July Young Professional of the Month: Lauren Click

We are thrilled to highlight Lauren Click as July’s YP of the Month! Lauren is the Founder and Executive Director of Let’s Go Compost.

Lauren’s work currently supports 123 public schools in 10 states, soon expanding to 200 across 15 states, with free composting education and small-scale programs designed to build long-term infrastructure and workforce readiness. These schools, many of which are Title I, are among the largest publicly funded facilities in the country and typically lack access (whether physically or economically) to food waste diversion programs. In helping them launch and maintain composting systems, Lauren and Let’s Go Compost are working to create bottom-up demand for scalable, off-site composting infrastructure.

In addition to Lauren’s work in schools, she consults corporations, municipalities, and large facilities including aquariums, luxury golf courses, entertainment venues, and universities to implement zero-waste strategies centered on composting. Lauren’s approach emphasizes practical, cost-effective systems that integrate education, labor, and logistics into broader facility management and ESG goals. Lauren prefers to emphasize source reduction and then work with facilities (schools and the above) to implement offsite compost hauling.

Lauren has been part of the USCC Young Professionals for about three years and is entering my second year as Chair of the YP Community Service Committee. In January 2025, Lauren was named the 2025 Young Professional of the Year by USCC! In addition to her dedication to the YP Group, she also serves on the Composting for All Committee and the USCC YP Steering Committee.

A fun fact about Lauren is she is usually the only person focused on composting or food waste in the sustainability accelerators and groups she is a part of. That’s why being a USCC member is so valuable. It’s the one space where Lauren can return, share compost-specific insights, and connect with others who actually get how rewarding (and intensive) the composting process can be, from education to hauling to actually implementing composters.

Congratulations to Lauren for her outstanding contributions to the composting industry and her dedication to the YP Group as the chair of the Community Service Committee.