‘How Minnesota Corporations Pollute our Planet and Politics’

A coalition of environmental justice groups and SEIU 26 representing workers who clean major Twin Cities office buildings released a study that criticizes major Minnesota corporations for policies blocking solutions to climate change and environmental racism.

The study “Sky High Pollution: How Minnesota corporations pollute our planet and politics, and how community collaboration can help the state reach its 2050 greenhouse gas emission reduction goals” details how Minnesota corporations’ environmentally friendly image are actually blocking progress on clean energy legislation through their role in the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce.

The coalition study also takes corporations to task for their disproportionate carbon footprint,  contributing waste to the air-polluting HERC incinerator located near communities of color. 

The coalition that includes thousands of janitors currently in contract negotiations, proposes a “Owners & Community Green Table” and “Green Cleaning Technician Training program” for commercial building janitorial workers to reduce energy use, waste and the use of toxic chemicals.

The report calls on

“owners of commercial and industrial buildings in the Twin Cities to form an Owners & Community Green Table to get our city and state back on track to meeting greenhouse gas reduction goals.”

The report also calls for three solutions to be considered by the proposed Green Table.

• Green Cleaning Technician Training Program
• Building owners must commit to ending their membership in trade associations that lobby against clean energy policies
• End the operation of HERC  a trash incinerator in North Minneapolis

Filiberto Nolasco Gomez is a former union organizer and former editor of Minneapolis based Workday Minnesota, the first online labor news publication in the state. Filiberto focused on longform and investigative journalism. He has covered topics including prison labor, labor trafficking, and union fights in the Twin Cities.