Our Team / Suzanne Caflisch
Suzanne is an advocate, organizer, and researcher committed to building a just transition in which both frontline communities and unions can see a future.
In her role at the Better World Group, Suzanne manages projects focused on decarbonizing industry, buildings, and transportation. She spearheads legislative and regulatory campaigns to advance clean power for industrial manufacturing, transitioning bus and truck fleets to zero-emission alternatives, and serves as a member of the California Energy Commission’s Clean Transportation Program Advisory Committee.
Suzanne has experience building coalitions across labor, equity, and environmental stakeholders. In her past role as a Policy Advisor on Industrial Transformation at the BlueGreen Alliance, Suzanne organized diverse stakeholders in California to devise aligned strategies for industrial decarbonization that create union-represented jobs and eliminate pollution for environmental justice communities. She also played a key role in designing industrial decarbonization legislation in Colorado and organized a coalition of environmental and equity organizations in West Virginia to identify shared advocacy goals for emerging technology projects in the state.
Prior to her role at the BlueGreen Alliance, Suzanne consulted for Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO). She focused on participatory research for policies promoting the economic inclusion of workers in the informal waste-picking sector and environmentally responsible waste management in urban areas.
Suzanne holds a Master’s of Urban and Regional Planning from UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs. Her capstone thesis focused on coalition-building between a workers’ movement of waste pickers and environmental activists in Brazil. She earned a Bachelor’s degree in Peace and Conflict Studies from UC Berkeley. Suzanne loves making pottery, country line dancing, playing music, and embroidery.