Laura Turner Seydel works with and supports organizations that address urgent challenges affecting the health, functionality and vitality of our life support system: our air, water, land, food, biodiversity and climate. She serves on the board of Project Drawdown which focuses on measuring the top scalable solutions to address global warming. Laura also works to address the extinction crisis as a Patron of Nature for the International Union of the Conservation of Nature.
As chair of the Captain Planet Foundation, she works to guide the organization in its mission to empower and engage youth to become environmental stewards. She is a passionate board member of the Children & Nature Network, whose mission it is that all children grow up realizing the many benefits — physically, mentally and developmentally — that exposure to nature provides.
As far as fighting for the health of our children, she serves as chair of Mothers and Others for Clean Air, which works to improve air quality for at-risk populations, especially children in the Southeast. Also, she is a director of EWG, a consumer advocacy organization that tirelessly fights to keep toxins out of food, products, water and air.
To ensure that water in her state is drinkable, fishable and swimmable, she co-founded Chattahoochee Riverkeeper 25 years ago. She works to achieve the same safe-water mission internationally as a director of Waterkeeper Alliance (the consortium of 350 waterkeepers worldwide).
Other issues that Laura has been engaged in over the past 15 years are recycling, waste diversion and reduction. She has focused her efforts on solving the recycling crisis by co-founding Atlanta Recycles in 2005 and serving as a director of Recycle Across America, which promotes the effective solution of nationwide standardized recycling labels.
To leverage and protect important environmental policies that protect the air, water, land and especially climate, Laura serves as vice chair of the League of Conservation Voters Education Fund.
Additional organizations she serves include the Turner Foundation, JST Foundation and the Turner Endangered Species Fund. She is a member of Atlanta Rotary, and she serves on the Carter Center Board of Councilors and on the advisory board for the Ray C. Anderson Foundation.
Laura lives with her husband, Rutherford, in Atlanta. They have three children and live in the first LEED-certified gold residence in the United States.
