How Public and Private Sector Leaders Are Tackling Climate Equity

Sharon Lavigne knows first-hand the effects of climate change. At the inaugural TIME100 Climate Leadership Forum in New York City on Monday, the founder, director, and CEO of the faith-based grassroots environmental justice nonprofit RISE St. James Louisiana named her friends, family members, and neighbors who had been diagnosed with or died from cancer in a community that has a high concentration of industrial plants.

“We are dying so fast,” Lavigne said, emotion evident in her voice, on a panel moderated by TIME senior correspondent Justin Worland. “The water is polluted; the river that we drink our water from is brown.”

When Worland asked how Lavigne navigates situations where local politicians aren’t open to working with advocates to address climate inequities, Lavigne responded: “I pray.” She criticized the Louisiana government for allowing industrial plants to come into her community, St. James Parish. Lavigne lives in what’s known as “Cancer Alley” because of the high rates of cancer in the area.

The panel discussion centered around achieving climate equity and addressing the unequal burden that climate change can place on certain communities—particularly communities of color.

Lavigne was joined on stage by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan and Apple’s Vice President of Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives Lisa Jackson. Regan discussed his mission to incorporate equity into the work of the EPA, emphasizing that equity, justice, and inclusion is a “central pillar” of President Joe Biden’s agenda.

“Everyone deserves access to clean air, clean water, and healthy land, irrespective of how much money you have in your pocket,” Regan said. He later described the EPA’s Journey to Justice tour, for which he traveled throughout Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas to highlight environmental justice concerns in marginalized communities. 

Read More: EPA Chief Michael Regan Wants to Advance Environmental Justice—With the Energy Industry’s Help

Jackson shared that Apple has promised to be carbon neutral by 2030, adding that the corporate sector also needs to “ensure that we’re showing up in communities.”

“The most important part to me is the community—that you’re not doing something to the community; that you’re supporting what the community is trying to do,” Jackson said. 

Regan went on to say that he feels “good” about the EPA’s $27 billion Greenhouse Reduction Fund Program, which focuses on investing in low carbon technologies, primarily in Black, brown, and Indigenous communities. He said the success of this program “would just squash this rhetoric that a clean energy future is only for rich white folks, and so this is a very important program that strikes at the heart of some of the animosity towards the transition to a clean economy.”

The panel concluded with a note of optimism, as Regan focused on the many ways that companies in the private sector are matching the EPA’s capital with “clean products.”

“This is the true way we’re going to begin to reach into communities like the ones that Sharon lives in,” Regan said. “We can say to some of these industrial facilities, ‘We know that the people you’re supplying products to—i.e. Apple—demand a cleaner environment, and so do these communities, and we’re going to be there as a regulator to enforce that.’”

The TIME100 Climate Leadership Forum was presented by American Family Insurance, Cisco, Dow Packaging & Specialty Plastics, Fortescue, Iberdola, L'Oréal Groupe, Siemens, and GSK.