Blacksmith Institute
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| Formation | 1999 |
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| Type | International NGO |
| Location | |
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President
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Richard Fuller |
| Website | www.pureearth.org |
Founded in 1999, the Blacksmith Institute which changed its name to Pure Earth on March 10, 2015, is an international not-for-profit organization that identifies and cleans up pollution, focusing primarily on contaminated sites and soil in developing countries. Over the last decade it has cleaned up 84 sites in 20 countries, focusing on communities where children are most at risk. These communities suffer disproportionately from pollution-related diseases.
In 2014, Blacksmith launched a new initiative – Blacksmith Institute for a Pure Earth – with actor Dev Patel as celebrity ambassador. Patel worked closely with Blacksmith to suggest the new name, and will help support efforts to raise awareness about toxic pollution, an issue he says he first grew aware of after filming in India. Blacksmith will slowly transition to a new name – Pure Earth – in order to broaden awareness of global toxic pollution issues to the general public.
In 2011 Blacksmith received a Green Star Award for its work. In 2010, Blacksmith founder Richard Fuller was profiled in Time magazine's "Power of One" column In 2014, Bloomberg Businessweek chronicled Blacksmith/Pure Earth's growth and work around the world, including a dangerous cleanup of a secret Soviet arms site in the Ukraine.
2015 saw the release of the book The Brown Agenda.
Pure Earth has been recognized as one of the USA’s top performing nonprofits.
Blacksmith Institute/Pure Earth is known for its annual World's Worst Polluted Places Reports, The Pollution Blog, and the Blacksmith database, which currently lists 600 polluted sites. This Polluted Places Initiative identifies polluted sites throughout the world by means of an online nomination process.
Blacksmith is currently expanding their database with the Toxics Sites Identification Program, formerly known as Global Inventory Project.
Blacksmith/Pure Earth serves as Secretariat for the Global Alliance on Health and Pollution (GAHP). In 2015, the GAHP launched the global Commission on Pollution, Health and Development. It is described as an "initiative of The Lancet, the Global Alliance on Health and Pollution (GAHP), and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, with additional coordination and input from the United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank." The Commission aims to quantify the health and economic costs of pollution to give global leaders and policy-makers the justification to act on pollution. The Commission report will be published in early 2017.
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