In the year since releasing our letter in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, the United States and the world have experienced more racially motivated violence than any one person can truly comprehend. It is heartbreaking and disturbing that this continues to be the reality many people of color continue to endure. And while it can be uncomfortable, and even painful at times to acknowledge this reality we all share a collective responsibility to do so.

As a solutions organization, Clean Production Action (CPA) is committed to understanding the entirety of the problem. We all live and work in a global society and a global marketplace that has been built on and continues to operate within the context of systemic racism. Climate, toxics, and sustainability work, in general, cannot ignore the realities of this racism. It is wrong to do so. We must fully recognize and understand that an economy dependent on toxic chemicals is also dependent on inequity. It is our responsibility as change-makers to call out these nuances of the toxic chemicals in the economy we strive to eliminate. Doing that requires more than solidarity statements. 

CPA’s journey to address systemic racism has started with shared learning opportunities like anti-racism and bias training and workshops to increase personal awareness of the structural and systemic racism that endangers the everyday lives of BIPOC and perpetuates a toxic consumer marketplace. In doing so CPA strives to better inform our work to make long-lasting equitable change and to create an organizational culture in which POC will feel welcomed, valued, respected, and heard. 

In the year since releasing our letter, our staff has participated in multiple trainings, webinars, and workshops addressing diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace, systemic racism, and anti-racism. BizNGO, for the first time, began a conversation to confront the intersection of diversity, equity, and inclusionand business use of hazardous chemicals at the 2020 annual meeting and continues to think through ways to better engage diversity, equity, and inclusion, and environmental justice in the toxics-use-reduction space. The Investor Environmental Health Network (IEHN) has engaged many chemical companies and pushed for more informed decision-making on their use of chemicals of high concern made in factories that disproportionately appear in low-income BIPOC communities. IEHN has also helped create a new narrative in the value of our work: chemical ingredient transparency as a best practice builds business value and protects the safety of all consumers, especially the people most vulnerable to chemical exposure, whereas a lack of disclosure in chemical management creates business risk and perpetuates disproportionate harm on women and people of color. CPA even rewrote our vision statement and diversity, equity, and inclusion policy to better include the awareness of the disproportionate impacts and exposure of toxic chemicals in the marketplace. 

This year CPA is dedicated to advancing this work by exploring new opportunities to engage vulnerable communities, further developing strategic alignment in each program to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion frameworks, and continuing to provide shared learning opportunities for staff so that one day these values are totally and completely embedded in all that we do. 

I am very proud of the ways CPA has stepped up to this work in the past 12 months and look forward to continuing to shift our future towards one that is more diverse, equitable, and inclusive. 






Kayla Williams
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Lead
Clean Production Action