Kresge Foundation

Working for a Greener, Fairer Tomorrow

By Kyler Geoffroy / On April 11th, 2016

It’s so easy to fall into the mindset that your job is the most important work in the whole world. Employed as a journalist? You are dedicating your career to uncovering the truth and preserving the freedom of the press! Work at a bank? You handle the money of the masses and are an integral part of how our economy functions. Manage a factory that makes those cardboard pizza boxes?

What happens when NAACP leaders becomes climate activists?

By Laurie Mazur / On February 29th, 2016

Kathy Egland was one of the first black students to desegregate her high school in Hattiesburg, Miss., in 1967. As a child and young adult, she marched for the right to vote and against segregated buses and drinking fountains. Now she’s fighting for the right to a clean, safe environment, serving as chair of the NAACP National Board’s committee on environmental and climate justice.

African Americans & the Transition Environmental Movement

By Pamela Boyce Simms / On February 16th, 2016

The Transition Towns environmental movement (Transition) has been critiqued by the Simplicity Institute for being run and populated by middle-aged, middle- and upper-middle-class, highly educated, post-materialist progressive white people. Since its inception, Transition has sought and failed to find ways to attract and retain people of color.

Racial Equity, Poverty and the Promise of Clean Power

By Laurie Mazur / On November 22nd, 2015

Very influential people are starting to connect the dots among climate change, racial equity and poverty. The United Nations' new sustainable-development goals explicitly link these issues, and in his historic address to Congress last month Pope Francis called for an "integrated approach" to the climate, requiring inclusive dialogue and a focus on fighting poverty.

How solar power can make affordable housing more resilient

By Laurie Mazur / On November 5th, 2015

When you think of residential solar power, you might envision an upscale home in Marin County, or a compound in rural Idaho. You probably don’t think of low-income apartment buildings in the outer boroughs of New York City. But that’s exactly where new solar technologies can do the most good.