An introduction to Intersectional Environmentalism

You’re referred to as the Intersectional Environmentalist and you have a movement and book of the same name. For those who are new to the world of environmentalism and intersectionalism, what does it mean and why does it matter?

To put it in simple terms, it means to make sure that you’re advocating for both people and the planet. I think a lot of environmentalists would say, “Okay, duh, that’s what we’re doing,” but that’s not the case. Unfortunately, a lot of vulnerable populations, like communities of colour, lower-income communities, women, et cetera, face the brunt of environmental injustice and hazards. A lot of environmental movements and policies have not considered who is being the most impacted by the climate crisis or who is being left out of the sustainability conversation. Oftentimes, it’s the same people who are impacted by social injustice. So intersectional environmentalism is really just a call to the environmental community to make sure we look at things like identity and culture, because the impacts of the climate crisis aren’t felt equally.

In addition to that, it’s not just about environmental injustice. It’s also about highlighting all of the beautiful stories of different cultures around the world who have contributed to sustainability, but often aren’t considered in the sustainability conversation. Like Indigenous communities around the world who essentially created the blueprint for sustainable living. It’s not, you know, wealthy environmentalists who are often white, from the United States or United Kingdom, et cetera. They aren’t the blueprint for sustainability. We need to make sure we’re considering who laid the groundwork for sustainability.

How can individuals, who aren’t necessarily activists but passionate about environmental justice, get involved?

The best place to start, and often one of the most fun, is diversifying the media that you’re consuming. It’s really important to focus on the beauty of diversity and inclusion within the environmental movement. There are so many cool stories. I interviewed a 100-year-old Black woman park ranger in the United States. She has this amazing story about coming into the parks service system as a Black woman and uncovering these beautiful stories of Indigenous people and their contributions to sustainability. So, I think that’s a fun entry point for people. You can find some of those stories, not to plug too much, but on Intersectional Environmentalist.

Looking at the beauty industry specifically, do you think the industry is doing enough to address environmental issues?

That’s a big question. I would say it’s really hard to tell. There are so many brands that I feel are really trying, where it’s becoming a bit more normal to be considered a green beauty brand. But again, consumers are more confused than ever before because beforehand. There were probably a few brands that have been doing green beauty or cruelty-free for a while. But now, there are really major brands that are coming into Sephora.

They’re becoming popular and it seems like consumer behaviour, especially for Gen Z, is gravitating towards those brands.

But I don’t think the beauty industry is doing enough. A lot of brands that have the power to change — some of those really huge beauty brands — aren’t making the changes they need to make and they could innovate their packaging a little bit further to get one step further. So, no, they aren’t doing enough, but I am excited by the rise of a lot of green beauty brands.

Claims around hyperpigmentation and melanin-rich, for example, are search terms that are becoming more popular. Chemists and formulators are being more aware of not just skin types, but all tones and preferences when it comes to skin. How is that message around diversity and inclusion important when it comes to addressing the eco side of the beauty industry?

There is a statistic I found, that’s kind of off-topic. But in the United States specifically, Black women spend, I don’t know if it’s double the amount, but a significant amount more on beauty products and there are more hazardous materials in beauty products that are marketed to Black women specifically. So, in some ways, the green beauty industry is like an environmental injustice because people who are the most impacted by social injustice are also being exposed to hazardous materials in their beauty products. That’s why I think it’s really important to consider green beauty in the environmental justice conversation, and not just sustainability when it comes to packaging and things like that.

We can’t pretend to be addressing these larger environmental issues while excluding the people it impacts. There’s also this weird situation where brands are marketing these messages of clean and green beauty and they are clean and green – to the consumer who’s consuming them. But not necessarily for the person that’s making them.

That’s left out of the green beauty conversation a lot. Like even just being exposed to making green beauty products, like not knowing if worker safety is considered. It should be part of the equation to even say something’s a green beauty product.

As both an activist and a consumer, have you witnessed greenwashing by beauty brands?

Absolutely. Something that a lot of people don’t know is that when I started my blog, Green Girl Leah, it largely centred around green beauty. I used to work at an eco-friendly soap company. It was my first job out of college and I really love communications and eco, so I learned a lot about the beauty industry and the lack of regulation and things like that.

I started Green Girl Leah and I was talking about green beauty products and stuff like that. When I first started, that’s when the idea of partnership started to emerge. Like, oh this is so interesting. As a blogger, there were brands that wanted to send me products to review or different things like that. I started realising okay, all of these products cannot be “green” and what is “green”? The deeper I dove into it, I was figuring out how so many of these buzzwords are not regulated. Even saying that something is green, the criteria for that can vary so widely. Then so many flags went off. Consumers, especially if they’re not well-versed in sustainability, might see some of those buzzwords and believe it. So yeah, greenwashing is definitely rampant.

I learnt that specifically being on the comms team of an eco-friendly brand, understanding what we can say and what we can’t say. There were a lot of things where I was like hmm, okay, I don’t know how I feel about this, like using the terminology. Like we said about worker safety: is it considered? Are we allowed to say this is a cruelty-free product and things like that? I think there’s a lot of greenwashing going on and I’ve definitely noticed that as a sustainability blogger. Even engaging in partnerships is something that’s changed over the years. Initially, that’s how I kind of funded the work that I did: doing partnerships on social media. But then I was having some concerns about some of the brands I was working with, so I’m being a little bit more intentional about that nowadays.

For people who don’t understand why greenwashing is bad, can you explain why it is so problematic?

I absolutely think greenwashing is problematic. I studied environmental science and there was no required communications class and that’s something I’m really advocating for. If there’s an environmental science program or sustainability program, I think everyone should — and I’m biased because I work in comms — take a comms class. There’s no formal training unless that’s an area of focus. Like how to talk to people or how to talk to consumers about sustainability.

There are all of these advertising agencies and companies that are not green that are really well-versed on how to communicate to consumers and manipulate them to think a product is good for the environment. Greenwashing is terrible because I would say marketing agencies are like, 10 steps in front of the actual sustainability community on how to communicate with people about sustainability. It’s getting people to buy from brands that are doing horrible things, both to people and the planet. So yeah, greenwashing is bad for a number of different reasons.

But I always blame the corporations and not the consumer. Consumers are often just trying to make the best decision that they can and if they see something says green, they probably feel really good about it and I don’t want to shame them for that. Companies definitely have a responsibility to be better, to be honest.

Have you noticed, or has it happened to you, that beauty brands are using activists to further their greenwashing?

Absolutely. I have to be completely transparent. Navigating through funding Intersectional Environmentalist, the easiest way to build our team was definitely like, okay, there are these partnerships and brands want to pay us to talk about their sustainability messaging. This could fund our team for the next like, three months. I think brands put these activists in a very hard position, because oftentimes they’re not, you know, paid well.

There’s been this nuance about eco-influencing in this space. It puts us in a tough position and I definitely want people to be paid for their work. But for me at least, I have a background in corporate sustainability so I can sift through it and say I like this, I don’t like this, I’m okay to talk about this, I don’t want to talk about this. I think having a larger background has given me that kind of privilege. But I do feel really concerned about a lot of other youth activists who are like, okay, there’s a huge brand that’s offering me thousands of dollars that could pay my rent for the rest of the year. I’ve seen that happen and it’s really difficult and a hard topic to talk about.

On your website, you have a pledge about respecting boundaries. From both a campaign and marketing perspective, do you think that beauty brands are respecting boundaries?

Not always, and I think there has to be some sort of middle ground. Companies with resources should, for sure, compensate youth activists and environmental justice organisations and work with them in a reciprocal way. Even if it’s a brand that isn’t 100 per cent perfect, as no brand is, not going to activists and saying, “You have to create this and talk about our sustainability messaging.” Instead, it could be maybe partnering with them on a program or an initiative, funding their organisation, or something like that.

Making sure that these relationships are rooted in reciprocity will actually probably help the brand in more ways than they imagined. I’ve worked with a tea brand that was on a journey to become more sustainable and they asked us, “What do you need?” and we were like, “We would like to pay interns.” They helped us create an internship program and they paid the salaries of our interns which allowed us to grow. For companies with resources, instead of having an activist make a 30-second video, for that same cost or maybe a little bit more, they might be able to fund environmental justice work and I think that will help even more. It’s about respecting boundaries in that way.

Also, if someone is asking for compensation, I think people treat activists like martyrs in some way. Sometimes they’re like, “We want you to speak to our entire company so we can do better for the planet, but we’re not going to pay you.” That’s such a weird way to go about it. And compensating people for emotional labour is really, really important.

Brands are positioning themselves as activists, as a marketing strategy. Do you feel a brand can be an activist?

It reminds me of my next job after school which was working at Patagonia, which calls itself an activist company. I would say that of all the brands, they probably deserve to say something like that. But even Patagonia, the best of the best, they’re still making clothes, so I found that to be really interesting. But why I think Patagonia deserves to call themselves an activist company is because they give so much money to activism. As a company, it’s difficult to be an activist company unless you’re participating in wealth redistribution to fund different movements. So, if that’s not the case, I really don’t agree. I think that companies can and should partner with various movements and organisations and practice wealth redistribution. Without that, and without making systemic changes within the organisation, that just feels like another woke-washing or greenwashing attempt.

Bringing it back to you more personally: you’re an activist and like all of us, you consume. Whether it’s soap in the shower, washing our hair, or wearing sunscreen, for example. How do you navigate being environmentally responsible when it comes to beauty consumption?

I would say I’m kind of in an unfair position and I wish more social media people would talk about that. A lot of big beauty brands will send me products or something like that. It’s so much easier for me to make these decisions because a brand might send me something for free. Or a company might send me a sustainable dress, that otherwise I might not be able to afford. I think making that choice is a lot easier because of the people I know and things like that. I wouldn’t want someone to compare like, “Leah has these things, so I should have these things.” There’s a lot of unfair stuff that goes on behind the scenes. But with this privilege, I try to make the best decisions that I can and I think the biggest one I make is supporting local. Trying to support local, even if it’s a little bit more expensive, is something that I try to do.

If there was one message that was your key takeaway for beauty brands, both conglomerates and indie brands, what would it be?

I would say to start thinking about environmental justice within their sustainability strategy. Just like I mentioned before, I think that’s going to be a big conversation about how different communities of colour are exposed to more environmental hazards or even toxins within their beauty products. This is an important conversation for beauty brands to have and to lead. A brand that I’m not the biggest, you know, fan of, I really liked one of their initiatives. Dove supported an anti-hair discrimination law that was specific for Black women with natural curly hair. In the US, people can actually be fired for wearing their hair naturally and not chemically processed. If a brand like that, which has so much room to grow (and who knows who’s leading that program), can support something like that, I would love to see more organisations supporting these niche topic areas within green beauty. Particularly those that are specifically impacting Black, Indigenous, and communities of colour.

Thank you so much for your time and your honest, thoughtful answers.