Naolo Charles

Naolo’s journey into environmental justice began after the 2005 Probo Koala toxic waste disaster in Côte d’Ivoire, his country of origin, an event that sparked his interest in understanding the roots of global environmental harm. This pursuit led him from a job in banking to an environmental internship in 2010 in the Bolivian desert of Uyuni, where he worked for several months alongside Indigenous communities. He later completed a Master’s degree in Environment in 2012, specializing in life cycle thinking and uncovering the hidden environmental and social costs embedded in everyday products.

Following an environmental mandate in Chicago in 2013, Naolo relocated from Montreal to Toronto, where he helped launch the Ontario Trillium Foundation’s Collective Impact program in 2015, carried out international development mandates in Rwanda and Senegal in 2016, and served as a Knowledge Broker at York University until 2019.

In 2019, he founded the Black Environmental Initiative (BEI) to center Black leadership in environmental action. He later co-founded the Canadian Coalition for Environmental and Climate Justice (CCECJ), which played a pivotal role in advancing Canada’s first environmental justice law.