USA's Top 10 Eco-Influencers To Follow This Plastic Free July [2022]
Nidhi Agarwal
Content Writer
July 22, 2022
3
min read
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Waste-free and sustainable living drives Millennials and Gen Zers to look up to eco-influencers in the USA. Not just that, their purchase decision is equally impacted by these influencers.
Seeing this shift in consumer demand and the dire need to reduce the carbon footprint, many eco-friendly brands in the USA have produced unique plastic-free products. Brands such as Patagonia, Allbirds and Cometeer have been recruiting influencers to create awareness about their sustainable and plastic-free products.
But partnering with such influencers is often challenging. Brands often face hurdles in reaching out to these content creators due to authenticity issues or budget restrictions. In such cases, influencer marketing platforms like affable.ai are an affordable and simple solution to find suitable eco-influencers who can engage the audience.
In this article, we have shared a list of the top eco-friendly influencers in the USA and their sustainability efforts.
Let's dive in!
Top 10 Eco-Friendly Influencers In the USA
1. Kathryn Kellogg (Instagram: @goingzerowaste)
Kathyrn Kellogg, the founder of the Going Zero Waste lifestyle website, started living a waste-free life due to financial and health issues. Soon she realized the importance of sustainability and made a full-time career out of it! In 2018, Kellogg even wrote a book called 101 Ways To Go Zero Waste to educate her audience.
She started her website to help others switch to a plastic-free lifestyle by recycling and upcycling waste. The eco-influencer actively posts content about sustainability, including #scraptastic recipes, products to replace single-use plastic, DIY videos and more.
She collaborates with numerous eco-friendly brands like Growing Almonds, Remake Our World, Tentrees, etc., to encourage her 367K followers to choose greener products.
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Lauren Singer started her zero-waste journey back in 2012. To record her path to waste-free living and encourage others, she started her blog Trash Is For Tossers in 2014. In 2017, she founded Package Free Shop, a sustainable store for customers to buy plastic-free products with minimal packaging.
Singer is one of the known eco-influencers, environmental activists, and entrepreneurs. She collaborates with several eco-friendly brands like GrowNYC, TheWildestSite, Stasher, LinearBeauty, and more to promote their products to her 362K followers.
Her Instagram feed has content like tips on reducing single-use waste, healthy food options, products to use as a substitute for plastic, etc.
3. Bea Johnson (Instagram: @zerowastehome)
Bea Johnson is known to have pioneered the waste-free living movement. Once her blog kicked off, Johnson launched a book called Zero Waste Home: The Ultimate Guide to Simplifying Your Life by Reducing Your Waste.
Johnson has been living a waste-free life since 2008. Having first-hand experience in going zero-waste, Johnson has reduced her family's waste to a 16 oz mason jar.
With 260K followers on Instagram, Johnson has become one of the top eco-friendly influencers in the USA. Her Instagram page displays multiple contents about homemade recipes, tips on reducing plastic waste, the impact of zero waste living, etc.
She also posts branded content in collaboration with companies like CASA Zero Waste, Ecoenlace, Whole Foods Market, Via Organica, etc.
4. Rob Greenfield (Twitter: @RobJGreenfield)
Rob Greenfield is a passionate environmental activist and eco-influencer in the USA who has lived waste-free for years. He was titled the 'Forest Gump of Ecology' by Mr Mondialisation, a french media think tank.
Greenfield has started multiple movements like his famous Trash Me campaign and Food Forest movement to spread awareness about sustainability across the globe.
Greenfield has won the hearts of millions with consistent content and gained over 20K followers on Twitter and 180K on Instagram. He posts new videos weekly on his YouTube channel to share stories and snippets from his plastic-free life. Greenfield has collaborated with local stores and eco-friendly companies like Hay! Straws, Urban Community Farm, Sow True Seed, and more.
In fact, 100% of his proceeds from social media, books and TV shows go to non-profit organizations.
5. Anne-Marie Bonneau (Twitter: @zerowastechef)
The founder of Zero Waste Chef, Anne-Marie Bonneau, is an active eco-influencer who talks about waste-free and plastic-free living. She also wrote a book named The Zero-Waste Chef: Plant-Forward Recipes and Tips for a Sustainable Kitchen and Planet to share her love for cooking with the people.
She participates actively in the plastic-free July campaign and posts new zero-waste recipes, content on plastic toxicity, and fantastic plastic alternative products on her blog and social media pages.
Bonneau has been inspiring and engaging with over 9K followers on Twitter and 200K on Instagram. Her past brand collaborations include Country Sun Natural Foods and Zero Waste Grocery Delivery, among others.
6. Shelby Orme (TikTok: @shelbizlee)
Known as the sustainability expert, Shelby Orme is one of the eco-educators who aims to "make sustainability fun across the internet." She's the founder of Sustainably Shelbi, a store/blog where consumers can buy waste and plastic alternatives and get tips on living an eco-friendly life.
Orme is an environmental activist and public speaker who boldly talks about plastic waste. She mainly focuses on creating fun and informative videos for Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok, which she believes is the best way to engage and educate the audience. She also shares content explaining the impact of plastic on the planet and tips and tricks to go plastic-free.
Orme also endorses brands that share a similar interest in sustainability, like Conscious Step, Lomi, Central Market, Allbirds, etc.
7. Sabrina Pare (TikTok: @sabrina.sustainable.life)
Sabrina Pare is enthusiastic about living a sustainable life and saving the planet. She co-founded the EcoTok community on TikTok, where multiple eco-influencers create content spreading awareness about eco-friendly living.
Pare creates exciting byte-sized videos to interact with her 160K followers on TikTok. She mainly develops content on sustainable fashion, plastic or waste alternatives like fertilizers, personal care products, sustainability hacks, recycling tips, etc., using hashtags like #ecofriendlyliving, #ecohacks, and #sustainability.
She collaborates with eco-friendly brands like Ethique World, Low Waste Beauty, Pacha Soap co., Who Gives A Crap, and more. Pare is also active on other social media channels like Pinterest, YouTube, and Instagram.
8. Isaias Hernandez (YouTube: @queerbrownvegan)
Isaias Hernandez advocates sustainability and eco-friendly living. He educates and spreads awareness about the current environmental situations through videos on veganism, the agricultural sector, waste management, and foraging adventures.
Hernandez founded Queer Brown Vegan in 2019 to educate more people about choosing sustainability and building ecological wealth.
"I wanted to create an online account that distilled all of these topics through an educational graphic lens. And through that, Queer Brown Vegan became an educational platform so people can use specifically when it comes to addressing environmental injustice in their community", says Hernandez in an interview with Yahoo Life.
He creates free educational blog posts on climate, zero waste systems, environmental racism, and more. He collaborates with brands like EVOLVE, Bottle Top, Malia Designs, and S'well to promote sustainable products.
9. Christina Tanner (YouTube: @sedonachristina)
Christina Tanner, popularly known as Sedona Christina in the social media world, is an adventurer, sustainability lover and eco-fashion influencer.
Tanner creates trending content and shares real-life stories to inspire her 224K subscribers on YouTube. Her content includes plant-based lifestyle, veganism, sustainability, eco-anxiety, zero waste swaps, DIY videos, and travel diaries.
She also runs a podcast called Intentional with her best friend Tay, where they talk about minimalism, self-care, wellness, and more such topics.
As an influencer, Tanner has worked with brands like Sendle, Brush With Bamboo, OSEA Malibu, and Hinge.
10. Leah Thomas (Facebook: @greengirlleah)
Leah Thomas is a known environmentalist, author, blogger, and eco-influencer. Magazines like Vogue, The Good Trade, Elle, and more have published her work on environmental and social issues.
Thomas is a supporter of environmental justice. Her blog Green Girl Leah and her media hub, The Intersectional Environmentalist, cover environmentalism and social justice topics.
Many sustainable brands, like Ilia Beauty, KADA, Sorel, Patagonia, etc., have collaborated with her to spread awareness about their eco-friendly products. She is active mainly on her Instagram and Facebook (Meta) pages.
Summary
One of the biggest challenges brands face is finding the right social media talent. Many influencers create content to gain the brands' attention and not to engage the audience.
Businesses often end up hiring someone who doesn't bring engagement. To avoid this, brands can go for influencer analytics tools like affable.ai that simplify the end-to-end campaign process. Their database of 6M+ influencers assists brands in selecting the best eco-influencers using 20+ filters.