Our Vision
We believe every child deserves a safe and healthy environment—free from the life-long and debilitating impacts of toxic chemicals in products, air and water pollution, and places contaminated by a legacy of industrial waste. We believe every community deserves business partners and local industries that prioritize people's health and well-being over corporate profits. We believe that if every community suffered from toxic chemical pollution equally—no one would allow any community's health to be sacrificed to the chemical and energy industries.
At Coming Clean, hundreds of organizations are working in a unique, collaborative effort to create a world without toxic chemicals. We are working toward a world where no community's health, safety, or well-being is considered an 'acceptable' sacrifice to develop energy or to create and dispose of products. We know we can build a world where our climate and economy are nontoxic, sustainable, and just for all—and we're working to make this vision a reality.
We have the right to know what's in our air, water, food, and products, and we're demanding that substances are proven safe before we're exposed to them. We know that any industry which disproportionately harms vulnerable communities or any policy developed without the consent of those who suffer its worst impacts—is unjust—and we’re working to change it. In short, we're pushing industries and the laws that govern them to “come clean.”
Coming Clean was founded in 2001 by environmental health and environmental justice organizers to unite our movements. We know that a more holistic and effective approach to protecting our health and safety exists, and we're striving to realize it. Our mission is to reform the industrial chemical and fossil fuel industries so they are no longer a source of harm and to secure systemic changes that allow a safe chemical and clean energy economy to flourish.
We're calling for the right to just recovery, an end to toxic trespass, support for the precautionary principle, and equitable justice and solutions for all. We know that effective leadership comes from the ground-up and just needs to be handed the microphone. Toward these ends, Coming Clean manages the exchange of ideas and information relevant to industry reform strategies; amplifies campaigns originating from our grassroots groups and national allies; and coordinates an array of Coming Clean-led campaigns and projects which align market-based demands, inclusive organizing, grassroots strategies, provocative research, and advocacy for effective and just policies. With the Principles of Environmental Justice and the Jemez Principles for Democratic Organizing as our code of ethics, and the Louisville Charter for Safer Chemicals as our roadmap to reform, we’re creating a healthier, safer world for everyone. Together, we're more powerful than the sum of our parts; join us today.
Related Coming Clean resources:
Yudith Nieto in Houston, Texas