Four Women Environmental Activists Who Are Changing The World

Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News!

---

This article was published in The Beam #7  —  Subscribe now for more on the topic.

Women have made major contributions to environment activism and to swing the spotlight back onto global environmental issues. These women dedicate their lives to fight against global environmental destruction.

Claire Nouvian

Founder of BLOOM

As a 2018 Goldman Environmental Prize winner, Claire Nouvian switched from journalism to activism to tackle the destructive practice of deep-sea bottom trawling. The French activist founded the nonprofit conservation organization BLOOM in 2005, and began a campaign that recently resulted in a major policy shift by the European Union.

Claire gives body and soul to her fight against the rogue trawlers and electric fishing. Her research and activities focus on deep-sea fisheries and shark consumption habits and her aim with BLOOM is to create a collective conscience to tip public opinion in favor of the protection of the deep sea. She believes that it is only what we know and love that we protect and, therefore, seeks to create an emotional connection between everyone and this strange environment.

Livia Firth

Founder of Eco Age Ltd

“When you get back you can’t pretend it is ‘business as usual’,” said Livia Firth after she traveled to Bangladesh with Oxfam in 2008 to meet garment workers and find out about their working conditions. As an ‘Oxfam Global Ambassador’, the Italian-born activist has also traveled to Ethiopia, Kenya, and Zambia, connecting with the people at the beginning of the supply chain.

Since founding consulting company Eco Age Ltd in 2009, Livia Firth has been a prominent advocate of sustainability in the fashion industry, and has served as executive producer of the groundbreaking documentary The True Cost. Livia Firth is also an active member of The Circle, a partnership of influential women who use their networks, skills and resources to help Oxfam empower vulnerable women and tackle poverty.

Pashon Murray

Co-founder of Detroit Dirt

Pashon Murray has a drive for waste reduction, recycling, and reuse of materials. She started Detroit Dirt in 2010 by collecting waste from plant-eating animals at the Detroit Zoo, and food waste from local restaurants and General Motors’ headquarters to make compost. Her aim? To create awareness and change the carbon footprint of Detroit through revitalizing neighborhoods, finding solutions for everyday waste, and eliminating trips to the landfill through composting.

The environmental entrepreneur designed a closed-loop model process, and soon after, the waste collection and local composting company received national attention, being recognized as a leading model of organic waste recovery and reuse. “We need everyone around the country thinking in crisis mode, our resources are limited,” she said in an interview with The Journal.

Nguy Thi Khanh

Director of the Green Innovation and Development Centre Vietnam

Born into a rural family in Bac Am, a village in northern Vietnam, and growing up near a coal plant, Nguy Thi Khanh experienced the pollution and dust from coal operations firsthand and witnessed many people in her community developing cancer as a result. In 2011, the activist founded Green Innovation and Development Centre (GreenID) in order to promote sustainable energy development in her country.

She also established the Vietnam Sustainable Energy Alliance with the aim to help households and entire communities to minimise pollution of rivers, turn waste into energy, and acquire new, affordable technologies such as solar lights and worm farms. Her fight against coal plants and her career advocating for renewable energy has been recognized this year through the Goldman Environmental Prize.

By The Beam Editor-in-Chief Anne-Sophie Garrigou.

Subscribe to The Beam for more on the topic.

Read more from The Beam.