Yesenia Rivera is the Executive Director of Energy Allies. As ED, Yesenia centers climate-impacted communities in clean energy projects, policy advocacy, and education. Yesenia has been a community organizer from the start, working alongside climate-impacted communities. Her first-hand experiences of energy insecurity mobilized her to advocate for eliminating barriers to solar for all. In this post, Yesenia shares how her grounding in community activism has informed the brand and programmatic transformation of the NGO she leads to create true allyship with local climate-impacted communities.

In November of 2022, staff of color at The Wilderness Society (TWS) gathered for a retreat named TWS in Color. In this blog, TWS’s Vice President of Equity, Culture, and Learning Wordna Meskheniten reflects on the experiences and learnings of their convening and provides advice for other groups looking to better support their staff of color.

Coming from a tradition of resilience through humor expertly modeled by her family, Jasmine grew up surrounded by wordplay, a love for the environment, and parents that could have been authors. Early on, this piqued her interest in how we talk and, later, how we talk about climate change. In this blog, Jasmine explores the current rhetoric employed when discussing climate change, its history and implications, and alternative approaches we can adopt moving forward.

SaAnkhessa Meskheniten is a senior at Trinity Washington University and majoring in Business Administration with a minor in Environmental Justice. To mark the end of her fellowship with Green 2.0, she explores her experience in the environmental field and how Black Americans can reclaim leadership within the movement.

Bobbie Green is a Communications Specialist for Environmental Defense Fund, an environmental nonprofit that brings together policymakers and business leaders to solve the toughest environmental issues and find solutions that work. In this guest blog post, Bobbie spotlights ChargerHelp!, a Black-owned clean technology company with a mission to revolutionize access to technology solutions that maintain electric vehicle (EV) charging stations. This green tech company is pushing the envelope for clean energy solutions and creating new workforce development opportunities for local communities of color using a tech-based approach.