Green, but Mostly White: The Lack of Diversity in the Environmental Movement, Part 1 of 5

There have been a series of lively discussions recently around the Future 500 office that led to the creation of a collective article on the subject. The real spark can be traced back to our expansion as an organization over the past year, as we have been fortunate enough to hire five new full time staffers since July 2013. This is when I, as well as others involved in the hiring process, first started to notice how difficult it was to pull applicants that weren’t of a certain class, race, political party and education. A lack of diversity was something I had always noticed about the environmental community, but it was now staring me squarely in the face - in the form of 400 applicants.

In the Spring of 2014, I was fortunate enough to attend the Social Venture Network’s annual meeting. It was the first time I had seen a group of people working in the environmental sustainability arena discuss the lack-of-diversity issue in any real, constructive way.  It was refreshing and gave me the space I had been searching for.  

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Danna Pfahl is VP of Stakeholder Engagement, at Future 500.