North Carolina

The Tar Heel State has a long history of communities standing up to powerful polluters, from the Warren County protests that helped put environmental justice on the national map in 1982—when residents fought against the dumping of toxic soils in their neighborhoods—to today’s growing movement to protect local air and water quality, as well as the state’s forests and climate. NRDC works alongside advocates, scientists, businesses, elected officials, and communities across the state to hold corporate polluters accountable, protect drinking water from toxic chemicals like PFAS, and ensure that the benefits of a cleaner economy reach everyone. We’re fighting to make polluters like Chemours (formerly DuPont) pay for the costs of their PFAS contamination, including cleaning up polluted waterways and protecting communities’ drinking water rather than leaving those burdens to utilities, ratepayers, and taxpayers. We’re also pushing the state to strengthen protections against PFAS pollution to safeguard vital waterways.

At the same time, North Carolina is at a critical crossroads in its energy future. As electricity demand surges, NRDC is working to protect residents from incurring the costs and pollution of irresponsible data center growth while ensuring the state meets its energy needs with clean, affordable power—not a new build-out of costly fossil fuel infrastructure. We’re defending state carbon-reduction goals, advancing energy efficiency solutions, and fighting the expansion of the destructive wood-pellet biomass industry that is impacting Southern forests while adding carbon pollution to the atmosphere. As communities from the coasts to the mountains face increasingly severe storms, flooding, and other climate impacts, we’re working with partners and policymakers to strengthen community resilience, protect homeowners from rising insurance costs, and build a healthier, safer, and more sustainable North Carolina.

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