About EESI

  Ms. Luken began empowering communities to achieve their environmental goals over 30 years ago while working for a U.S. congressional district where she helped a farming community receive federal funds to remediate contaminated land and water.  She served as a county solid waste director where she developed a strategic vision for increasing recycling and composting.  Since that time,  Karen has served as a senior director of a national consulting firm and on the White House Recycling Task Force.  

Prior to founding EESI, she served as the global director for an international non-profit where she helped communities throughout the world develop integrated waste systems to protect their environment.  

Ms. Luken founded EESI to help communities throughout the world design strategies to solve complex environmental problems that are technically feasible, financially viable and socially acceptable. EESI transforms strategic recommendations into action items that government officials, the business community and the civil society endorse.  EESI understands that every aspect of managing waste needs to be carefully considered and anlaytically evaluated to achieve goals.  EESI can accomplish this because we understand solid waste  infrastructure, policy, operations and financial structures.   

 Most importantly, EESI has the facilitation skills to foster support for progressing your environmental vision.     

  EESI has helped communities and businesses thoughout the world achieive the following:

• Convert over 1 million tons of trash into green products
• Improve efficiency and reduce costs of solid waste systems
• Promulgate regulations to assure that waste is safely managed
• Evaluate the technical and financial feasibility of transforming waste into energy
• Create regional partnerships to implement waste recovery programs
• Develop stakeholder-supported strategies to improve waste systems
• Design award-winning campaigns to promote environmental sustainability
• Educate government officials on the importance of proper waste management