Shannon Binns

• Founder and Executive Director
• Sustain Charlotte
• https://www.sustaincharlotte.org/

Shannon Binns is the Founder and Executive Director of Sustain Charlotte. Before moving to Charlotte in 2007, Shannon worked at The Nature Conservancy in Washington, D.C., where he was part of their climate change science and policy team. Binns served in the Peace Corps in Senegal, in AmeriCorps’ National Civilian Community Corps, and helped found a tsunami relief organization in Thailand. He worked as an industrial engineer for Motorola, General Motors and Trane in the for-profit sector. He holds a Bachelor of Science in industrial engineering from Iowa State University and a Master of Public Administration in environmental science and policy from Columbia University. He has previously served as a supervisor on the Mecklenburg County Soil and Water Conservation Board, an adjunct professor in the Sustainable Technologies program at Central Piedmont Community College, and a member of the North Carolina Advisory Board for Environmental Defense Fund. In 2015, he was named one of “Seven to Watch” by The Charlotte Observer and one of the Charlotte Business Journal’s “40 Under 40.” In 2018, Charlotte’s NPR affiliate, WFAE, named him one of “The Most Powerful Voices in Charlotte.”