John has been with Earth Day Initiative for ten years and serves as its Executive Director, overseeing its annual Earth Day events, which engage the broader public in the climate conversation and call for environmental action and justice, and its year-round programs, which include a sustainable food education program, a renewable energy program, a climate action podcast, and a green buildings publication.

If the last few years have taught us anything,
it’s that your actions matter.

John oversees the organizing of Earth Day Initiative’s annual Earth Day events which engage millions of people to channel new enthusiasm into the environmental movement. The organization draws inspiration from the first Earth Day when 20 million people, 10 percent of the population of America at the time, showed up for Earth Day events across the country to call for real action to tackle our environmental challenges. John aims to make the connection between individual action and systemic change. He and the Earth Day Initiative team witness great demand from people for things they can do to make a positive impact. But people are overwhelmed by both the challenges and long lists of possible solutions. The Earth Day Initiative team therefore channels that enthusiasm into simple and straightforward actions people can take today that both improves their own impact on the environment but also channels directly into the call for the systemic change we need in order to tackle climate change, environmental injustices, and other environmental challenges.

In the last two years, Earth Day Initiative shifted its events to a virtual environment with a virtual stage that included Bill Nye, Al Gore, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr., UN climate chief for the Paris Agreement Christiana Figueres, White House climate chief Gina McCarthy, EPA chief Michael Regan, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, LeAnn Rimes, Kyra Sedgwick, and dozens of activists, scientists, and entertainers. The stage engaged more than one million viewers.

The stage was accompanied by a virtual festival that hosted more than 100 environmental activist organizations in a space inspired by 1990s videos games in collaboration with March for Science. Fridays for Future joined to host a virtual climate march of cartoon avatars in the virtual festival space.

John is regularly asked to speak to a wide range of audiences, including community organizations, companies, and educational institutions and has recently been featured as an activist and expert by media outlets like CNN, the Guardian, the Washington Post, and USA Today. Feel free to use the form below for speaking or media inquiries.