Art: Nat Damm Chandrasekhar “Spike” Narayan Leader of Science and Technology Organization, IBM’s Almaden Research Center Silicon Valley, Calif. Spike Narayan and his team at IBM’s Almaden Research Center work on bleeding-edge technologies that are at the nexus of efforts to create a sustainable world—endlessly recyclable plastics, lithium-air batteries that could dramatically extend the range of electric cars, and infrastructure for smart cities. Given Narayan and the Almaden Research Center’s proximity to Silicon Valley venture capitalists and entrepreneurs, expect to see some of these technologies hit the market in the coming years. Meet more people who are redefining green. Next »    

Art: Nat Damm Erika Allen Projects Manager, Growing PowerChicago, Ill. Erika Allen grew up on a farm in Rockville, Md., working in the fields with her father. “We didn’t have a TV and we relied on a wood stove, but we were known as the ‘food family’ because we had so much food. We could feed 30 people for supper,” she said recently. Today, her dad, Will Allen, is one of the world’s most famous farmers—the recipient of a MacArthur “genius” grant for his innovative work as an urban farmer/community organizer in Milwaukee, Wis. Erika is continuing the family mission …

Art: Nat Damm Ambrose Carroll Pastor, Renewal Worship Center Denver, Colo. The Renewal Worship Center, founded in April 2009 by Rev. Ambrose Carroll, 40, is one of the first churches in the U.S. to have started up with an explicitly environmental emphasis; it also has a mission to reach out to all different kinds of people, including struggling African Americans in the inner city. Its nonprofit arm, RENEWAL, focuses on green-job training and placement in the northeastern Denver area. Carroll is also coordinator of Denver’s Green Jobs Interfaith Coalition and has collaborated with other Denver clergy to call for strong …

Art: Nat Damm Robert Cialdini Psychologist Tempe, Ariz. Robert Cialdini, 64, until recently a psychology and marketing professor at Arizona State University, wrote Influence, the classic book on persuasion. Lately he’s been researching the best ways to persuade people to save energy. In 2007, he coauthored a study [PDF] that found that giving people info about neighborhood energy-use norms (combined with smiley faces) led to large home energy savings. His research inspired the creation of the company Opower, which sells software that utilities can use to make smarter bills and inspire energy efficiency. Cialdini now serves as chief scientist for …

Art by Nat Damm. Original photo by Brian Smale. Valerie Casey Founder, Designers Accord Oakland, Calif. Designer Valerie Casey, 37, wants to green not just her own projects but her entire industry. She started the Designers Accord—aka the “Kyoto Treaty of Design”—in 2007 to encourage the creative community to integrate the principles of sustainability into all design practice and to share knowledge with each other. So far, she estimates, more than 600 design firms, 30 corporations, and dozens of colleges and universities from more than 100 countries have ratified the accord. It all started in 2007 with a manifesto Casey …

Art: Nat Damm Leslie Christian Founder, Upstream 21 and Portfolio 21 Seattle, Wash. “Small companies are critical to the future of our communities,” says Leslie Christian, 62—so she helped concoct an innovative way to support them. Upstream 21, whose board she chairs, is a Portland, Ore.-based regional holding company that acquires and supports small, locally focused, privately held companies in the Pacific Northwest—currently, three forest products companies that are embracing sustainable practices. Right from the drafting of its foundational document, Upstream 21 aimed to break away from business as usual: “Our corporate charter specifically states that the best interests of …

Art: Nat Damm Jim Cochran Farmer, Swanton Berry Farm Davenport, Calif. Despite what many consumers may think, organic rules don’t ensure fair treatment of workers—and tight profit margins mean that working conditions and pay on organic farms are too often no different from those in conventional operations. But Jim Cochran, 62, who launched California’s first organic strawberry farm in 1987, refused to accept the established norms. In 1998, he became the first organic grower to sign a contract with the United Farm Workers union—and he approached them. Then, in 2005, Cochran rolled out what might be the nation’s first stock-ownership …

Art: Nat Damm Cisco DeVries President, Renewable Funding Oakland, Calif. Sure, you’d love to have solar panels on your roof, but where would you get tens of thousands of dollars to install them? Cisco Devries, 36, has come up with an innovative answer: Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) is a new type of financing program that lets private property owners pay for energy-efficiency and renewable-energy projects over 10 to 20 years via an addition to their property tax bill, instead of coming up with the cash up front; the financing comes via municipal bonds, and if an owner sells the …

Art: Nat Damm Matt Golden President, Founder, and Chief Building Scientist, Recurve Sausalito, Calif. Matt Golden, 35, has become a golden boy of the nascent energy-efficiency industry. He started Recurve—formerly called Sustainable Spaces—back in 2004 before retrofit was hip. While Recurve works on a software-driven solution to scale up the energy-efficiency business from mom-and-pop shops to a sustainable industry, Golden spends much of his time in Washington lobbying for Home Star and other legislation to fund energy-efficiency work and create thousands of jobs. Read more about Golden in a Grist article on Home Star and a Grist article on Sustainable …

Art: Nat Damm Zakiya Harris Founder and Executive Director, Grind for the Green Berkeley, Calif. Zakiya Harris, 32, founded Grind for the Green in 2007 to use hip-hop to move youth of color from the margins to the epicenter of the green movement, helping steer them toward educational opportunities and green careers. The group puts on the solar-powered G4G Eco-Music Festival in San Francisco, and this Earth Day it’s rolling out a Get Fresh campaign that aims to get young people educated about and active in environmental issues. Harris also makes her own music as one half of the eco-conscious …

Art: Nat Damm Leanne Mai-ly Hilgart Founder, Vaute Couture Chicago, Ill. Leanne Mai-ly Hilgart, 27, launched Vaute Couture last year with a line of chic, eco-friendly, cruelty-free, ethically and locally produced coats that are warm enough for Chicago winters. As a vegan, model, and MBA, she brings a unique perspective to her work—and strong values too; all profits from one of her styles are donated to Farm Sanctuary, a haven for rescued farm animals. Vaute Couture also sells vegan-themed T-shirts and jewelry. Hilgart tells you about it all on her blog.   Watch Hilgart talk about her business: Meet more …

Art: Nat Damm Rob Jones Cofounder, Crop Mob Carrboro, N.C. Like a growing number of young folks across the country, Rob Jones, 27, likes to get his hands in the dirt, making his foodshed and community more robust and vibrant. Once each month, Jones and a band of young agrarians alight upon an area farm. Calling themselves the Crop Mob, they do a big project together—say, break new ground for raised beds or harvest a labor-intensive crop like sweet potatoes. The host farmers make a big meal, and everyone eats together. Sustainable agriculture is “way, way, way more labor-intensive than …

Art: Nat Damm Dorothy Le Planning and Policy Director, Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition Los Angeles, Calif. Dorothy Le wants to get you out and about on two wheels. Not sure where to start? Watch her series of videos on how to find the bike that’s right for you. At the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, she works to make the archetypal car-obsessed city more welcoming to cyclists and to make the cycling community more welcoming to women and people of color. Le has organized community bike tours, women’s bicycle rides, safety workshops, a bicycle count. While a student at UCLA, she led E3: Ecology, Economy, Equity, …

Art: Nat Damm Anita Maltbia Director, Green Impact Zone Kansas City, Mo. Anita Maltbia is spearheading the transformation of 150 square blocks of Kansas City, Mo., from blight to bright. The Green Impact Zone project, which she directs, is resuscitating this economically depressed African-American neighborhood by putting local residents to work weatherizing the zone’s 2,500 homes and by developing a bus rapid-transit system that will connect the zone to other parts of the region. With $50 million in funding from the federal economic-stimulus package, the initiative will also offer community policing, job training, and health and wellness programs. Maltbia, who has 30 years of …

Art: Nat Damm Ambessa Cantave Educator, Alliance for Climate Education Oakland, Calif. Ambessa Cantave, 33, uses his skills as an entertainer and his green savvy to help young people throughout the Bay Area connect with the environmental movement. As an educator at the Alliance for Climate Education, he makes high-energy, inspiring presentations to high school kids about global warming (take notes, Al Gore). And as a cofounder and creative director at Grind for the Green, he uses hip-hop culture to help move at-risk youth toward good, green jobs. Cantave also spreads messages of eco-consciousness and self-awareness through the hip-hop group …

Art: Nat Damm Valerie Martinez Executive Director, Indigenous People’s Green Jobs Coalition Minneapolis, Minn. Valerie Martinez, a 31-year-old Mexican/Cree/Apache/Ojibwe woman, spreads the benefits of the green economy to American-Indian communities in Minnesota through the Indigenous People’s Green Jobs Coalition. She’s also working with urban-ag pioneer Will Allen to bring small-scale sustainable food production to Little Earth of United Tribes, an affordable-housing community for Native Americans in south Minneapolis.  Follow Martinez on Twitter. Meet more people who are redefining green. Next »