Robert Raben, a powerful lobbyist from the Capitol, thought he was imagining the phenomena when he attended an esteemed environmental movement gala and found himself surveying a room full of what he calls the overwhelming white “Green Insiders Club”. To see if his fears were real he found the initiative Green 2.0 and commissioned a report, "The State of Diversity in Environmental Organizations: Mainstream NGOs, Foundations & Government Agencies".
At the National Press Club in Washington D.C., on December 9, 2014, with the collaboration of New America Media, Green 2.0 launched a partnership with charity databank GuideStar and the D5 diversity coalition—to collect and make transparent diversity data from NGOs and foundations. The Guidestar portal will provide a way through which the environmental community can voluntarily provide data and hold themselves accountable to racial diversity standards—leading the way to help create plans to improve diversity.
Six of the nation’s top environmental organizations formally pledged to submit their diversity data to their GuideStar profiles by February 2015: Natural Resource Defense Council, Sierra Club, Resource Media, National Audubon Society, Earthjustice and the Environmental Defense Fund. Diversity is an organic value like integrity, not a February issue, noted Raben, announcing the news.
Gina McCarthy, chief of the Environmental Protection Agency, addressing a crowded room of leading environmental advocates and journalists, stressed that is hard to hear the voices of a community if the community is not represented. She said that organizations should reflect the people they serve, if they are serious about bringing clean air and clean water to all Americans.
Also speaking on the “Breaking the Green Ceiling” panel were the incoming President of the NRDC, Former Assistant Secretary, U.S. Department of the Interior, Rhea Suh, Kelly Brown, Director of D5 Coalition, Jacob Harold, President of Guidestar, Roger-Mark DeSouza. Director, Population, Environmental Security and Resilience at the Wilson Center, Mark Maganas, Green Latinos nd Robert Raben, founder, The Raben Group and Green 2.0.
Dr Dorceta E. Taylor, a professor at the University of Michigan’s School of Natural Resources and Environment and author of “The State of Diversity in Environmental Organizations: Mainstream NGOs, Foundations & Government Agencies", surveyed 191 environmental nonprofits, 74 government environmental agencies, and 28 leading environmental grantmaking foundations and included confidential interviews of 21 environmental leaders from diverse backgrounds and experience. The bottom line is that staff diversity at organizations is not reflective of the numbers in society. People of color are nearly 40 percent of the U.S. population, and comprise 29 percent of the science and engineering workforce and they consistently vote for environmental issues at a higher rate than whites, yet they do not exceed 16 percent of the staff in any of the organizations surveyed.
Dr Taylor found talented minorities were not hired or retained due to either unconscious bias, discrimination or insular recruiting. Much of this happens because people tend to hire people they know, and the United States is increasingly “sorted” along racial lines, as three quarters of white people do not have a friend who is a person of color. Studies also show people can be consciously committed to equality, and deliberately work to behave without prejudice, yet still hold unconscious negative prejudices or stereotypes. Scientific research has demonstrated that biases thought to be absent or forgotten remain as "mental residue" in most people.
“Diversity of perspective, of approach, of experience, matters. That difference makes all the difference,” remarked Roger-Mark DeSouza, on a panel at the Green 2.0 conference. Environmental organizations usually conjure up visions of diversity as the environment is one issue that crosses racial and religious lines. Many attendees were surprised to learn that most environmental organizations are less diverse than the White House Press Corps.
Fatima Hasan wasn't surprised by the findings in the Green 2.0 report, even though in her work she has found that people of color are often the most affected by pollution. An African American Muslim, she is a certified planner with the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission and spoke to the Muslim Link recently about her experience as a minority in the environmental movement. “It has been hard from me,” she says. A member of the Sierra Club and the Severn River Association, the oldest river association in the country, it is tough for her to attend meetings and not find any person of color, much less a Muslim of color. She is trying her best to change that by recruiting more people from her community.
“Our community suffers a lot from environmental diseases like cancer, asthma, from ruining of the air, water and the soil, so we need to be concerned about [the environment],” says Hasan, who attended the Green 2.0 event. African Americans in the United States are three times more likely to die from asthma related problems than whites. Most communities of color live in urban areas, near power plants, oil refineries and waste management facilities. According to the report, Air of Injustice: African Americans and Power Plant Pollution, 68 percent of African Americans live within 30 miles of a coal-fired power plant, compared to 56 percent of whites.
Most of Hasan’s work involves agricultural preservation, urban and rural agriculture, and the food system in Prince George's County, MD. The county has a lot of food deserts—a geographical location where nutritious and wholesome food is hard to obtain. It is also a majority African American county and residentially highly segregated with many all African American and Hispanic neighborhoods. Hasan has worked on a number of other projects in her career here that focus on green infrastructure, water resources, and air and water quality.
“We know that communities of color have a disproportionate impact from various environmental externalities- by-products and superfund sites [abandoned hazardous toxic waste is gathered] and poor water quality, etc.,” says Hasan. There are ten such sites in Prince George’s County. Yet, it is a challenge to get people of color in the community involved, there are so many more urgent issues that are on their plate, she says, like feeding their families, getting food on the table, and keeping their homes. This problem is truly a reflection of the intersection of poverty and structural racism: the housing crisis hit people of color the hardest, the unemployment rate among African Americans is about double that among whites, as it has been for most of the past six decades, according to a report published by Pew Research.
Hasan believes that the Green 2.0 coalition is really reaching out to put a spotlight on the issue of lack of people of color represented in major environmental groups. “I think one of responsibility of these organizations and [also] people of color— Black scientists, Black engineers, Asians, Hispanics— to latch on to this initiative and identify people in their groups who would benefit from this initiative,” says Hasan.
Another way communities of color could be involved in the green movemnet is through religious organizations. The environment is a faith-based issue for a lot of Muslims. Hasan has a strong connection with the environment becuase of her faith. “It is Allah’s creation,” and it hurts her to the core to see corporations and individuals disrespecting the environment. “They are functioning from a major spiritual disease... greed,” she says. Raping of the planet, removing resources without caring about the people who live in those area, producing waste products that impact communities is a human issue as much as an environmental issue.
Hasan also recognizes that some Islamic centers and masajid have made efforts such as community gardens, like the one at the Islamic Society of Annapolis and Masjid Muhammad in Washington D.C., getting people to relate back to the Earth to grow their own good quality, locally grown food. Discussing project planning, she says that it is imperative for masajid to be cognizant of the environment at their planning stages so when they build a new project, they are sensitive to environmental issues such as storm water management, the Chesapeake Bay and tree canopies. If religious organizations make the environment a priority, so will the congrgrants.
“If you cannot breathe the air, drink the water and eat the food what is the use of anything?” says Hasan sagely.
Read the full report at www.diversegreen.org/report.
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