Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly
Winter 2009
Down to Earth: Bringing Green Living Home
…environmental and public-health consultant Ann Blake ’85…says her whole life is “about finding ways to move us all to a more sustainable relationship with the planet.” She works with local governments, national and international NGO coalitions, and emerging sustainable industries to eliminate the use of toxic chemicals in manufacturing and consumer products. She also chairs a nonprofit board that creates worker-owned, eco-friendly home-cleaning businesses for Latina women in the San Francisco Bay area. “Increasingly, I’m seeing that people are making the connections among issues as varied as poverty reduction, food security, microfinance of local economies, worker and community protection from toxic exposure, climate change, and broad impacts of globalization,” she says. Moving to “local, sustainable economies fueled by renewable energy, safe, dignified jobs, and healthy communities is the collective work of our lifetime, and I am thrilled to be part of it.”