are rarely involved in creating the solutions.  

The personal wealth aspect means that a large amount of funding is going towards this issue via climate tech and other career pathways; thus, green wealth is being accumulated. This capital accumulation has the opportunity to be more just and equitable.

Lastly, what motivates me is how my own health was impacted by environmental factors growing up caused by climate change. While I was lucky to have a kidney transplant, there are still many others suffering from diseases and ailments caused by climate change. These three lenses motivate me to fulfill this purposeful work around climate change.

NationSwell: What are some promising signs from the impact you’re driving?

Taj Eldridge, JFF: Through our work with CREST, we see technologies and solutions for the green economy developing outside the Bay Area, and growing in middle America, the South, and other regions directly affected by climate change. We are also expanding the definition of a green job, and developing research that indicates we can make every job of the future a green job in response to social and market opportunities.

More generally, some of the promising signs include the excitement and willingness of others who want to partner to battle this disease our planet faces. I often mention the phrase “many hands make light work, ” a proverb about collaboration. I am hopeful about the collaborative possibilities raised by new technologies, new partners, and the younger generation’s moving forward regardless of the political and corporate winds.

NationSwell: Finally, what are some of the challenges you’re facing? How can NationSwell’s social impact community of practice help you with those challenges?

Taj Eldridge, JFF: Some of the challenges for me are that, at times, the language used doesn’t match the intended actions. For example, I often hear the phrase “BIPOC,” but it seems the Indigenous community is left out of the national conversation about how we might utilize some of the solutions they have used for centuries. Similarly, we use this language to describe the “climate-friendly just transition” of going towards a climate-friendly future in the United States and Europe, but we fail to think about other nations, like the Congolese, who toil in mines to collect the very minerals needed to power our batteries. This presents a huge challenge for people to not only trust this transition but also actively participate in it. 

I think the NationSwell community can provide the resource that is just as needed and important as capital—human ingenuity and dissenting thought. We need the ingenuity to constantly think of solutions, as we are in the adolescence phase of our pathways towards a climate-friendly future. We also need the dissenters—to test our assumptions and challenge us to use that same ingenuity to find alternative pathways where ALL will have a just transition. 

Taj Eldridge is the Managing Director of Climate Innovation at Jobs for the Future, a national nonprofit that drives transformation of the U.S. education and workforce systems to achieve equitable economic advancement for all. If you’re interested in learning more, please get in touch.

Five Minutes With Jonathan Stott, Executive Director at EcoRise

Posted on May 16, 2023September 19, 2023 by NationSwell Team

The NationSwell Council is made up of social impact-oriented leaders and changemakers who are committed to pioneering solutions in order to better their communities — and the world around them. In NationSwell’s latest series, “Five Minutes With…,” we sit down with members of our community whose exemplary leadership deserves a deeper dive. Here’s what Jonathan Stott, Executive Director at EcoRise, had to share with us on biomimicry, youth leadership on climate, and community-based environmental alliances:

NationSwell: What does the future of nature-inspired innovation look like, and what can we do to ensure that that future is as equitable and inclusive as possible?

Jonathan Stott, EcoRise: There are so many different ways to answer this one, but for today, I’ll focus on organizational culture. Nature-inspired innovation invites all of us to critically examine our workplace cultures and consider how we might look to nature to reimagine what a healthy and inclusive organization can look like. It’s taking principles of biomimicry, for example, to reimagine decision-making as at the periphery of an organization, where decisions are informed by the stakeholders/customers/users/etc, rather than having centralized control and command structures, which concentrate power in ways that inhibit innovation and contribute to inequity.

NationSwell: How does the work you’re driving today help to build that future?

Jonathan Stott, EcoRise: We’re doing a lot of work at EcoRise to put this concept into practice, with one example being our new partnership screening process. Historically, like many non-profits, we didn’t have a tool or process to truly vet potential partners and evaluate the degree to which they are aligned with our organizational values, like equity. After many conversations with board and team, we created a rubric to guide us through this review and a new working group that uses the rubric to review — and, importantly, make decisions — on partnerships. As a result of this work, we’re being super intentional about who we work with and, in some cases, where we need to respectfully decline funding. I’m looking forward to sharing our rubric and approach with other non-profits in the months ahead.

NationSwell: What inspires or motivates you — personally and professionally — to do this work?

Jonathan Stott, EcoRise: At EcoRise, we engage K-12 youth as climate justice and sustainability leaders through a variety of educational programs. I’ve had the opportunity to see our students in action this spring in communities across the country. Recently, I was in San Antonio for our Youth Council for Climate Initiatives showcase, where students shared their policy proposals and projects to advance climate and resiliency goals in the region. One student group examined how the city could streamline its website and better target support services as part of the residential weatherization assistance program to reduce San Antonio’s climate footprint and promote housing equity. All of the student groups were amazing — I could have sworn I was listening to a team of consultants or graduate students. I left feeling hopeful and inspired — and eager to do more to support youth leadership on climate.

NationSwell: What are some promising signs from the impact you’re driving?

Jonathan Stott, EcoRise: We face an existential threat with climate change, and so it’s easy for me to go negative. But there are so many promising signs in the work we’re doing at EcoRise with the support of our partners. One project I’m particularly excited about is our systems change efforts, whereby EcoRise is working with local, regional, and national partners to advance the environmental education movement through large-scale data collection and visualizations. This project is called Gen:Thrive, and is publicly available here: https://www.genthrive.org/

NationSwell: Finally, what are some of the challenges you’re facing? How can NationSwell’s social impact community of practice help you with those challenges?

Jonathan Stott, EcoRise: We’re not a huge non-profit, but we’re not tiny either. As a result of being somewhere in the middle, there are times when we need support in specific areas we are working in, where we don’t have the internal expertise (e.g. technical support for our GIS mapping work, human resources and legal expertise). We’re also seeking board members who can play the role of Community Connectors and Champions, helping advance our impact and build program alliances with community based non-profits in key regions including New York, Washington D.C, and Atlanta.

Jonathan Stott is the Executive Director at EcoRise, a nonprofit working to mobilize a new generation of leaders to design healthy, just, and thriving communities for all by elevating youth voices and advancing student-led solutions to real-world challenges. If you’re interested in learning more, please get in touch.

Five Minutes With Kristy Drutman, Founder of Browngirl Green

Posted on May 15, 2023July 27, 2023 by Anthony Smith

In “5 Minutes With…,” NationSwell’s Editorial Team sits down with practitioners in our community whose work advances social, economic, and environmental progress. As part of our focus on Meeting Our Climate Moment, and with mindfulness around the overlapping celebration of AAPI Heritage Month and recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month, NationSwell sat down with Kristy Drutman, founder of Browngirl Green, about the work she’s leading (and inspiring) on climate justice, why the climate crisis is a mental health crisis, and how her Philippine heritage informs her sense of urgency and intersectionality.

This is what she had to say.

NationSwell’s Anthony Smith: Tell us about your professional and personal journey.

Kristy Drutman, Browgirl Green: I’m a Jewish and Filipina environmentalist and online educator. I run a platform called Browngirl Green that centers diversity, equity, and inclusion in climate solutions, and I’m the co-founder of the Green Jobs Board, which is a social media-powered platform that strives to build a bigger and more inclusive green workforce.

NationSwell: In the climate space, we’ve heard for a few years that climate justice and racial justice are intertwined. What’s unique about your approach to the intersections between the two?

Drutman, Browngirl Green: My work is unique because it draws its power from storytelling. Leaders may have access to the tools, and they may also have access to the information systems, but it’s really storytelling that empowers us to tell a new narrative about climate solutions — and empowers people who have been traditionally sidelined to see ourselves as leading the charge. The mainstream media has failed to tell these stories well; it’s one of many mainstream institutions that young people who care about their futures are fed up with. They’re turning to one another in their frustration, and the platform I’m building seeks to not only support those connections, but give them education and resources so that they can be more than just frustrated. I start by representing them — and I use that to galvanize them to take action, and educate them on the steps they can take.

NationSwell: You mention frustration with media, with legacy institutions, with status quo. What are people — even people who care about climate — getting wrong about climate action?

Drutman, Browngirl Green: There’s a lot of excitement right now about geoengineering, but quick technological fixes aren’t going to get us out of this mess. It’s more than just investing in new technology; we still have to address that the reasons for resource degradation, extraction, and inequity is not a technological issue. It’s a human issue.

That’s what we mean by climate justice. It’s more than just moving away from big oil and focusing on renewables — which, of course, we need, along with other scalable technologies; but it doesn’t matter if we never answer the human question at the heart of all of this: How do we make sure that these transitions aren’t at the expense of marginalized communities — how can we make sure they actually benefit?

And if we don’t ask these questions, if we don’t center these communities and the humans in them in this transition, how is that any different from how the fossil fuel industry operates?

NationSwell: I can imagine that part of how we think more comprehensively about the humans at the center of the climate crisis is in thinking about how this impacts our health: from the food we eat, to the air we breathe, to even our mental health. How do you think about this?

Drutman, Browngirl Green: The climate crisis is a mental health crisis. I feel like our society today is just constantly in a state of dissociation from what’s happening. That happens to me all the time where I’m just trying to be in my twenties, living a life that young people want to live, that other generations got to live, and we’re both trying to do that and we don’t get to do that.

Meanwhile, there’s all this chaos happening and it’s almost like one of those things where you have to either become numb to it or you feel it so deeply — and it can be so overwhelming to where you just don’t even know how to function. And I would say that the climate crisis is leading a lot of people to feeling like there’s not much left you, because there’s no hope.

But there is hope, and there is so much you can do. Young people always have to question their hopelessness, because we need to build systems of emotional support alongside the climate work that we’re doing, where we can talk about how scary it feels to live at this time, knowing that science shows it will get worse if we don’t do anything.

NationSwell: We both share a Philippine heritage; I’m curious about how your heritage might inspire the work you’re leading.

Drutman, Browngirl Green: My culture and heritage… they’re really what’s at stake, and they instill in me a sense of accountability and responsibility. The Philippines is on the front lines of the climate crisis, and knowing that definitely drives a lot of my work. I think a lot about people who look like me, the communities I come from, the diaspora I come from, and I do feel a responsibility to the people in the Philippines because I have the privilege of being in rooms in America where I’m connected to people with power, and many of them do not have access to those spaces.

NationSwell: Can you share a little bit about the impact you’ve had?

Drutman, Browngirl Green: I get young people hired in climate jobs, so they can do this work full time and get paid for it. When people tell me, “You’re the reason I got my first job,” it’s so exciting to me. I am directly creating avenues of employment and accessibility through storytelling, through the platforms that I’m building to make people’s lives better.

That’s what it’s all about for me. I can’t do it all; I’m only one person. My work is about making sure there are more of me. Because this movement needs more of us, and more people bringing more people like them into it. That’s how we build more conduits for change.

NationSwell: What’s your call to action to people who read this?

Drutman, Browngirl Green: We need more intergenerational support. We need folks that are from older generations that do have resources and access to networks to open up doors, especially for young people of color.

A recent report showed that a very small percentage of environmental justice organizations are getting any funding in the climate space. Young people are likely an even smaller percentage of that; to say nothing of the disparities in funding for issues that disproportionately impact and marginalized BIPOC people. There’s a huge opportunity for people with wealth resources and access to understand that redistribution needs to happen in a very active and intentional way to make sure that that leadership is being nourished and that they are getting into those rooms.

There have been people that I met through NationSwell that did that for me. And I’m really grateful for the NationSwell community because a lot of those connections that NationSwell made for me really benefited me. And I made this call to action at NationSwell two years ago, where I asked the community to reach out and help me, and some of my most important relationships in this space came out of that — people I’m still in touch with.

I just wanted to take this moment to shout out NationSwell, because I think you all do really try to bring youth representation into those circles. And those round tables really have made a difference on the kind of people I got to connect with.

Learn more about Kristy Drutman’s work here. Learn more about the NationSwell Community here.

Five Minutes With Sarah Miller, NationSwell Fellow and Youth Climate Activist

Posted on April 20, 2023July 27, 2023Syd Goin and Anthony Smith

With support from the American Family Insurance Institute for Corporate and Social Impact, NationSwell Fellowships provide the network, support, and knowledge to help young leaders level up their environmental and social impact. Over the course of ten months, NationSwell Fellows will work to refine an individual social impact project, connect with established leaders in their field, build upon their expertise of environmental and social issues, and co-design the program in its inaugural year.

In this series, NationSwell is profiling the incredible and inspiring recipients of this fellowship. Each of these young leaders stood out for their immense passion in their environmental and social issue areas of focus, demonstration of leadership in the field, and focus on the importance of intersectionality. As social impact trailblazers, they work on a range of issue areas including climate justice, healthcare access, disability rights in the workplace, racial justice, and more.

In this installment, we’re interviewing Sarah Miller, a youth climate activist whose work focuses on climate community preparedness, building resilience, investing in placemaking, and empowering and uplifting our most vulnerable neighbors.

NationSwell: Tell us about your journey to social impact and sustainability work. What was the moment you knew you wanted to devote your professional life to what you’re doing now?

Sarah Miller: My work and passion lie at the intersections of community and personal resilience, inclusive placemaking, and climate preparedness. I seek to continually explore how our communities, people, and planet can better prepare for impending climate, economic and social related challenges, while also seeking to empower and uplift our most vulnerable neighbors. Throughout this process of life, growing and learning, I have come to understand a circularity, common themes, universal truths about that which I’m passionate about, that which motivates me in my personal and professional life.

My work focuses on ensuring personal and community preparedness for the climate crisis, and its impacts on people, communities, and the planet. Growing up, I spent lots of time outdoors with loved ones, who taught and showed me the great beauty in the natural world, but also the strong need and desire to protect natural and sacred spaces for all people. The climate crisis disproportionately impacts marginalized communities, and communities living in or near poverty – making justice, and equity crucial components of this important work, so that those who contribute the least, don’t end up bearing a heavier weight or load.

Through my work, I’ve learned that belonging is an inherent, necessary, and vital component of livable, vibrant, and equitable communities. Communities have been built on centuries of systemic oppression, leading to unequal health, community, and personal outcomes. Investing in — and being intentional about — placemaking and addressing centuries long disadvantages built into our communities is how our cities and communities can be made more livable, safe, healthy, and equitable for all people within their geographies.

Cultivating and maintaining personal longevity and fortitude in social impact work is necessary for movement building and forward progress. Social impact and climate work can bear substantial emotional and spiritual weight for those engaging in the work. Self-care, mindfulness, and strengthening personal toolkits for dealing with the substantial weight and burden — that ultimately leads to burnout — from engaging in this meaningful work, is necessary for personal resilience.

NationSwell: What are some of the ways this fellowship has been able to support your work? What have you gotten out of it, and has anything surprised you along the way?

Miller: Identifying and cultivating my deepest passions has taken some time. It takes experience, trial and error, and adventure and spontaneity to discover and rediscover what aligns with one’s soul, inner fire, and dharma — or universal truth — inherent to one’s soul. Growing up, I spent a lot of time outside, camping, hiking, in national parks, and grew incredibly passionate about ensuring sustainability of our natural resources and places for future generations to come.

During my time at Indiana University, I explored community development, sustainable food systems, inclusive placemaking and climate action topics extensively, loving the universality of how interconnected these topics truly are. Post-graduation, I had the opportunity to explore climate workforce development and climate action across the State of Indiana, and wanted to intentionally explore why climate change adaptation and resilience weren’t being talked about in tandem with poverty alleviation and social impact work across the state.

This has led me to explore both poverty alleviation, social impact and climate adaptation work in my current position at a regional Indiana United Way — coordinating various programs geared towards supporting the network of human services organizations that our United Way serves. Here, I launched and direct a green and sustainability affinity group for the organization that works to tackle community challenges like poverty alleviation and climate adaptation more holistically – engaging with local stakeholders and organizations for “Lunch and Learns”, and fostering awareness for our team of our environmental and social impact at work and in our communities.

For the last 6 years, I have also developed a passion for yoga. Over the years, it has been a wonderful and intentional way to reduce stress, feelings of burnout and anxiety associated with the heaviness of this field, and also cultivate my personal voice and power. My relationship to my practice over the last three years has really cultivated my deep desire and passion for mindfulness, stress relief and burnout reduction practices not only for myself, but for others in this field who might be prone to burnout or compassion fatigue. Currently enrolled in a 200-hour yoga teacher training, I am excited to take the skills in stress relief, mindfulness, and connection between mind, body, and breath on the yoga mat, to the world of social impact and climate action, helping others in these spaces to build personal fortitude and longevity in this work.

I am incredibly passionate about how these truths intersect and weave through communities. I am excited to continue to explore how the intersections of these ideas can create the futures and realities that we want for ourselves, communities, and the planet.

NationSwell: What’s the focus of your work right now? And what’s next for you?

Miller: Through the support of this fellowship, I have been able to: launch and develop specific and tangential strategy for a “Green Team” at my organization. Connecting with the NationSwell ecosystem of social impact leaders and partners has led to overwhelming support in helping me navigate developing a group like this, navigate cultivating team member engagement with the group and the initiatives, help develop strategy for our Lunch and Learn series, and help build upon the sustained momentum and energy we are gaining here.

Through the NationSwell ecosystem, I have also had tremendous support and feedback for a sustainability recommendation for my organization, in which industry experts gave me best practices suggestions from lived experience and expertise.

I am in the middle of writing an opinion piece, where I am excited to share my thoughts on the power of youth voice and leadership, organizational culture and belongness, and the need for social impact work to be dynamic and intersectional. I am also engaging in a 90-day writing challenge through the Fellowship, which has helped me to rediscover my own creativity, inner voice and passion for the work I am engaging in.

The cohort full of strong and passionate youth womxn leaders has also been such a joy and honor to be a part of. These womxn are doing extraordinary things, affecting positive change on the world, and it has been so meaningful and impactful to feel the support and work alongside these people.

The NationSwell Fellowship has been so impactful for helping me to finalize and rediscover my short and long-term goals. Developing effective communication around the climate crisis, it’s impacts on marginalized communities, and the need for mindfulness and stress reduction in this field, is something that I have grow so passionate about, and with support of the NationSwell Fellowship program, I have been able to dive into these topics, and further sharpen my own unique voice in these spaces. I have always wanted to publish an opinion piece, and I am so thrilled that I have the opportunity through this program.

NationSwell: How can NationSwell’s ecosystem of social impact leaders and partners help you with your short term and long term goals?

My goal for this fellowship was to develop my own personal toolkit for talking about, understanding, and acting on climate adaptation and poverty alleviation work within a Midwestern city context. I have successfully developed a toolkit and have even started actual strategy development and implementation of the things I have been learning throughout this Fellowship. My work with the Green/Sustainability affinity group at my organization, and being able to bring together lots of organizations in the Greater Indianapolis area to talk about our varying work, our missions, and how we all are ultimately trying to make Indiana a more livable, equitable, and sustainable place has been so impactful to see.

The overwhelmingly positive response from my colleagues about the work I am fostering and engaging in also shows me that people in the Midwest are dying for more intersectionality of topics. We want to talk about community challenges in tandem, and break down siloes around these community challenges.

With my yoga studies over the next couple months, I really hope to continue to find meaningful ways to bring stress reduction, eco-anxiety, compassion fatigue into these conversations. We need continued and sustained efforts from those in social impact and climate work, which requires true rootedness, and grounding in the world around them, and in themselves. Yoga, meditation, and mindfulness can be one part of the personal resilience toolkit, to help those working in these spaces. I also hope to continue to build out my written and verbal communications, so I can reach larger audiences of folx working on these issues in communities around the Midwest.

To learn more about the NationSwell Fellows program, visit our fellowship hub.

Five Minutes With Thea Gay, a NationSwell Fellow Building Resources for Youth Climate Activists

Posted on April 7, 2023July 27, 2023Syd Goin and Anthony Smith

To begin this series, we’re interviewing Thea Gay, a recent college graduate from Florida, whose work is bridging the gap between climate justice and the field of diversity, equity, and inclusion. NationSwell interviewed Gay on the digital zine she’s creating as a resource for other social and climate justice activists to help them do this work authentically and sustainably, to encourage them to interrogate their work, and to build the tenacity they will need to stay in the fight for climate change.

NationSwell: Tell us about your journey to social impact and sustainability work. What was the moment you knew you wanted to devote your professional life to what you’re doing now?

Thea Gay: Since I was a teen, I’ve always been intrigued by work that’s centered around communities and the earth. It was in my sociology and history classes in high school that made me realize I wanted to devote my professional life to what I’m doing now: fighting for social justice and climate justice. These classes forced me to reckon with the idea that as a queer Black woman, society dramatically shapes how I and people like me navigate the world.

While I knew this to be true based on my experiences, these classes gave me the knowledge of why and how social structures/constructs work against minorities. I began to wonder how people of other identities were also shaped by society. I started noticing a trend: marginalized communities were disproportionately impacted by social injustices. While I have disadvantages, I also have many privileges that I can leverage to create a kinder world that is just and equitable. This is something I intend to do for the rest of my life.

NationSwell: What are some of the ways this fellowship has been able to support your work? What have you gotten out of it, and has anything surprised you along the way?

Gay: The NationSwell community has truly been a resource hub of wonderful opportunities, educational assets, and comprehensive support. I am currently at an early point in my professional career where I am beginning to carve out my path. Being able to connect with a community of young social impact influencers like myself, social impact leaders with extensive expertise, and even being mentored by one has been incredible. I relish this experience for giving me a chance to grow my creative mind and push me to think about the possibilities and impact that I could have. I am so grateful to be a part of NationSwell’s inaugural fellowship.

NationSwell: What’s the focus of your work right now? And what’s next for you?

Gay: In my day job as a Program Associate at the Lawmaker Network, I help facilitate high-level programming for Lawmakers and assess nationwide lawmaker impact to help our nation move towards racial, environmental, and social justice. I have a passion for finding creative solutions and developing resources and events focused on DEI, intersectionality, and greater.representation of marginalized communities. I would love to do more work centered around community and human-centered impact and design.

NationSwell: How can NationSwell’s ecosystem of social impact leaders and partners help you with your short term and/or long term goals? Give us one to three examples.

Gay: In the long term, I would love for the NationSwell community to stay connected with me and get in touch with any professional or personal opportunities that speak to the work I am interested in. Recommendations and referrals go a long way and would be greatly appreciated. Please tap me in as well if there is anything that I can do to give back to NationSwell for all that they have done for me. Whether that’s helping the next class of fellows or speaking at an event I am honored to be a part of this community.

In the short term, I’m looking for support on my impact incubator project, and I hope members of your community will share it so it can reach as many people as possible. This project means so much to me and I really hope that it will mean something to those who read it too.

To learn more about the NationSwell Fellows program, visit our fellowship hub.

The 2023 Sustainability Agenda

Posted on January 18, 2023July 27, 2023 by Anthony Smith

A rising tide of interconnected global challenges — from geopolitical conflict and natural resource shortages to rising inequality and increasingly frequent extreme weather patterns — has accelerated the collective need for consumers, companies and governments to address the impacts of climate change. But, if the world is to meet sustainability targets, then 2023 must be a year of not only greater interest, but also increased action and collaboration.

In partnership with Morgan Stanley, NationSwell convened a group of cross-sector leaders, each at the vanguard of sustainable innovation, to share ideas about what is at the top of their sustainability agenda for 2023. The sustainability leaders also provided insights into what their companies and organizations are doing to meet their goals and make progress towards a more equitable and sustainable future.

1) Lead the Charge on “E” “S” and “G” in Lockstep

Leaders must be forward-thinking about climate, diversity and inclusion, human rights and ESG reporting by advancing the understanding that each of these are interconnected and systemic. In 2023, expect to see more conversations about how to drive the low-carbon transition in a more inclusive and equitable manner, and particularly in ways that address longstanding issues of environmental injustice. As the energy transition ramps up, for example, this will require that public and private sector leaders ensure that new opportunities in the green economy are fairly distributed and available to everyone, especially marginalized communities that are already disproportionately impacted by extreme weather events.

One leader at the roundtable recommended reordering ESG to “GES” to better reflect the foundational role of governance in every tenet of an organization’s sustainability strategy.

2) Talk about Sustainability with Authenticity

Over the next year and beyond, the most effective leaders will place a premium on authentic storytelling and communications. They will ensure that the impact they are making — as well as the challenges they face — remain front and center to the narrative they share. A key starting point to harness the power of stakeholder-focused storytelling will include solving for the current lack of standardized data capture which makes it a challenge to accurately measure and share the true impact being created.

Upcoming changes to regulations around the world could help. A recent survey by the Morgan Stanley Institute for Sustainable Investing found that 59% of institutional investors believe that current proposed global ESG regulations will in fact help their organization better understand and talk about their impact.

3) Address the Sustainability Leadership and Talent Gap

While there is a reliable and increasing flow of talent in the field of sustainability through college pipelines, more experienced senior-level talent is still in high demand. A study by the Morgan Stanley Institute for Sustainable Investing found that just 39% of asset managers and 23% of asset owners, such as foundations or pension funds, say they have enough talent to meet their sustainability needs. Many leaders also believe that as sustainability is increasingly critical to the future of business the talent gap will continue to grow.

Part of this challenge may be the open question of where sustainability actually “lives” within a company. Leaders note that Chief Sustainability Officers (CSOs) are the most heterogeneous of all C-suite roles — they come from different backgrounds and may report to a different executive or senior leader than their C-suite counterparts. That is why as we head into 2023, some are exploring how to better structure their organizations and develop the skills to ensure that their sustainability leaders are central to their group.

4) Balance Energy Security, Affordability and Sustainability

The Russia-Ukraine war and the impacts of the pandemic have pushed the world into an energy crisis. This leaves many to ask, how can we ensure energy security and affordability while recognizing the need for more sustainable energy? As countries ramp up fossil fuel reserves to ensure their people are safe and secure, this can be seen as a setback in the global energy transition.

The reality is that 2023 will likely bring conversations about how we adopt longer-term strategies and boost investments that deploy renewable energy at an even larger scale. To help solve issues of energy security, affordability and sustainability, grabbing the “low-hanging fruit” of green energy sources like solar and wind should certainly continue. But 2023 will also likely see expanded conversations about “future fuels” like green hydrogen and further-in-the-future possibilities like the recent breakthrough in fusion ignition.

5) Set Higher Standards and Transparency for Voluntary Carbon Offsets

Leaders are poised to hit the ground running in 2023 to push for higher standards on the voluntary carbon offsets market. There is consensus that we will not offset our way out of the climate crisis and the priority must be on mitigating absolute emissions. However, while there remain parts of entire industries and supply chains that cannot yet be realistically decarbonized, voluntary carbon offsets add benefits by allowing businesses, governments, nonprofit organizations and individuals to offset their footprint and help balance the effect of any residual emissions.

The reality is also that the voluntary carbon markets exist outside a regulatory regime, meaning there isn’t always proper oversight or a guarantee that offsets will produce absolute emissions reductions or real-world impact. So, as carbon offsets increase in popularity and see rising demand, moving beyond “do-no-harm” and into place-based, community-centered climate interventions will likely continue to be a big theme. This is especially important as private and public sector leaders continue to call for greater transparency and verifiable standards for offsets providers around the world.

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The Morgan Stanley Institute for Sustainable Investing provides leaders with the resources, tools, and insights they need to meet their most ambitious sustainability targets for 2023 and beyond. Learn more here.