The Cancer Free Economy (CFE) is a network cultivating an inclusive movement to promote healthy environments where no one gets sick because of toxic chemicals where they live, learn, work, and play.
We believe that cancer is an all-too-common diagnosis that devastates families and communities, for which a key opportunity for prevention has been largely left on the sidelines: hazardous chemicals in the water we drink, the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the products we use.
We believe everyone’s health matters, and that the most effective change comes from a holistic approach that engages new voices and strengthens existing movements.
Since 2014, the Cancer Free Economy has built a dynamic collaborative network among a diverse set of teams and stakeholders working together to accelerate progress towards a healthy, regenerative economy.
The Cancer Free Economy proposal was submitted by the Lowell Center for Sustainable Production, Breast Cancer Fund (now Breast Cancer Prevention Partners), BlueGreen Alliance, Jenifer Altman Foundation and the New York Community Trust on January 1, 2014, and was chosen for multi-year funding from the Garfield Foundation’s Collaborative Network’s Initiative. A leadership team formed from this partnership and began the multi-year systems mapping process that has deeply guided our formation, and influences how we work today.
Our strategies are derived from an in-depth multi-year process to analyze the “system” that has created an economy that depends on hazardous chemicals. This process gave us strategic insights and built a spectrum of productive, on-going relationships with a common goal—to lift the burden of cancer within a generation—and a shared understanding of how to achieve that goal effectively.
The network is organized into working groups, teams that address different strategic pathways to a safer materials economy including:
Building Power, Health & Science, Shifting the Market, and Policy & Legal.
Our work is grounded in and guided by these Equity Principles.
CFE Strategic Director
Connecticut
Building Power
Make The Road New York
New York
Health + Science
Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments
Market Shift
Clean Production Action
Massachusetts
Policy + Legal
Pennsylvania
Market Shift Coordinator
Children's Environmental Health Network
Maryland
Building Power
National Day Laborer Organizing Network
Connecticut
Building Power Coordinator
Health + Science
Children’s Environmental Health Network
Maryland
At-Large
Physicians for Social Responsibility - Los Angeles
California Policy + Legal Coordinator
Forbes Funds
Pennsylvania
Health + Science Coordinator
Silent Spring Institute
Massachusetts
At-Large/Climate, Toxics, Health + Equity
University of Northern Iowa, Center for Energy & Environmental Education
Iowa
Household Cleaners Health & Safety Lab Coordinator
Make the Road New York
New York
Health + Science Co-lead
Former Network Council Member
University of MA - Lowell Center for Sustainable Production
Massachusetts
Childhood Cancer Prevention Initiative
American Sustainable Business Council
New York
Pennsylvania
Alaska
The Cancer Free Economy Network is expanding the movement to protect people from harmful chemicals, uniting advocates and scientists working on cancer, public health, fossil-fuel reduction, and economic justice to name a few.