Erin Schrode (she/her)

Activist and Social Entrepreneur

Environmental champion and Turning Green founder, mobilizing youth worldwide, driving eco-consciousness, equity, and policy change.

Growing up within the natural beauty of the Bay Area, Erin Schrode took “being green” for granted. So imagine her shock when she discovered, at 13 years of age, that Marin County—which she saw as a pristine Ground Zero for environmental advocacy—had high cancer rates linked to toxic chemicals in beauty and cleaning products. “It just didn’t compute,” she says. “I remember asking, ‘Isn’t anyone looking out for me?’”

Wanting to raise awareness and create safer alternatives, Erin and her mother founded Teens for Safe Cosmetics. Eighteen years later, an idea hatched at their kitchen table has evolved into an eco-awareness organization with enormous reach. Now called Turning Green, Schrode’s nonprofit has mobilized millions of students and served as a platform for environmental advocacy, corporate-reform efforts, and disaster-relief food distribution. And it helped launch Schrode’s high-profile Congressional campaign at the ripe age of 24, bringing greater attention to the issues that matter most to her—environmentalism, justice, and equity.

Today, Turning Green is a global catalyst for green activism and a driver of policy change. Schrode has been elected to a UN delegation on Sustainable Development and is an in-demand writer, speaker, and environmental expert on dozens of media platforms across the country. While the roots of her advocacy may be in Marin County, she credits NYU for the global perspective that informs her work every day. “Our planet is a fabric that connects us all,” she says. “We rise and fall together.”