At Toxnot we stand in solidarity with marginalized and underrepresented groups, including people of color. People of color and many other minority groups continue to be vastly underrepresented in our professional spheres even as the toxics and environmental justice issues we work on disproportionately affect these groups. We are actively working to expand the diversity of our team and networks, uphold nondiscrimination policies, and introduce anti-bias training in our operations. But, watching the violent and unjust examples of systemic racism that keep coming to light, we must ask ourselves, “are we doing enough?” The answer is undoubtably no.
So what do we do? Toxnot does not tolerate racism or discrimination of any kind in our workplace or business relationships. We also recognize that we need to work to counter systemic discrimination and racism. Each of us and our organizations need to find the places where we have the most leverage over the long term. For Toxnot, this requires increased focus in two areas: our partnerships and representation in our team.
Our work on toxics in the supply chain is especially beneficial for marginalized communities and people of color. We need to continue to bolster this work by expanding our technical resources to a more diverse set of environmental justice advocacy organizations. This means proactively offering more to existing partners and strategically securing new partnerships where the Toxnot platform can drive clear public benefit. We have some ideas and we’d love to hear yours too.
To address representation, we need to expand our applicant pools to include more minority candidates. Diversity hiring in tech is not a new or solved problem, but it continues to be one of our areas of greatest leverage. We are exploring how we can make concrete commitments and define internal ownership in ways that work for our current size.
We are absolutely committed to staying engaged on issues of systemic racism and fairness. We will also continue to try to be transparent with our customers and partners on our progress. As a startup composed of environmentalists, we love challenges and are eternal optimists. We believe in the power of grand ideals and new solutions to change the world. In this case universal fairness is the worthy ideal and we are committed to finding solutions.
- Pete Girard (Toxnot CEO)