Hayden Crocker’s interest in environmental work started with his love for his hometown of Solana Beach, and all of coastal San Diego, which he sees as sitting “quite literally on the frontlines of climate change, whether … due to fires, bluff collapses, or lagoon degradation.”
His response was to co-found Go Greenish, an environmental nonprofit that’s entirely student-led. It started as a school recycling project at Canyon Crest Academy in 2022 in the San Dieguito Union High School District. He and his co-founder, Trisha Vasanadu, became inaugural student of the district’s climate team, which their organization advocated for. It has grown to focus on student involvement in creating and implementing policies in schools that lessen the degradation of the environment through actions like recycling and composting, clean energy use, and school gardens. Their work is being carried out in 17 school districts, both in and outside of San Diego County.
“Climate change will have the biggest impact on my generation, yet our voices are often missing from climate decisions even though we’re the ones who will inherit the consequences. I created Go Greenish because I saw a clear need in my school community for student involvement on sustainability efforts,” he says. “I chose to have students take the responsibility to educate district leaders and lead the way toward tangible change.”
Crocker, 17, serves as executive director of the organization and lives in Solana Beach with his parents, Beth (who serves on the board) and Andy, and his sister, Mia. He took some time to talk about his environmental work and the importance of empowering students like himself in this movement.
Q: Tell us about Go Greenish.
A: Go Greenish is a student-led organization partnering with student groups across California and beyond to advocate for healthier and more sustainable schools. We believe climate action begins with school initiatives both inside and outside of the classroom….(and) we expanded our efforts into different aspects of sustainability, including air quality, electric buses, and school gardens and proliferated to other school districts. Our overarching goal is to have students leading the way on school site sustainability projects.
Q: Your website talks about the need to include students and schools in mitigating and adapting to climate change in a holistic way. What role do you see students and schools having in responding to climate change and working on improving the environment?
A: Schools are huge energy consumers, consuming nearly 10 percent of all the energy used by commercial buildings in the U.S. (according to information from the U.S. Department of Energy). Schools have the opportunity to play a role in reducing emissions and schools play a critical role in educating students. Initiatives such as solar, electric buses, composting, and recycling can be utilized to build behaviors and inspire students to be environmentally aware. We motivate our Go Greenish student volunteers to embrace the idea that we can reduce emissions and educate students simultaneously. Our students champion these initiatives, keeping in mind that districts are exponentially more receptive to ideas from students in their district. Students can identify the “low hanging fruit” in their district and work with our team of students at Go Greenish to empower an impactful project.
What I love about Solana Beach…
I love going to Barefoot Coffee or Lofty Coffee and running into four people I know. I love talking to the vendors that know me by name at the Solana Beach Farmers’ Market. I love the food—Friday night dinners at Station Sushi, burrito night at Roberto’s, or ordering in Similan Thai Food. I love our lagoons and beautiful hikes. Most importantly, I love our people and our tight-knit community.
Q: Go Greenish was recently awarded a $25,000 grant from San Diego Community Power, the San Diego Foundation, and Calpine Energy Solutions to continue a partnership with UC San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy to measure outdoor air pollutants in underrepresented San Diego schools. When and how did this research program with UC San Diego first begin?
A: I met with Joshua Graff-Zivin, Ph.D., in 2023, who is an economics professor and the Pacific Economic Cooperation Chair in International Economic Relations at UC San Diego. I gave him my pitch about the work of Go Greenish to bridge sustainability initiatives and climate education. Graff-Zivin talked about his work using PurpleAir sensors, which are reliable, cheap monitors that track air particulates and how he wanted to install these sensors in all 97,568 public schools in the country. These sensors could do a few things: one, they could provide data specific to schools about the air students are breathing daily; two, they could provide teachable moments for students related to air quality and their own environment; and three, they could work to provide necessary outdoor air quality data for communities in general. The potential impact of the sensors installed in schools was evident. I volunteered our organization to champion this initiative and work with UC San Diego and school districts throughout San Diego to install sensors in their schools.
Q: When you say “underrepresented” schools, underrepresented in what way? And, how did you go about determining which schools met this criteria?
A: Data underrepresentation. The majority of PurpleAir filters have been voluntarily placed in homes by residents. These residential sensors feed data into a real-time PurpleAir map, but there are clear gaps in certain areas, such as central and south San Diego. PurpleAir sensors are currently clustered in predominantly affluent and White neighborhoods, which may skew outdoor air quality data from lower-income communities and communities of color. We took a few things into when choosing our target schools. We chose some schools geographically, since some are situated in between three freeways and others are close to fire-vulnerable canyons. We chose other schools using public demographics data, looking at economic diversity as something to explore through academic research. What we found is that these schools, chosen through geospatial analysis and demographic data, were actually very similar to the areas that were underrepresented from the data perspective.
Q: Do you have any ideas about what you see yourself doing in environmental work once you finish school? Do you see yourself continuing this work, pursuing a career related to this work?
A: Absolutely. I definitely see myself pursuing environmental work as a career. To be honest, I don’t have a clear vision of my next steps yet. Building Go Greenish has taught me that I enjoy being entrepreneurial. I like leading impactful initiatives and encouraging people to fund and them. I am looking forward to analyzing the particulate matter data we collect with the from our recent grant, and potentially exploring a career in academia. And to top it all off, running for public office is also not out of the question and something I would consider in the future. I am keeping an open mind to all options, but I’d like to think I have some time to figure it all out.
Q: What is the best advice you’ve ever received?
A: Leaders build leaders, not followers.
Q: What is one thing people would be surprised to find out about you?
A: I am a classically trained pianist of 12 years and I teach students ages 6 to 90.
Q: Please describe your ideal San Diego weekend.
A: On Saturday, I’d take my dog, Nacho, to dog beach in Del Mar and have breakfast at Claire’s on Cedros in Solana Beach. An afternoon at Powerhouse Park with friends and an evening Padres win at Petco Park with my family. On Sunday, sleep in. Then, a weekly Sunday visit to the Solana Beach farmers’ market with my mom, family dinner with the food we bought at the market, and maybe grab a late-night sweet treat with friends (Handel’s and Salt and Straw in Del Mar are my personal favorites).
