Leadership and Advocacy
We advance holistic solutions to secure the health and wellbeing of people, animals, and the planet.
Our leadership and advocacy work centers on just transitions away from human, animal, and environmental exploitation. We focus on ethical solutions that also decrease the risk for violence, disease, global warming, and other threats.
Leadership
We lead efforts to advance global and local policies and practices that protect the rights, health, and wellbeing of the people, animals, and the planet.
Advocacy
We advocate for international and national changes that safeguard individuals and communities against exploitation.
Impact
We work to ensure the right to a healthy and safe home and environment for people and animals around the globe.
Our team has brought together 150+ organizations in alliance or coalition.
Our coalition work has advanced federal legislation that impacts 50 US states.
Our experts have influenced global agreements that directly affect 193 nations.
Leadership
From Washington, DC, to the United Nations, Phoenix Zones Initiative works in the heart of where meaningful change can happen.
As an organization with special consultative status to the United Nations (UN) Economic and Social Council and as an accredited organization of the UN Environment Program, Phoenix Zones Initiative advocates for international treaties, policies, and practices that address the root causes of global challenges.
As a member of the NGO Major Group, Phoenix Zones Initiative is involved in the review and the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). And, as a member of the SDG18 coalition, we also lend our medical and public health expertise to support the effort to add Zero Animal Exploitation to the Sustainable Development Agenda. These efforts align with our overarching mission to end interconnected forms of human, animal, and environmental exploitation.
We also work with an international coalition to improve and advance a World Health Organization-negotiated treaty focused on pandemic prevention and response.
Preventing Global Pandemics at the Source: The COVID-19 pandemic has claimed millions of human lives and even more nonhuman lives. More than 10 million children lost a parent or guardian to the pandemic. Deadly hotspots included farms and meatpacking plants. The pandemic strained the healthcare system and those who work in it. A shortage of beds, medical staff, and financial resources delayed childhood vaccinations, cancer treatment, surgeries, and obstetrical care. As a result, healthcare workers are exhausted, burned out, and leaving their chosen fields.
Although the origin of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is still under investigation, a growing body of evidence confirms that ecosystem degradation, habitat loss and fragmentation, biodiversity loss, encroachment into wildlife habitats, the commercial trade in wild animals, and intensive animal farming increase the risk of emerging infectious disease outbreaks and other negative impacts on human and animal health.
Around 75 percent of emerging infectious diseases in humans originate in animals. Any effective approach to pandemic prevention must address the root causes of disease, in addition to disease surveillance and mitigation.
Phoenix Zones Initiative is also part of a global coalition to advance a UN Environment Assembly Resolution on the nexus between human, animal, and planetary health and wellbeing, and we work with a diversity of coalitions to address the root causes of climate change, such as fossil fuel production and industrial animal farming.
Addressing the Climate Emergency and Other Global Crises: We’re in the midst of a planetary emergency that includes the climate crisis.
Government, industry, and the corporate media continue to downplay the bold action necessary to reverse the gravest impacts, even though we’re already feeling them around the world.
Addressing the climate crisis requires dismantling harmful systems—including the role that industrial animal farming plays.
Numerous studies have shown that animal farming is one of the most destructive industries on the planet—including as a significant contributor to climate change. Emissions from farmed animals in the food system account for at least 14.5 percent of human-caused global greenhouse gasses—especially methane and nitrous oxide.
Read about how the meat and dairy industry is harming people, animals, and the planet.
“We can no longer look away from or rationalize harm, or systems that impose harm, as necessary or acceptable. This is a new era for transformative thought leadership and Phoenix Zones Initiative is at the forefront.” —Kimberly J. Soenen, Director, SomePeopleEveryBody
Phoenix Zones Initiative helps to end decades-old harmful national research policies.
In 2022, Phoenix Zones Initiative worked within a national coalition of organizations to help pass the FDA Modernization Act 2.0, which ended the Food and Drug Administration’s 80-year-old animal testing requirement and opened the door to modern, ethical methods that protect humans and animals. This new law allows drug manufacturers to test the safety and effectiveness of new drugs by using the most modern methods including cell-based assays, organ chips, sophisticated computer modeling, and other ethical, patient-based research.
Phoenix Zones Initiative continues to support efforts to require the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to provide incentives to researchers to use new approach methods and to establish a dedicated center devoted to advancing modern, ethical research.
Phoenix Zones Initiative co-leads a national effort to advance a child’s right to a safe and healthy environment.
In 2021 and 2022, Phoenix Zones Initiative partnered with First Focus on Children and the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights to convene a coalition of leaders in children’s rights, medicine, case law, and legislative advocacy. The group prioritized various policy initiatives as pathways to advance many of the rights and protections set forth by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Since Somalia’s ratification of the Convention in 2015, the US remains the only member of the United Nations that has not yet ratified the Convention.
To uphold the spirit of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, we support the establishment of an office to oversee and coordinate children’s interests across all federal agencies and programs. Using other national and state offices as a model, the position would advocate for federal services that foster child and family wellness; address social and environmental determinants of health for children; and coordinate between federal agencies to better serve the interests of children.
Read about our efforts to advance a child’s right to a safe and healthy environment.
Addressing Their Shared Vulnerability: Children and animals are vulnerable in similar ways. They have no political power, and social, economic, environmental, and legal constructs make them even more vulnerable to harm.
The connections between child and animal protection have been prioritized in the US since the nineteenth century when Henry Bergh, the founder of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), used New York State animal protection legislation to successfully argue on behalf of an abused and neglected ten-year-old girl named Mary Ellen.
Advocacy
Phoenix Zones Initiative works on model legislation for national, state, and local governments to heighten ethical and scientific standards in medicine, research, and public health.
Phoenix Zones Initiative creates model legislation to promote prevention and improve ethical standards in research.
Our model legislation expands prevention research, improves social determinants of health, advances more appropriate protections for animals and higher ethical standards in research, works toward the elimination of animal experimentation, and supports technological innovation.
We also develop toolkits and tools to help others effectively advocate for change. Check out our free effective advocacy toolkit.
Impact
Our leadership and advocacy efforts have brought together more than 150 organizations and led to changes in local, national, and international policy. Our work regularly influences global negotiations and agreements that directly impact 193 nations worldwide.
Check out our Annual Reports to learn more about our impact for people, animals, and the planet.