Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) – Pathways 2025 Strategic Plan – Jan/Feb 2019

These are trying times for those of us who care about the environment and are active in the fight to protect it.

As the Trump Administration continues its attempts to undermine decades’ worth of hard-earned protections for clean air, safe water, and a stable climate, we are grateful for people like you who are joining us in pushing back. Because as we’ve seen before, when the going gets tough, the tough get organized. Even with hope for progress at the federal level in short supply, we can — and will — continue to reduce pollution and spur clean energy developments in this new political era.

With this spirit of innovative changemaking, EDF has launched the Pathways 2025 Strategic Plan, outlining the ways that together, we can use science and economics to stabilize the global climate, build defenses against extreme weather, ensure food security and abundant oceans, and reduce exposure to air pollution and toxic chemicals.

For 50 years, EDF has been on the leading edge of environmental innovation and progress — thanks to the crucial support of members and activists like you. And we aren’t stopping now. [READ MORE]

Pathways 2025

Our plan to create a better future.

In this challenging political era, EDF needs your help to push back against ceaseless attacks on our bedrock air, water, and climate protections.

In the spirit of innovative changemaking, EDF has launched the Pathways 2025 Strategic Plan, outlining how we can use science, economics, and creative partnerships to stabilize the global climate, build defenses against extreme weather, ensure food security and abundant oceans, and reduce exposure to air pollution and toxic chemicals. We hope you join us in creating a better future. Read on to find out how you can take action—right now—to put us on a path towards a cleaner, healthier future.

Climate

The issue

As wildfires, floods, and storms become ever more intense and damaging, our sense of climate urgency keeps rising. Yet, we can still see what is possible: imagine a future where clear skies replace choking smog in cities…where homes not only run on clean electricity, but also generate, store, and sell it…and where people around the world enjoy the benefits of a stable climate and a prosperous low-carbon economy. Together, we can do more than imagine it. We can make it a reality.

The solution

To get to this vision of a safe and stable climate, we need to act fast—but our actions must be informed by the long view. By leveraging market forces through well-designed policies and private-sector action, EDF links climate progress to politically potent local goals for poverty alleviation, health, jobs, and economic growth.

What you can do right now

By rewriting old rules that stack the deck against conservation and clean energy, we can modernize the electric grid and spur private investment in energy efficiency and renewables.

Oceans

The issue

The health, happiness, and quality of life of people everywhere are inextricably linked to the oceans. Nowhere is this more evident than in the world’s poorest, most vulnerable communities, where people rely on the oceans to meet their most basic everyday needs. However, the challenge of overfishing remains one of the world’s most pressing environmental problems.

The solution

Over the past few years, EDF has made substantial progress reversing overfishing and restoring the seas to abundance, improving jobs and economic prosperity in the process. We have established dozens of new partnerships across the political and cultural spectrum by collaborating with diverse stakeholders on groundbreaking science.

Our goal is to spur reforms so that sustainable fishing becomes the norm in 12 places that account for 61% of the global catch. Success at this scale could transform the entire global seafood system and enhance the well-being of 400 million vulnerable people by 2030.

What you can do right now

Innovative solutions rooted in science and community ownership show there is great promise for the oceans and those who rely on them—but only if we act now.

Health

The issue

Everyday exposures to toxic chemicals and air pollutants threaten public health by increasing the risk of heart and lung disease, adverse birth outcomes, reproductive issues and infertility, and learning and behavioral problems in children.

The solution

To reduce exposure to toxic chemicals, EDF is working to defend and strengthen public policies, advance corporate leadership, restrict dangerous chemicals, and significantly expand access to information on the risks of chemicals and environmental pollution.

EDF is also using technological innovation to empower communities to take action to protect public health. From low-cost sensors that improve our ability to monitor environmental pollutants, to rapid chemical testing technologies, EDF is working to transform new data into meaningful action.

What you can do right now

America’s clean air and water standards have transformed clogged, choking skies and spoiled, flammable waterways into safer air and water. And recent reforms to our nation’s chemical safety law should provide stronger protections from toxic chemicals but a law is only as good as its implementation. We need to ensure that Congress delivers on its promise to protect our health by fully implementing this law.

Ecosystems

The issue

Healthy ecosystems are essential for human prosperity and the well-being of wildlife. But these natural systems face unprecedented pressure from the extremes of a warming world and the demands of a growing population.

For example, the strikingly beautiful monarch butterfly depends on milkweed for survival. Monarchs lay their eggs on the milky sap-filled plants, and monarch caterpillars feed exclusively on milkweed. But habitat loss, climate change, and the increased use of herbicides in agriculture are drastically reducing the amount of milkweed available—and putting the monarch at risk. Over just the last two decades, the monarch population has declined by 90 percent, bringing the butterfly dangerously close to extinction.

The solution

To protect the monarch butterflies, EDF has partnered with various stakeholders to establish the Monarch Butterfly Habitat Exchange.

The idea behind it is simple: We want to make it more valuable for farmers to protect milkweed than to eliminate it, incentivizing conservation. Since farmers and ranchers manage much of the land appropriate for milkweed, they are in a perfect position to restore and enhance this vital habitat. This market-based solution offers greater flexibility than traditional approaches, with built-in adaptive management practices that can adjust with climate change and other impacts.

What you can do right now

EDF is committed to developing these kinds of innovations in conservation, so we can build a more resilient future for people and nature alike.

Leadership

The issue

The Trump administration has eliminated decades-worth of bedrock environmental protections — including paralyzing the enforcement of a groundbreaking law that would protect us from toxic chemicals, attacking protections that keep us safe from oil and gas pollution, and driving out respected scientists from the EPA’s Science Advisory Board.

We need both Republicans and Democrats to be leaders who put environment progress and public health first—above the profits of their polluting friends in the fossil fuel industry.

The solution

EDF Action—the advocacy partner of EDF—can legally engage in political advocacy in a way that EDF cannot. By mobilizing an army of concerned citizens like yourself through their online advocacy program, EDF Action amplifies your voice to advance political solutions on Capitol Hill and in state legislatures. They give you the tools you need to be heard—and to directly urge our leaders to take action on the most crucial environmental issues facing America today. And EDF Action is training the next generation of policymakers to make environmental issues a cornerstone of their campaigns.

What you can do right now

EDF Action’s work is absolutely critical in achieving important political goals. Supporting races from the Senate on down to city councils across the country is a massive undertaking, and because they seek to influence legislators and elections, donations to EDF Action are not tax-deductible—meaning only the most dedicated supporters donate—leaving EDF Action badly in need of funds for their crucial efforts.