Environmental Hero Award

CEC’s annual Environmental Hero Award is granted to an individual or organization who has made significant contributions to the environmental movement.

2025 Environmental Hero Leah Stokes

Climate and Energy Policy Expert

Dr. Leah Stokes has nearly two decades of experience working on climate and energy, including championing a federal Clean Electricity Standard. Author of the award-winning book Short Circuiting Policy, she was named to 2022 TIME100 Next and Business Insider 2022 Climate Action 30 lists. Leah is the Anton Vonk Associate Professor of Environmental Politics at UCSB, a senior policy consultant at Rewiring America, and co-host of the climate podcast “A Matter of Degrees.”

Don’t miss the awards ceremony at 12:00PM on Saturday, April 26, 2025.

Past award recipients

2024

Alejandra Warren co-founded Plastic Free Future, a California-based nonprofit committed to the reduction and elimination of plastic pollution through promoting reusable alternatives, with a focus on outreach to underserved and systemically-excluded communities. Alejandra is also an NGO delegate to the UN Treaty on Plastic Pollution. She has dedicated her life to making an impact on climate change and her work lights the way for communities everywhere.

2023

Nalleli Cobo, Goldman Environmental prize winner and co-founder of People Not Pozos
Cesar Aguirre, Oil and Gas Director for the Central California Environmental Justice Network and co-founder of California Youth vs. Big Oil