Grant Gutierrez

Background

About Grant Gutierrez

Environmental justice practitioner with experience in applied research, public policy, and direct climate action & community advocacy. Strategic leader focused on outcomes-based approaches that promote more just futures for frontline communities. In my current role at Carbon Direct, I lead the Community Impacts team and drive the firm's social science advisory work focused on carbon removal and decarbonization. We draw on climate & environmental justice frameworks to ensure climate mitigation strategies deliver equitable development opportunities and increase community resilience to climate change. Broadly, I have spent the last decade focused on the environmental justice dimensions of climate change adaptation and ecological restoration, specifically focused on river systems and watershed management. I have collaborated - both internationally and domestically - with community-based organizations around topics of renewable energy development, watershed conservation, floodplain restoration, and superfund remediation. I am committed to community power-building, equitable development, curiosity before critique, and centering relationships in my work. As an anthropologist and political ecologist by training, I bring a deeply rooted passion for environmental education and collective action. I am an adept communicator, facilitator, and team-builder that thrives on a balance of optimism and pragmatism. As a queer Latino with a multidisciplinary background, I strive to integrate diverse systems of knowledge as a centerpiece of collaboration.