Community Member

Center for Sustainable Communities

Portsmouth, Virginia

The Center for Sustainable Communities (CSC) is a nonprofit in based in Atlanta, GA and Portsmouth, VA, whose mission is to make communities greener, cleaner, safer and more climate resilient through an equity and environment justice lens. The CSC advocates for communities in a number of areas including sustainable transportation, climate, health and wellness, comprehensive community revitalization, pollution mitigation, conservation, economic development, clean energy and energy efficiency, housing justice, youth engagement, STEM education, citizen science, emergency preparedness and restorations, equity, resilience, climate action and faith initiatives. The Center for Sustainable Communities performs these duties through advocacy, activism, research, planning, evaluation and assessment, engineering, technical support, education and training, developing, policy development, application of science, community engagement and development, analysis, and program and project management.

Center for Sustainable Communities founder and executive director Garry Harris documents flooding in a Portsmouth community. Photo: Center for Sustainable Communities

The Center for Sustainable Communities is a BIPOC [Black, Indigenous and people of color] led and founded nonprofit that helps build greener, cleaner and healthier communities that are safer for residents to live, work, and play in through projects, activities, and initiatives related to equity and environmental justice. The Center works on a broad array of issues, including energy and climate, sustainable cities and communities, transportation, housing, waste and materials management, education, and workforce development. The Center helps Virginians reduce their energy use in several ways, including through outreach, education and awareness; appliance change-out programs; advancing heat pumps and retrofitting initiatives; advancing clean energy, including community-scale solar; conducting healthy home assessments; building a clean-energy workforce; and supporting clean-energy and energy-efficiency research.

For more information:

SCoRE External Advisory Council Profile: Garry Harris – Center for Sustainable Communities Research and Education, Georgia Tech, May 2024

Virginia Wesleyan University Receives Grant for Heat Mitigation – Virginia Wesleyan University, March 2024

Meet Garry “Do It All” Harris: A Sustainability Expert Driven by Passion and Purpose – Georgia Tech, Scheller School of Business, September 2023

People of Weather–Ready Nation: Garry Harris, Center for Sustainable Communities–Atlanta – National Weather Service

Dorothy Terry

Dorothy Terry

Dorothy Terry is a journalist by profession, having worked as a daily newspaper reporter on both coasts and a contributing writer for several national magazines. She is a former Congressional press secretary and has worked as a communications manager and consultant for corporations and nonprofits.

Contact

Garry Harris, Founder and Executive Director

Website

Social Media

Climate Impacts

Air Pollution, Erosion-Subsidence, Flooding, Heat, Hurricanes/Tropical Storms

Environmental Justice Concerns

Fighting Development/Destruction of Wildlife/Extinction of Species, Incinerator/Dumping/Landfill, Industrial Agriculture/Animal Waste, Lead Contamination, Logging/Biomass, Port/Transit/Highway Contamination/Noise, Superfund Sites

Strategies

Art Activism, Community Land Trusts/Land Conservation, Community Organizing and Education, Direct Relief and Aid, Green Infrastructure, Legal/permit challenges to development, contamination, pollution, etc, Nature-Based Solutions, Policy Reform, Political activism, including protests, petitions, and lobbying, Renewable Energy, Risk mapping and/or monitoring e.g. flooding/contaminants etc

501c3 Tax Deductible

Yes

Accepting Donations

Yes