BIO / PROFILE
Shalini Gupta has been involved with energy, climate and environmental policy - with a focus on building frontline community capacity - for the past 25 years. Through her consultancy work, Shalini works with foundations, intermediaries, funder networks, donors, city and state government agencies, nonprofits, artists, and community based organizations across the country (list of recent clients at www.sgupta.org).
Shalini’s past work experience includes co-founding and being the executive director of the Center for Earth, Energy and Democracy, as well as research and policy positions at the Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory, the Kiel Institute for the World Economy in Germany, and the Izaak Walton League of America’s Energy Program.
A former governor appointee to the Minnesota Next Generation Energy Board, Shalini has served as co-Chair of the Headwaters Foundation for Justice Board of Directors, on the board of Environmental Justice Advocates of Minnesota, the founding leadership team of the Midwest Environmental Justice Network, and helped found Community Members for Environmental Justice. She is currently on the Friends School of Minnesota board and the board chair of the Urban Bird Collective.
Shalini has been a leader in the 2023 push for zoning reform at the City of Minneapolis around heavy industrial facilities and cumulative impacts; and as the co-facilitator of the City of Minneapolis Environmental Justice Working Group, her work helped develop the city's groundbreaking 2013 Climate Action Plan (establishing Minneapolis' first environmental justice focused Green Zones Initiative) and the 2019 Southside Green Zones Work Plan. Through her work with One Square World and ACE, Shalini also helped shape the City of Providence’s landmark municipal Climate Justice Plan, and the City of Boston's efforts to integrate community interests into their Building Emissions Performance Standard.
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Committed to arts-based, culture-shifting organizing strategies, Shalini has worked with numerous community of color-led arts groups, including Aniccha Arts, Ananya Dance Theatre, RLM Arts, Zenteotl Project and Line Break Media on collaborative projects related to environmental justice. She was a 2019 contributing author to the Walker Art Center's Fourth Wall magazine publication and currently works on land-based efforts and children's storytelling endeavors (as a past Loft Literary Center’s Mirrors and Windows fellow) that intentionally shift the current ecological paradigm toward one of reciprocity and social justice.
Outside of her consulting and activist work, Shalini is an entrepreneur incubating a startup organic food business and writing an ecological justice focused children's book series. She holds a BA in the Geophysical Sciences from the University of Chicago and a Masters in Environmental Management from Yale University. An immigrant as a child from Mumbai, India, she lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota - the home of the Dakota people - with her family and friends. Website: www.sgupta.org
