Electric School Buses and Environmental Justice: Ensuring a Fair Transition

Carla Walker is the Director of Environmental Justice and Equity for WRI-US. In this role, she provides leadership to WRI-United States' work around equity, environmental justice, and just transition in the context of climate change to expand visibility and impact, and influence decision makers to advance solutions for today’s environmental challenges.

Carla holds a B.S. in Biology from the University of Cincinnati, an M.S. in Environmental Engineering Science from the University of Florida, and an M.P.A. from the Harvard Kennedy School. She serves on the board of directors for Ohio Citizen Action, Clean Fuels Ohio, Lloyd Library, Black Art Speaks Artist Collective, and Green Umbrella, the regional sustainability alliance in Southwest Ohio.

Carla will be joined by her WRI colleagues, Elizabeth Moses and Sophie Young.

Gideon Forman received his Master's in Philosophy from McGill University and a Certificate in Renewable Energy from the University of Toronto. For over a decade he was Executive Director of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, leading campaigns that helped to ban lawn-pesticides and phase-out coal-fired power. The pesticide ban he helped to establish in Ontario was the most health-protective legislation of its kind in North America. In 2013, he received a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee medal in recognition of his environmental work.

He became a Climate Change Policy Analyst with the David Suzuki Foundation in 2015. At the DSF he promotes the expansion of public transit and active transportation. He is a frequent contributor to the Toronto Star and Corporate Knights.

Jessica leads the Zero Emission Vehicle work at Indigenous Clean Energy including ICE’s Charge Up program, which is delivering charging infrastructure incentives to Indigenous communities and businesses nationwide.

Sunita is the EDII Project Manager at GCC. She joins us from the traditional Anishinaabe (Ah-nish-in-ah-bay) and Haudenosaunee (Ho-den-o-show-nee) territory, known as Kingston, Ontario to most. By the age of 18, when she moved to Canada, she had already lived across three other continents.

She has been an active member in the Kingston Community for the past twenty-five years. Both personally and professionally, Sunita has strived towards making Kingston a more diverse and inclusive community. She has been extensively involved as a volunteer on several boards. She is the Past President of the India-Canada Association of Kingston and past Board Director for the Tett Centre. Currently, she is a Board Vice-Chair for the Greater Kingston Chamber of Commerce and other EDI Advisory Committees.

As a Co-Founder of I2C Immigration Consulting and a Global Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Practitioner, Sunita identifies barriers to inclusion in the workplace and helps organizations move forward with a planful approach to drive measurable change in employee engagement, performance and retention, enhancing the organizational culture