Humanity is tied to its natural environments. As natural systems become more fragile, environmentalists are working hard to restore the planet—but there’s a catch.
The mainstream environmentalist movement has always tried to protect the environments of certain people. In contemporary memory, the sixties and seventies are romanticized as a time of “hippies” and “tree-huggers” who embraced counterculture and fought against “the man.” In reality, these activists consisted mainly of the white middle-class and often excluded minorities. In fact, in a 1972 poll of Sierra Club members, an environmental non-profit still active today, only 15% of group members reported including specific environmental issues of marginalized communities within their activism.
The world is one of different “environmentalisms.” In white environmentalist circles, environmentalism means pushing vegan diets, electric cars, and the survival of endangered species. In Black environmentalist circles, environmentalism often means ensuring a steady supply of clean food and water for families, fighting to keep public green spaces accessible, and ensuring the survival of their own communities.
Marginalized communities are disproportionately affected by climate change, yet mainstream environmentalist movements continue to leave BIPOC individuals to fight for justice alone. However, many amazing Black environmentalists are working hard to change the landscape of mainstream environmentalism.
One environmentalist currently breaking barriers in the Greater Toronto Area is Professor Kirk Johnson. Johnson has dedicated over twenty years of his life to reimagining a Canada powered by low-carbon, net-zero, sustainable energy. After a long and successful career designing transformative sustainable energy programs such as Toronto’s Better Building Partnership, he founded his own company, Eco-Efficiency Consulting. He shares his breadth of knowledge with his students at Humber College, where he teaches Sustainability Entrepreneurship. Between 2017 to 2020, he served as Board Chair for Earth Day Canada.
In an interview with The Strand, Johnson shared his story and how he is changing the field as a Black leader within one of the world’s whitest movements.
The Strand: What led you to pursue sustainability policy in your career?
Professor Kirk Johnson: I graduated in a world where anything was possible, but there were also people like Gordon Gekko. I saw that there were two doors in front of me, and I did not want to be a “Wolf of Wall Street.” I had already seen climate change affecting the world. I’d spent summers by the same reefs in Puerto Rico where I grew up, and I would see the reefs getting bleach here and bleach here.
When I graduated university as an engineer, I had a choice. I could work for Motorola, but I felt like I didn’t want to be one of those guys. Sustainability though, that really appealed to me. It was like a giant puzzle and nobody knew the answer to it.
Do you have a moment in your career that you’re particularly proud of?
The hardest program that I’ve had to do was Ontario’s High Performance New Construction Program. There was no appetite for it. If I incent you to build green today, that building won’t be built for another five to seven years. There’s no ribbon cuttings right away for the next quarter.
It was an uphill battle but I knew that it had to happen. Every G20 country had a green construction program and we did not. I’m most proud of that program. At the time it was the largest green construction program in Canada and one of the largest in North America as well.
What do you think are the challenges that you face when designing sustainability programs?
When you are designing a program, you are stopping business as usual, as in rich people getting bonuses for doing nothing. If you don’t ask yourself who benefits and who suffers from your actions, you will find that forces will marshal to prevent you from changing things.
I recognized that going in. When you grow up in Puerto Rico, you find out very quickly that who benefits and who suffers will determine your life. When I got into designing programs, I focused on stakeholder engagement. I find out what is going to benefit the most people the easiest, which lets me build in things that are morally important.
How is representation in your field?
There’s a lot of representation at the junior level. At the team leader level, it’s still pretty good. When you get to the manager level, it starts to be noticeable that people of colour are not around. When it gets to the director level, you’re the only person in the meetings. When you get to the VP level, there are none around, period.
When it finally gets to the leadership and CEO level, there’s a lot of representation, but sometimes that representation doesn’t have a corresponding EDI thrust. It’s like having that representation is their EDI policy. If I’m here because I’m your representation person, then you picked the wrong guy because I’m going to tell you how to fix every damn thing, not just sit there.
Was there a time you felt disadvantaged as a Black person in your career?
There was this time when a supervisor I reported to felt like it was appropriate to have an All Lives Matter discussion with me in a meeting. There’s those kinds of awkward cringy moments, but I don’t mind because I know trolls and I can manage them.
Canada is not like the United States, where they will just tell you, “I don’t like you.” It’s a very polite society and it’s very passive aggressive. But I only ever focus on actions. I forget about words. Like, I come from a Caribbean family. Your words ain’t got nothing on that. Just come to Thanksgiving and Christmas. Those are strong words.
What are the ways that you help make the field of environmentalism more inclusive?
You have to get really good at finding alternate channels. The standard procurement processes will not help you. I’ve hired people through mentoring programs, engagement programs, and internship programs. We would use those channels to find people and once we had them in the program, 25% to 75% of the people we hired ended up getting long term contracts or full time gigs.
I’m kind of like a personal trainer. People that are in underrepresented groups don’t have the vocabulary or the experience, they didn’t go to the private schools, they didn’t get that free internship because they had to work. You have to be their friend, you have to protect them a bit.
Which current project are you most excited about?
It’s actually an EDI project. Whenever anybody reports numbers on diversity, it’s all national numbers. The problem is that lots of work is in urban centres, which are far more diverse. My project is to run and design a program that trains people to the actual representation of the city. I’m doing that for energy advisors right now.
What are some challenges in starting a business as a Black person?
Expect BS and don’t be deterred by it. I was the engineer once on this project for energy management. I show up with the plans to lead this meeting and somebody asks “Oh, are you the courier?” He knew damn well I was not the courier.
I just turned around and said, “oh, are you the secretary?” You diffuse through comedy and move on. Hank Aaron is my hero and he put up with shit. My dad put up with shit. We think we put up with shit but it’s super polite. Other people had it harder. The African phrase is “an elephant does not worry about flocks.”
With equity, diversity, and inclusion, you have to take a long view. There are no shortcuts. My mom said to me once, “Listen, Kirk, nothing changes.” I thought she was being dark. She told me, “You listen to me carefully. What we consider nothing changes every day.” That advice always stuck with me. It’s those tiny steps. Change what somebody considers nothing. If you can do that every day, you will build up momentum.
If you are interested in supporting Black environmentalist organizations, check out:
The issue with Joss money (a Korean Canadian, David Kim accidentally made a mistake over mixing up similar paper during a thoughtful tribute to Chinese students) brought this to my attention. There are over 15 000 Non-canadian overseas students from China at the university of Toronto, along with a handful from the US and Europe while deserving black and indigenous Canadian are excluded. The university prioritizes the 3 Ps, privilege, power, and prestige over the welfare of indigenous and black Canadians. Every indiginous and black Canadian should be offered these spots before the university gives these limited spots to obscenely wealthy US, and oversees students.