Earth Day Network was founded on the premise that all people, regardless of race, gender, income, or geography, have a moral right to a healthy, sustainable environment. Our mission is to broaden and diversify the environmental movement worldwide, and to mobilize it as the most effective vehicle for promoting a healthy, sustainable environment. We pursue our mission through a combination of education, public policy, and consumer activism campaigns. Our campaign and programs are predicated on the belief that an educated, energized population will take action to secure a healthy future for itself and its children. Earth Day Network has a global reach with a network of more than 17,000 partners and organizations in 174 countries. More than 1 billion people participate in Earth Day activities, making it the largest secular civic event in the world.
Earth Day Network’s programs and activities are guided by the following goals:
Promote Civic Engagement — EDN works with partner organizations to provide opportunities for all citizens to become active at the local, state, national and global levels.
Broaden the Meaning of "Environment" — EDN is committed to expanding the definition of "environment" to include all issues that affect our health, our communities and our environment, such as air and water pollution, deteriorating schools, public transportation and access to jobs, rising rates of asthma and cancer, and lack of funding for parks and recreation. We have included all of these issues in a unique and comprehensive research document, the Urban Environment Report, which ranks the health of 72 U.S. cities by more than 200 environmental, health and quality of life indicators.
Mobilize Communities — EDN and our Campaign for Communities (C4C) partners successfully educated and motivated new and infrequent voters in eight states to pass strong environmental laws during the 2006 election. We are continuing this effort for the 2008 election with the goal of creating reliable and consistent environmental citizens among students, low-income and minority communities. All this follows our success during the 2004 presidential election when EDN and our C4C partners registered and turned out one million voters. Since 2006, EDN has helped create a solid environmental platform for the National Latino Congreso. The 2007 Congreso established a long-term environmental agenda for Latino leaders that includes EDN’s call for a moratorium on coal-fired power plants and a substantial increase in funding and support for renewable energy and green schools.
Implement Groundbreaking Environmental Education Programs — EDN’s GREEN Schools Campaign seeks to green all of America’s K-12 schools within a generation. Green schools save money, conserve energy and water, and have better performing and healthier students. EDN uses innovative education tools to promote civic participation and to develop a sense of environmental responsibility among all citizens. The National Civic Education Project is empowering students to solve local environmental problems. This powerful program provides young people with the skills, pride and passion they need to address environmental health issues affecting their communities.
Help Bring Clean Water and Sanitation to the World — Earth Day Network’s new Global Water Network allows individuals, organizations, or businesses to help fund water projects in rural areas around the globe. Through the “Adopt a Water Project” site, water sector stakeholders are linked on a global scale, enabling them to share water and sanitation-related information and strategies to promote ecologically and socially sustainable water and sanitation services.
Inspire and engage college students to become environmental leaders — EDN’s campus outreach seeks to grow the size, diversity, and strength of the environmental community in colleges and universities around the world. In April 2008, nearly half a million students participated in Earth Day on Campus. Through targeted campaigns on the local and national levels, voter registration drives, and a wide variety of campus-based activism Earth Day on Campus lets the environmental leaders of tomorrow voice their demands for action today.
Support Earth Day Events and Actions around the World — From greening schools in post-Katrina New Orleans to improving water and sanitation services in a refugee community in Ghana, EDN supports and coordinates thousands of Earth Day events worldwide each year. Earth Day, April 22, is the largest secular holiday in the world, now celebrated by more than one billion people.
Workplace Giving Through Earth Share — Earth Day Network is a member of Earth Share, a network that represents the nation’s most respected local, national and international environmental charities in hundreds of workplace giving campaigns across the country. Earth Share member organizations strive to create a healthy and sustainable environment and inform the public about environmental issues -- locally, nationally and globally.
Through workplace giving charity drives, Earth Share allows employees to pledge a small amount of each paycheck to help solve environmental problems. Employees may elect to contribute to all member agencies through a general gift to Earth Share, or they may specify that their donations be given to one or more member groups.
If you would like to have your payroll contribution go directly to the Earth Day Network, please enter our code 10625 on your employer's Earth Share enrollment form.
