A Message From The Founder

The Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice (“CREEJ”) believes that climate change is a crisis of catastrophic proportions. Therefore it is more urgent to advance grassroots-led solutions in policy and technology innovation across the United States. Growing up in rural America where communities are often under-resourced and over-polluted, I have always had a strong lens toward inclusive and equitable environmental justice initiatives. Whether it is a small town or an unincorporated area, we must eliminate the health, economic and environmental disparities suffocating rural and marginalized communities. CREEJ is dedicated to reversing these disparities and seeing a world where everyone has access to clean water, air and sanitation.

- Catherine Coleman Flowers, CREEJ Founder

ABOUT CATHERINE:

Catherine Coleman Flowers is the founder of the Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice (CREEJ) which seeks the implementation of best practices to address the reduction of health and economic disparities, improve access to clean air, water, and soil in marginalized rural communities by influencing policy, inspiring innovation, catalyzing relevant research, and amplifying the voices of community leaders. This is done within the context of climate change and through the lens of environmental justice.

A member of the Board of Directors for the Climate Reality Project and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), she is employed as the Rural Development Manager for the Equal Justice Initiative. She also serves as a Senior Fellow for the Center for Earth Ethics at Union Theological Seminary. Her goal is to find solutions to raw sewage that exist in rural communities throughout the United States. Catherine is also an internationally recognized advocate for the human right to water and sanitation and works to make the UN Sustainable Development Agenda accountable to front-line communities. Her journey is chronicled in her book entitled Waste: One Woman’s Fight Against America’s Dirty Secret, which will be published by the New Press this fall. Catherine was recently awarded a 2020 MacArthur Fellowship grant for her work as an Environmental Health Advocate.