Implementing inclusive processes

We believe the programs and policies that are made for us should be created and benefited by us.

Our Commitment to Healing

We recognize that to develop place-based solutions, we must first understand our sense of place and the native lands we walk on. Our firm originated in Kansas City, Missouri - the native homelands of the Wahzhazhe (Osage), Kanza (Kaw), Jiwere (Otoe), and Nutachi (Missouria) peoples, along with many others who have been displaced from their ancestral lands. We respect and are fully aligned with pre-colonial, First Nations’ beliefs in the sacredness of Mother Earth. We believe our relationship to Mother Earth is vital to addressing the human-induced climate crisis and reestablishing our inherent, symbiotic connection with nature.

This is a process of healing: ourselves, our communities, and the natural ecosystems we exist within. Throughout this process, we will encounter difficult, yet necessary conversations. And we are here to guide you through these heavy moments, holding your hand in an exercise of envisioning spaces where we all thrive together.

We are committed to elevating Indigenous leadership and stewardship in our work.

Our Principles

HEALING

Taking a trauma-informed, healing-centered approach to ecological protection and community engagement enables us to acknowledge and confront historic and systemic injustices, and to cultivate spaces where we feel supported, safe, and seen.

HARMONY

Designing with harmony in mind allows us to view climate solutions through a holistic lens. It helps us better understand where power paradigms exist, how they cause imbalance and injustice in our communities, and what nature can teach us about connection, cooperation, and community.

HUMILITY

Operating from a place of humility reminds us that environmental stewardship does not mean we have dominion over our ecological spaces. Rather, we are reminded to see ourselves as another element inherently entangled in the world around us.

Our Vision

To live in a zero emission world that is healthy and just.

And to live in communities that have unobstructed opportunities to self-determination - and where we work cooperatively to cultivate safe and healthy environments we all want to live in.

Our Mission

To advance place-based, community-driven solutions by building representative leadership and centering the narrative in environmental justice.

We do that by developing programs, policies, and systems that are designed by and work for the communities most negatively impacted by climate change.

Work with Us

Our Community

Angelica Chavez-Duckworth,

Founder & Principal Researcher

Angelica (Jellie) is a listener, meaning-maker, storyteller, and guide. She founded LivZero in 2020 after the global pandemic exacerbated the equities within the neighborhood she grew up in.
She has nearly 8 years experience as a community organizer and qualitative researcher. She helps advance place-based solutions nationally by supporting and working with environmental justice communities to elevate their lived experiences in environmental, health, and housing research, data, policy and program development.
She is a lover of healthy soil, waterfalls, and all things fungi.
Jellie holds a BA in Sociology and Cultural Anthropology from the University of Missouri - Kansas City.