About Us
Greens REALIGN brings together former, current, and future staff of environmental organizations to learn, share, ideate, and act to make the environmental movement more representative, fair, and united.
Greens REALIGN began in May 2021 when a few individuals across environmental organizations met to discuss their shared frustrations with the state of justice goals in the environmental movement. They had a deep desire to ensure their work was accountable to communities impacted by environmental pollution. By bringing together like-minded individuals, they realized they could create a space for conversations, sharing, and learning that was missing within the movement.
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Our Mission
To build a collective of individuals at or associated with large, well-funded, environmental organizations and other institutions with relative and positional authority in the environmental movement (“Big Greens”) dedicated to redistributing environmental authority, leadership, and influence to grassroots networks (REALIGN).
Members of the collective are dedicated to advancing racial, economic, and environmental justice; pressing for Big Greens to appropriately work with communities to achieve environmental justice; and to dismantling supremacy culture at Big Greens.
It is a collective goal to develop practices to prioritize the voices, stories, and leadership of people that have been excluded from decision-making and/or harmed by past/current environmental injustices. We want to see Big Greens work urgently to ensure that all communities have access to safe, healthy, and affordable housing, clean air, clean water, nutritious food, affordable clean energy, and everything else they need to thrive–with no one left behind. We aim to identify and push for pathways for change at Big Greens that center the collective goals.
our definitions
Environmental justice means communities have decision-making authority over what happens in their environment and environmental burdens and benefits are shared fairly.
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Diversity is the practice or quality of including or involving people from a range of different backgrounds and life experiences.
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Equity (or Fairness) is the achievement of just outcomes for everyone, taking into account prior distribution of resources and authority or leadership.
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Inclusion (or Unity) is the active promotion of unity and meaningful involvement through intentional creation of an environment that is safe and accessible to all.
Our Principles
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We are all here due to our desire to actively contribute to our shared mission.
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We all benefit and are harmed by systematic oppression. Dismantling systems of oppression benefits everyone.
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It is not useful to argue about which system is worse, or whether oppression exists.
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Liberation is possible.
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Opposing systems of oppression, building alternatives, and cultural change are all necessary.
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We recognize and value all forms of knowledge, including knowledge gained from personal and/or lived experience; ancestral, cultural and traditional knowledge; and other knowledge gained outside of educational and professional institutions.
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The environmental movement and the “Big Greens” have and continue to operate in ways that are racist and harmful.
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*This list was inspired by those drafted by the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Working Group.
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We have formally adopted the Jemez Principles for Democratic Organizing and are inspired by and committed to adrienne maree brown's philosophy of emergent strategy.