Generation Z is Bringing BIPOC Representation to Climate Activism

Girl in climate change protest

We’re in a time where many are fighting to improve the current state of our society for a better future. Political affiliations, racial divides, virus health hazards--these are issues at the forefront of many minds. Youth leaders like Diana Fernandez are working to ensure we can continue to address these and other issues, housed on Earth.

“[Climate justice] is often a white-led movement—even though it should be the minorities and BIPOC folks on the frontline,” youth activist Diana Fernandez said. “They’re the ones impacted by the environment the most.”


Climate activism is growing as sustainability awareness spreads. Fracking is now a widely recognized issue, beyond first being brought to light by indigenous people. Green consumerism is on the rise and has an expensive price tag.

Greta Thunberg is a household name as a sustainability leader--but why not Mari Copeny, a youth activist who began raising awareness of the water issue in Flint, Michigan at eight-years-old? Or Autumn Peltier, a Canadian Indigenous youth named Chief Water Commissioner for the Anishinabek Nations in Ontario, Canada. Or, what about Xiye Bastida, a Mexican-Chilean climate activist who received the 2018 “Spirit of the UN” award. Environmental racism runs deep and Generation Z is working to bring BIPOC representation to the sustainability movement.

Environmental justice is a reaction to environmental racism. Zero Hour, is a youth-led climate justice organization where Fernandez works. The organization fights this form of racism through the People’s Platform, that calls for all to work together in retrofitting housing for sustainability needs to creating affordable mass transit systems to restorative work like trees on Indigenous land. Zero Hour works to diversify the voices in climate and environmental justice conversations to preserve a livable future.

Sustainability is about maintaining a balance between the economy, society, and the environment. However, it’s marketed exclusively to groups that can afford newly fabricated and/or up-cycled, environmentally-friendly products like organic foods and natural supplements.

“What can help make a difference is the inclusion of minorities and low-income communities that can’t afford those items, Fernandez said. “It’s about making a sustainable living available to the majority, not just the one percent.”

Fernandez feels sustainability is about taking action, not solely about consuming new sustainable items. She believes sustainability products shouldn’t come with a high price tag as these brands aren’t playing an appropriate role in the environmental movement.

“I can’t afford an electric car or these cute zero waste things that you have in your house,” vegan educator Destiny DeJesus said. “But [how BIPOC contribute to sustainability], is we turn lights off when we leave the house. We’re the ones taking public transportation. We’re saving plastic bags and reusing them.”


DeJesus is a coordinator with Veggie Mijas, a collective where the BIPOC community can gather, discuss, and learn about a plant-based lifestyle. It’s common for many to choose a plant-based diet due to the environmental impact of the meat industry. But DeJesus made this adjustment to live a healthier life. Growing up in a Puerto Rican household in New York, eating empanadas and pasteles she learned how to alter these meat-based dishes for her vegan diet. Replacing beef with mushrooms in her empanadas has been difficult for her elder relatives to understand.

“It’s hard to tell someone who has lived 60 or 70 years, ‘now we’re eating plants,’” DeJesus said. “They’re not very receptive to that because they think, ‘oh you need the Puerto Rican chicken soup.’”

DeJesus claims she can “veganize anything.” She’s been able to convince her Nana to eat vegan staples like quinoa, but veganism doesn’t interest half her family. Her vegan journey started after moving to Texas. Attending vegan events, she realized she was one of a few persons of color in attendance. So, she started the Veggie Mijas Dallas Chapter.

“Veganism, in general, is very white-washed,” says DeJesus. “When you [search online] ‘vegan,’ you’re going to see a bunch of pictures of white athletes and yoga people. Because the face of veganism is so white, I was like ‘we need to create our own space for vegans of color because we experience different things.’”

Fernandez’s family understands her climate activism as wanting to preserve their home. Through her work of fighting climate injustice, specifically in their community, her parents view this as a way of protecting the Latinx community. Fernandez’s parents grew up in Cuba in the ’90s, where she said the impacts of climate change weren’t the first things on their minds.

“There’s much more of a conversation about climate [in the United States],” Fernandez said. “But, there is a lack of understanding about sustainability and the climate movement because of language barriers.”

Many minority and low-income communities aren’t involved in the climate movement. Limited income makes it difficult to afford pricier green products like organic food. Minority communities often face a language barrier to receiving information and resources. Many climate organizations are failing to provide resources in Spanish or to outreach in Latinx communities.

Although these spaces are primarily occupied by white people, it doesn’t mean sustainable BIPOC leaders or businesses don’t exist. Fernandez mentions she was attracted to This is Zero Hour because their diverse representation includes Latinas.

DeJesus says there are a handful of Latina eco-businesses in the Dallas area, while her social media feed is full of young Latina climate activists.

“We’re doing the work, we're just not getting any credit for it,” says DeJesus. “We’re not the ones driving electric cars and living in fancy Pinterest looking eco-friendly houses that we can post on social media. We’re doing the hard, dirty work in our communities, but no one is seeing it.”

The “work” is by already living a sustainable lifestyle to save money. DeJesus mentions BIPOC communities perform daily acts of sustainability like not running the A/C when out or running the water for too long. She acknowledges that it’s a privilege to not be sustainable.

“Those little things are super important,” DeJesus said. “We don’t have the agenda of saving the environment because we’re just trying to survive…we’re doing it for economical reasons as opposed to environmental reasons and because of that we’re not being highlighted.”

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Image by Sayuri Jimenez.

Nathalie Molina Niño has never been one to shy away from breaking barriers, and now, she’s focusing her attention on a new mission: demystifying corporate boardrooms for women, especially Latinas. Molina Niño is the President of Known, an asset management and financial services firm, a veteran tech entrepreneur and builder capitalist, and a board member at the iconic lingerie Brand, Hanky Panky, and others.

Like many corporate boards, Hanky Panky hadn’t publicly disclosed its board composition until recently. After the brand survived the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, Molina Niño decided it was time for more women, specifically more Latinas, to know what it means to be on corporate boards.

Coincidentally, the decision to finally be more vocal about this topic aligned with the start of Hispanic Heritage Month, which served as the perfect kick-off to the work.

"Something that rarely gets talked about and I think almost gets kept opaque by design is boards,” she explains in a recent Instagram announcement. “[This Latinx Heritage Month], that’s what I’ll be talking about.” Her goal? To equip more Latinas with the knowledge they need to navigate onto for-profit boards, where they can thrive and build multi-generational wealth.

For-profit corporate boards often feel like an exclusive club. And in many ways, they are, especially for Latinas, who hold the smallest percentage of board seats in Fortune 500 companies compared to other racial groups. According to the latest report from Latino Board Monitor, while Latinos hold 4.1% of these board seats (compared to 82.5% held by white people), only 1% go to Latinas. Molina Niño, a first-generation American of Ecuadorian and Colombian descent, is part of this boardroom minority.

When asked about her experience as a Latina board member during a recent Zoom interview, she said, “It’s been lonely. There’s not a lot of Latinas on boards.” She went on to explain that even serving on boards of Latina-founded businesses gets lonely because, “A lot of the times, people who serve on their boards represent their investors and, as a result, [...] you still don’t see a lot of Latinas on those boards.”

This lack of representation drives Molina Niño’s determination to increase Latina presence in corporate boardrooms. By sharing her insights, she hopes to give Latinas a roadmap to claim their seats at the table. “If you don’t know where to go, it’s impossible to figure out how to get there,” she says.

The Road to the Boardroom

Getting onto a for-profit corporate board isn’t an overnight achievement, but it’s not an unattainable dream either. People often think you need to be a CEO or have a certain type of background, but that’s one of the biggest myths about boards in Molina Niño’s experience. What they’re really looking for is expertise — whether that’s in finance, marketing, sustainability, or even technology. If you have that expertise, you’re already an asset. It’s simply a matter of which road you should take.

Understanding what boards are and how they operate is key to unlocking opportunities. For-profit boards serve as the governing body for companies, overseeing direction and financial stability, and guiding CEOs and executives in decision-making. But Molina Niño emphasizes that not all for-profit boards are created equal.

“There are two kinds [of for-profit boards] [...]. There’s the publicly traded business board and then, on the privately held side, there are, I would argue, two types of boards [...] the traditional business board and the venture-backed business board,” explains Molina Niño. Traditional businesses are often family-owned or long-established and may only form boards to meet requirements, like securing financing or transitioning through an ESOP. Venture-backed boards, on the other hand, are typically filled by investors who hold major stakes in the company.

According to Molina Niño, understanding the difference between them is how you can create a successful strategy. With publicly traded business boards, the whole world is privy to them, so, “The way that you get in there is a little bit more transparent. Sometimes those publicly traded companies will hire a recruiter to help them find new board members,” explains Molina Niño. For private companies, on the other hand, there’s no legal requirement to make announcements. As a result, most people don’t know anything about them or their inner workings.

“Usually what happens in traditional businesses that don’t have venture-capital investments is that the Founders, Executives, or the board members, if one existed already, they usually go to their friends,” and people they deem experienced to fill board seats. In other words, it’s the founder’s decision, and that’s an entirely different approach than hiring recruiters. When it comes to venture-backed business boards, the seats on the board are filled by whichever investor writes the biggest check.

This is why an understanding of the different types of boards and acknowledgment of their own strengths is what will help Latinas define a sound strategy. Whether that’s working with a recruiter, networking and connecting with founders to build trust, or making the biggest investment.

The Path for Latinas

For Molina Niño, the key to getting more Latinas into corporate boardrooms is education. Knowing what a board looks like and how it functions is how you can position yourself to get on it. In openly talking about this, without the mystique it’s usually shrouded in, Molina Niño is providing women, especially Latinas, with invaluable insights. “If we had Latinas understanding what are the three types of for-profit boards I think that, on their own, they would be able to figure out what their best chance is and adjust their careers to make themselves more competitive,” states Molina Niño.

When asked about the impact of increased Latina representation in boardrooms, Molina Niño flips the narrative. “Boards don’t help Latinas by offering them seats; Latinas help businesses thrive by being on their boards,” she says. “The whole point of sitting on a board is that you have experience and expertise, and as Latinas, you also have some cultural experience that everyone wants. [...] At the end of the day, we [Latinas] have to realize that we have a ton to offer and we have to be selective about where we put that expertise,” she explains.

As demand for access to the Latina consumer rises, Molina Niño predicts that more Latinas will find themselves recruited into boardrooms. But she’s not content to sit back and wait for that moment. By openly sharing her journey and insights, she’s making sure other Latinas know their worth and have the tools to claim their place at the table. “I realized that quietly being on boards that helped me personally is not helping other Latinas. [...] I was lucky enough to have friends who could advise me and share their experiences, so that’s why I’m doing this,” she stated.

With Hispanic Heritage Month as the backdrop, Nathalie Molina Niño’s mission is clear: “My goal is just to give Latinas enough information so they can make a plan for how to eventually get on a board that they’re paid to be on and that will eventually help them build generational wealth.”

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