Our Mission

We are AI for E.

A 501(c)(3) that shepherds the Age of AI into sustainable ecosystems and ecologies that benefit the Earth, Everyone, Everywhere — with Efficient use of energy and resources. We're focused on the Five R's: ROI, Right-Sized, Renewable, Recycled, and Remediate.

We're a collective of experienced and enthusiastic tech and sustainability professionals with hundreds of years of aggregate experience at the top tech companies and sustainable organizations.

501(c)(3)
IRS-recognized nonprofit corporation
100s
Years of aggregate tech + sustainability experience
E·E·E
Earth, Everyone, Everywhere — our scope, by design
AIforE network-leaf mark
Why Us

Uniquely qualified. Genuinely passionate.

Our team isn't assembled — it's converged. We've spent decades building the technologies that now must become sustainable, and decades building the sustainability practices technology must adopt. We've shipped products at the world's largest tech companies, and stewarded ecosystems in some of the world's most fragile ones.

We've also managed the costs, ROI, and efficiencies of leading tech products and services — the same discipline AI sustainability now demands at scale. That dual fluency — deep technical expertise paired with real ecological conviction — is rare, and it's exactly what AI sustainability now requires.

We're not consultants circling the problem — we're practitioners who've lived on both sides of it. That's why we're building AI for Ecology now.

Team

Leadership, at the intersection of tech and sustainability

CF
Charles Finkelstein
CEO & Founder

40+ years of tech leadership across engineering, innovation, product incubation, security, sustainability, sales, and marketing. Passion for tech and the ecology of the world. Microsoft, Salesforce, NetApp, Startups.

SS
Stu Sutherland
VP & Secretary, Board

Partner at Cardinal Insights, based in the Greater Seattle area.

FF
Forrest Fisher
VP, Outreach

Seattle-based founder who built and launched Mi Boss, a chat-first AI job-matching platform.

EW
Erwiena Wrichny
VP, Finance & Treasurer

Finance manager at Amazon Web Services, focused on capital expenditure and AI infrastructure capacity planning.

AK
Anusha Kandel
VP, Data Engineering

Data engineer at Blue Origin.

JB
Jack Burns
VP, Technology

Senior Software Engineer at Nordstrom, leading the Data Streaming and Temporal platforms; previously at Datadog and founder of multiple startups.

Governance

Board of Directors

AIforE is governed by an all-volunteer Board of Directors. Several of the leaders above — including Stu Sutherland (Secretary) and Erwiena Wrichny (Treasurer) — currently serve as board officers. One of our Year 1 goals is growing the board toward 8 members and putting D&O insurance in place as we scale.

Update this section with individual board bios/photos as governance structure is finalized and publicly announced.

Landscape

Where AI for Ecology differs

No other organization pairs deep AI/tech practitioner experience with hands-on ecological work to build AI sustainability certification standards and benchmarks — from inside both worlds.

Earth Species Project

Nonprofit building AI models to decode animal communication — a bio-acoustics and species-focused mission, not AI-industry sustainability standards.

WattTime

Nonprofit providing real-time emissions data and automation to shift energy use toward cleaner power — an emissions-tracking infrastructure play, not AI-specific certification.

Rainforest Connection (RFCx)

Nonprofit using AI-powered acoustic sensors to monitor and protect rainforests — AI deployed for conservation, not sustainability standards for the AI industry itself.

Climate Policy Radar

Nonprofit organizing global climate law and policy data with AI tools — a policy and data focus, not benchmarking or certifying AI sustainability.

Green Software Foundation

Linux Foundation project setting standards for green software broadly (the Software Carbon Intensity spec) — sustainable software in general, not an AI-specific certification body.

Supporters

Partners & Supporters

The organizations backing this work — add logos and names as partnerships are confirmed.

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