SEAL Awards are an environmental advocacy organization that uses annual awards for businesses and journalists to support environmental initiatives and to fund grants in the field of policy research. The name is an acronym for sustainability, environmental achievement, and leadership. [1] The Awards were created in 2017 by businessman Matt Harney. [2]
These awards honor corporate sustainability initiatives, sustainable products, and environmentally responsible innovation. Application fees for this award fund social impact campaigns and research grants. [1]
Twelve journalists each year receive recognition for environmental reporting, particularly investigative journalism. [1] Past award winners include writers for traditional news media such as The Guardian [3] [4] and more recent, web-based platforms like Grist [5] [6] [7] and Mongabay. [8] [9] [10]
SEAL Awards have advocated for the creation of a credit card whose interchange fees would pay into climate change programs rather than a traditional credit rewards program, [12] targeted cup waste in the Starbucks café chain [13] and Yelp reviews of restaurants using plastic straws, [14] and endorsed Jay Inslee for the 2020 United States presidential campaign. [15] The environmental rewards credit card was presented as an open-source concept in a detailed business case launch memo. [16]
The research award is a monetary grant for graduate students and post-doctoral researchers at the beginning of their careers in environmental policy. [1] [17]
Greenwashing, also called green sheen, is a form of advertising or marketing spin that deceptively uses green PR and green marketing to persuade the public that an organization's products, goals, or policies are environmentally friendly. Companies that intentionally adopt greenwashing communication strategies often do so to distance themselves from their environmental lapses or those of their suppliers. Firms engage in greenwashing for two primary reasons: to appear legitimate and to project an image of environmental responsibility to the public.
George Joshua Richard Monbiot is a British journalist, author, and environmental and political activist. He writes a regular column for The Guardian and has written several books.
Grist is an American non-profit online magazine founded in 1999 that publishes environmental news and commentary. Grist's tagline is "Climate. Justice. Solutions." Grist is headquartered in Seattle, Washington, and has about 50 writers and employees. Its CEO is former editor-in-chief Nikhil Swaminathan.
Mongabay (mongabay.com) is an American conservation news web portal that reports on environmental science, energy, and green design, and features extensive information on tropical rainforests, including pictures and deforestation statistics for countries of the world.
ProPublica, legally Pro Publica, Inc., is a nonprofit investigative journalism organization based in New York City. ProPublica's investigations are conducted by its staff of full-time investigative reporters, and the resulting stories are distributed to news partners for publication or broadcast. In some cases, reporters from both ProPublica and its partners work together on a story. ProPublica has partnered with more than 90 different news organizations and has won several Pulitzer Prizes.
Climate crisis is a term that is used to describe global warming and climate change and their effects. This term and the term climate emergency have been used to emphasize the threat of global warming to Earth's natural environment and to humans, and to urge aggressive climate change mitigation and transformational adaptation.
Andrew C. Revkin is an American science and environmental journalist, webcaster, author and educator. He has written on a wide range of subjects including destruction of the Amazon rainforest, the 2004 Asian tsunami, sustainable development, climate change, and the changing environment around the North Pole. From 2019 to 2023 he directed the Initiative on Communication and Sustainability at The Earth Institute of Columbia University. While at Columbia, he launched a video webcast, Sustain What, that seeks solutions to tangled environmental and societal challenges through dialogue. In 2023, the webcast integrated with his Substack dispatch of the same name.
Climate Central is a nonprofit news organization that analyzes and reports on climate science. Composed of scientists and science journalists, the organization conducts scientific research on climate change and energy issues, and produces multimedia content that is distributed via their website and media partners. Climate Central has been featured in news sources such as The New York Times, the Associated Press, Reuters, NBC Nightly News, Time, National Public Radio, PBS, Scientific American, and The Washington Post.
Jonathan Watts is a British journalist and the author of When a Billion Chinese Jump: How China Will Save the World - or Destroy It. He served as president of the Foreign Correspondents' Club of China from 2008 to 2009 and as vice president of the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan from 2001 to 2003. He is married to Brazilian journalist Eliane Brum.
The Society of Environmental Journalists is a non-profit national journalism organization created by and for journalists who report environmental topics in the news media. On its website, the organization says that "SEJ’s mission is to strengthen the quality, reach and viability of journalism across all media to advance public understanding of environmental issues."
Inside Climate News is a non-profit news organization, focusing on environmental journalism about the climate crisis. The publication conducts watchdog journalism on climate policy, climate misinformation, and environmental injustice.
David Hasemyer is an American journalist and author. With Lisa Song and Elizabeth McGowan, he won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, and a 2016 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award. He graduated, in 1979, from San Diego State University, with a Bachelor's in Journalism. Hasemyer was raised in Moab, Utah.
Vox is an American news and opinion website owned by Vox Media. The website was founded in April 2014 by Ezra Klein, Matt Yglesias, and Melissa Bell, and is noted for its concept of explanatory journalism. Vox's media presence also includes a YouTube channel, several podcasts, and a show presented on Netflix. Vox has been described as left-leaning and progressive.
Julie Cart, born in Louisiana, is an American journalist. She won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting, with her colleague, Bettina Boxall, for their series of stories looking at the cost and effectiveness of combating wildfires in the western United States. She has worked for the Los Angeles Times and several other news organizations. She currently covers environmental issues in the California state capitol as a writer with CalMatters
Tatiana Celia Kennedy Schlossberg is an American environmental journalist and author. She was a science and climate reporter for The New York Times, and has also written for several publications and outlets including The Atlantic, The Washington Post,Vanity Fair, and Bloomberg. She is the author of the book Inconspicuous Consumption: The Environmental Impact You Don't Know You Have published by Grand Central Publishing in 2019.
Jon Mitchell is a Welsh journalist and author residing in Yokohama, Japan. Mitchell has written widely about Okinawa, especially on issues created by the ongoing presence of the United States Armed Forces. He was awarded the inaugural Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan's Freedom of the Press Lifetime Achievement Award for this work in 2015. In 2021, Mitchell's book, Poisoning the Pacific: The US Military's Secret Dumping of Plutonium, Chemical Weapons, and Agent Orange, won Second Place in the Society of Environmental Journalists annual awards for Reporting on the Environment.
Elizabeth H. McGowan is an American journalist and author. With David Hasemyer and Lisa Song, McGowan won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for their report on the Kalamazoo River oil spill.
Rhett Ayers Butler is an American journalist, author and entrepreneur who founded Mongabay, a conservation and environmental science news platform, in 1999.
Alizé Carrère is a French-American climate researcher, filmmaker and science communicator. As a social scientist, she studies how humans adapt to changing physical environments, particularly with respect to climate change. Her academic research and filmmaking focus on the theme of human resilience to environmental change.
Gloria Dickie is a Canadian journalist who focuses on environmentalism, climate change, and the impact of environmental changes to local wildlife. Growing up in Ontario, Canada, she had an early interest in wildlife photography and went on to receive degrees in media and the environment, with her Master's thesis focusing on bears and their interactions with humans. Her interest in bears would continue as she reported on the Arctic and other environmental issues around the world as a freelance journalist before joining Reuters.