The Plastics & Climate Project
Identifying the data gaps to account for all the climate impacts of plastics
Project Team
Dr. Alice (Xia) Zhu
Environmental analytical scientist specialized in the plastics lifecycle, climate change, marine debris, and oceanography.
Co-founder & Research Director
Alice is an environmental analytical scientist with an interest in the influence of science on policy. She is the recipient of the Vanier Canada Research Scholarship from the Government of Canada for her research excellence and leadership, and the recipient of numerous other awards including the Queen Elizabeth II Graduate Scholarship in Science & Technology. She received her PhD from the University of Toronto where she worked in the Rochman lab studying the sources, transport, and fate of plastic pollution, and the connections between plastic pollution, carbon cycling, and climate change. Alice was a Visiting Research Scholar at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO). She is now a Banting post-doctoral fellow at Canada's Memorial University where she studies the fate of microplastics in the Atlantic Ocean. For more information, see Alice’s website and LinkedIn profile, and the Resources page for a selection of her publications quantifying and characterizing plastic in the environment and plastic’s role in the carbon cycle.
Holly Kaufman
Climate change, plastics and sustainability expert, recognized thought leader, relationship-builder, policy strategist, and project designer and manager.
Co-founder & Project Director
Holly is a Senior Fellow at World Resources Institute (WRI), serving in her capacity as thought leader in the nexus between climate change and plastics. She published one of the earliest articles on Why Plastics Are Also A Climate Issue, and is a member of the California Senate Bill 54 Implementation Working Group, a stakeholder group advising on crafting the rules for this first-of-its-kind state plastic packaging reduction law.
Holly is also the founder and President of Environment & Enterprise Strategies where she provides strategic guidance to such organizations as the Union of Concerned Scientists, the National Science Foundation, the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the Elders, the Pew Charitable Trusts, C40, the World Economic Forum, Conoco, Proctor & Gamble, the California Wind Energy Association, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and STAND.earth. Holly managed the climate change & national security portfolio at the U.S. Department of Defense as a President Clinton appointee, and was a strategy and outreach expert on the UN climate treaty negotiations team at the State Department where she received a Superior Team Honor Award.
She has a B.S. with Highest Honors from the University of California at Berkeley, and was a Leadership Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School where she received an MPA in international environmental and economic studies. See her LinkedIn profile for more information.
Advisory Board
The Plastics & Climate Project benefits from the input of advisory board members who ensure the scientific integrity of the Project's work, and provide strategic advice. The Advisory Board also enables people and institutions engaged in complementary issues to add value to each other's work. Members include individuals and representatives of organizations (non-governmental, and research and policy agencies and institutions) conducting relevant research, policy, and community work. Founding members to date include:
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Aarthi Ananthanarayanan - former Climate & Plastics Initiative Director, Ocean Conservancy
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Jo Banner - Co-Founder & Co-Director, the Descendants Project, an organization dedicated to preserving and improving the health, land, economy, and lives of the Black descendant community in Louisiana's "Cancer Alley"
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Dr. Dan Lashof - U.S. Director, World Resources Institute (WRI)
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Dr. Kara Lavender Law - Research professor of oceanography, Sea Education Association; research areas include ocean circulation, distribution of marine plastic debris, and degradation and fate of plastics in the ocean
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Dr. Karen Raubenheimer - Key architect of the UN global plastics treaty research and proposal, Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources & Security, University of Wollongong; co-author Climate Impact of Plastics, GRID-Arendal, 2024
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Dr. Sarah-Jeanne Royer - Oceanographer, research scientist at the Center for Marine Debris Research at Hawaii Pacific University, one of the first scientists to discover that plastic emits greenhouse gases when exposed to sunlight
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Dr. Leah Stokes - Professor of environmental politics at the University of California Santa Barbara; research includes climate change, renewable energy, water, and chemicals policy; named on TIME100 Next and as one of Business Insider’s top 30 global leaders working toward climate solutions
Partners & Affiliates
