Solutions library

As states, regions, and cities aim to transition to a clean energy future, many search for new transportation strategies and funding mechanisms. Equity and tax progressivity considerations need to be a part of any road pricing conversation, to transform the way regions raise revenue for transportation and ensure equitable and progressive transportation funding during the phase-out of fossil fuels.

Recommendations for Climate Justice

Historic climate investments, big give-aways to industry, environmental justice priorities short-changed.

This report that shines a light on energy burden reduction as an important part of the clean energy transition. This report examines fundamental inequities of our current energy landscape and the opportunities to address the issue while our nation considers changes to the power sector.

The transition to a decarbonized electricity sector provides an opportunity to invest in reducing energy burdens to systematically ensure an equitable and inclusive future.

On August 25, 2021, the Moving Forward Network released a new report outlining how freight emissions impact the health of communities of color and low-income communities, while also significantly contributing to climate change.

Environmental justice communities throughout the country have long breathed the toxic and harmful pollution resulting from burning garbage. Given how harmful these sources are, trash incineration should not receive any incentives. Only clean, renewable energy should be incentivized.

The Portland Clean Energy Fund was created and led by communities on the frontlines of climate change building policy and a broad coalition over the course of many years.

Authorizes Public Utility Commission to consider differential energy burden and other inequities of affordability in rates.

The pandemic-induced economic crisis has led to a range of approaches to protect vulnerable ratepayers from utility shutoffs. This brief sets forth a set of policy recommendations for policymakers and advocates concerning utility shutoffs and consumer protections in the midst and the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sometimes we need to see the fruits of our labor a little faster than other types of energy justice initiatives, like changing laws, etc. Sometimes you just want to get into the work, get your hands dirty, and make change happen. While energy efficiency, retrofitting, and weatherization projects take time and resources to organize, they are projects that will give your Environmental and Climate Justice (ECJ) Committee a feeling of accomplishment sooner than other projects.

Moving your community from dirty coal, nuclear, etc. into clean and renewable energy sources, like wind and solar, will not only increase health and wellness but also economic opportunities like green jobs and apprenticeships. Renewable and clean energy technologies present great opportunities for your Environmental and Climate Justice (ECJ) Committee or team and community to reclaim the electric grid, build wealth, protect health, and strengthen community democracy. Through a number of policies, a community free from the burdens of the fossil fuel economy is possible!

Many of California’s most vulnerable communities have not seen the benefits of our booming green economy, yet have suffered the most from the health effects of nearby power plants & dirty energy industries

The Solar on Multifamily Affordable Housing (SOMAH) program provides financial incentives for installing photovoltaic (PV) energy systems on multifamily affordable housing. The program will deliver clean power and credits on energy bills to hundreds of thousands of California’s affordable housing residents. SOMAH’s unique, community-based approach ensures long-term, direct economic benefits for low-income households, helps catalyze the market for solar on multifamily housing and creates jobs.

The new Washington Environmental Health Disparities Map is a science-based tool that combines data on pollution and vulnerability to pollution to compare the cumulative impacts for Washington communities statewide. The Map has many applications, including designating communities with cumulative impacts, prioritizing resources, hiring, and enforcement; and improving land use regulation, public participation and accountability, and data accuracy.

In their influential article “The City as Growth Machine” and in subsequent work , John Logan and Harvey Molotch assert that regional economic growth is best understood through analysis of the coordinated investments and power maneuvers of a small set of inter-locking regional elites in banking, real estate development, construction, energy utilities and politics.

CalEnviroScreen is a mapping tool that helps identify California communities that are most affected by many sources of pollution, and where people are often especially vulnerable to pollution’s effects. CalEnviroScreen uses environmental, health, and socioeconomic information to produce scores for every census tract in the state.

With each plan, project or program, port agencies have an opportunity to promote environmental justice and equitable development by seeking ways to reduce impacts and increase benefits to near-ports communities. This section describes common health and quality-of-life impacts on near-port communities that ports agencies can begin to remedy through more equitable decision-making.

In A Roadmap to Decarbonize California’s Buildings, released, the Building Decarbonization Coalition lays out a plan for the state to cut building emissions 20 percent in the next six years and 40 percent by 2030 - and to adopt zero-emission building codes for residential and commercial buildings by 2025 and 2027, respectively. Residential buildings produce roughly two-thirds of the state’s building emissions, and commercial buildings produce around one-third.

Taking note of the recommendation of the Human Rights Council contained in its resolution 1/2 of 29 June 20061 , by which the Council adopted the text of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

This discussion paper presents a strategy for protecting workers and communities that may be threatened by the current and future transformation of the U.S. energy system. It is derived from the recognition that recent technological developments have made solar and wind energy, in combination with efficiency, cheaper than continued reliance on fossil fuels. An economical transition to an energy system that is nearly emissions-free is possible. The transition will provide enormous benefits, both in terms of climate protection and to workers and communities.

An estimated 70 million people in the United States—nearly one in three adults—have a prior arrest or conviction record. A racially biased criminal justice system and mass incarceration have severely impacted communities of color. A conviction in one’s past shouldn’t be a life sentence to joblessness. NELP is working to expand fair-chance hiring laws to every corner of the nation, because everyone deserves an opportunity to work for a better life.

EJSCREEN is an environmental justice mapping and screening tool that provides EPA with a nationally consistent dataset and approach for combining environmental and demographic indicators. EJSCREEN users choose a geographic area; the tool then provides demographic and environmental information for that area. All of the EJSCREEN indicators are publicly-available data. EJSCREEN simply provides a way to display this information and includes a method for combining environmental and demographic indicators into EJ indexes.

Learn about the effects of California’s wildfire-related power shutoffs on vulnerable populations and the deficiencies in data reporting.

Our team formed the Initiative to address the persistent gap between grassroots communities at the frontlines of the climate justice fight and those sitting at relevant policymaking tables. We connect grassroots-led solutions with the best-available data, evidence, and scholarship. Through concrete technical policy tools and project models, we support frontline communities, justice-based organizations, and policymakers to foreground equity in a just transition to renewable energy.We designed this Workbook to address the question that frequently arises in the context of equity and energy policy: What is energy justice?

In building this movement, climate justice activists are guided by an overriding principle: communities most affected by climate change should be at the forefront of the struggle. This report, Coal Blooded: Putting Profits Before People, demonstrates both the urgency and opportunity for community action with respect to coal fired power plants—an issue at the intersection between climate justice and environmental justice.

The rapid depletion of Earth’s non-renewable resources coincides with increased energy consumption in the United States. With a growing understanding of the harmful impact of fossil fuel-based energy production on communities of color and low income communities, it is more important now than ever before that our communities take a stand to move our country to an energy efficient and clean energy future. Our intention in creating this compendium is that it will serve as a resource and will spur states to make sure their energy policies protect communities from harmful energy production processes while simultaneously providing equitable access to economic opportunities in energy efficiency and clean energy

For over 70 years, the US nuclear power and weapons industry has consistently targeted Indigenous communities for contamination and environmental sacrifice. The radioactive scars of nuclear colonialism affect Indigenous peoples throughout the lands of Turtle Island (also called North America) and the Pacific Islands occupied by the United States of America.

As your Environmental and Climate Justice (ECJ) unit begins to plan your energy justice project, you may decide that an energy cooperative is right for your community. A cooperative is a community-owned and managed business that is operated by and for the benefit of its members who use the electricity provided by the co-op. Energy cooperatives serve to ensure community access to clean and renewable energy, increase local employment and job training opportunities, and develop community wealth

Front and Centered has been organizing for this moment. Our Principles for Environmental and Climate Justice provide guideposts for how we do our work. Racial and economic analysis, such as the Washington Environmental Health Disparities Map, should drive decisions. We follow the leadership, knowledge, and expertise of communities disproportionately impacted. We pursue targeted strategies for Black, communities of color, and Indigenous people that create net environmental and economic outcomes for everyone. And we have our eyes set not just on piecemeal change, but a truly Just Transition.

Just Transition is a vision-led, unifying and place-based set of principles, processes, and practices that build economic and political power to shift from an extractive economy to a regenerative economy. This means approaching production and consumption cycles holistically and waste-free. The transition itself must be just and equitable; redressing past harms and creating new relationships of power for the future through reparations. If the process of transition is not just, the outcome will never be. Just Transition describes both where we are going and how we get there.

On December 6-8, 1996, forty people of color and European-American representatives met in Jemez, New Mexico, for the “Working Group Meeting on Globalization and Trade.” The Jemez meeting was hosted by the Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice with the intention of hammering out common understandings between participants from different cultures, politics and organizations. The following “Jemez Principles” for democratic organizing were adopted by the participants.

Unfortunately, energy companies and the energy industry do not operate under this principle. The way they do business not only impacts the environment but the people who live in it, which results in health problems and other issues for the African American community and communities who are low-income.

Movement Generation Justice & Ecology Project inspires and engages in transformative action towards the liberation and restoration of land, labor, and culture. We are rooted in vibrant social movements led by low-income communities and communities of color committed to a Just Transition away from profit and pollution and towards healthy, resilient and life-affirming local economies.

Old infrastructure should be properly disposed of or recycled and not pose an undue burden on frontline communities.

100% policies need to address plans for fuel switching for heating and cooling that are currently dependent on oil and gas.

EJ organizations and frontline leaders should not only be considered organizing leaders, but technical experts with skills and expertise in developing equitable energy policies.

During the development of the 100% regenerative policies and during their implementation, frontline communities should be considered leaders, partners, co-sponsors, and co-collaborators.

The cost burden of 100% regenerative energy should not fall on low-income people.

100% regen- erative policies should promote non-extractive financing policies.

In order to achieve a successful 100% regenerative policy that is justice-centered, the policy should ensure that both the generation and the grid are equitable and community owned.

There are myriad DG benefits, such as reduced dependence on transmission lines, societal benefits of community visibility and accessibility, and jobs and local economic opportunities.

Often, too much emphasis is paid to targeting clean energy in urban areas, ignoring important rural and Indigenous communities that are most in need of renewable energy.

Community ownership is a way to capture economic benefits and control over the energy system.

Renewable energy projects should both be located in and benefit environmental justice communities to ensure that the most impacted communities receive the health and economic benefits of the clean energy.

Pathways for former fossil fuel workers to transition to high road careers in the clean energy economy must be included in 100% regenerative policies.

Access to union careers and workers’ rights to unionize are a top priority.

Public health must be considered first and foremost in any 100% regenerative policy.

The issue of housing related to renewable energy is complex. But for frontline communities, the installation of clean energy could lead to gentrification.

EJ and frontline organizations should determine the types of renewable installations and energy efficient upgrades that should be prioritized in the policy depending on the housing demographics and needs of their communities.

Building electrification and building decarbonization should be prioritized. Energy efficiency should be included in the 100% policy, but the burden to change behavior should not be placed on frontline communities.

As the transportation sector is the leading cause of carbon emissions in many states, 100% policies should include strong electric vehicle programs and clean mobil- ity infrastructure.

Advocates need to factor in historic discriminatory land use practices and policies and ensure that the 100% renewables policy shifts away from environmental racism in land use.

Renewable energy policies should recognize—and attempt to correct—the history of fossil fuel oppression and displacement of Indigenous people.

The extractive culture of the fossil fuel industry is inextricably linked to the inequality and the discrimination of women, girls, and the LGBTQ community.

100% policies should include clear language that calls out environmental justice (EJ) and sets clear targets.

A Just Transition is a fundamental shift from an extraction-based economy to one that is democratic, equitable, and regenerative.

Today, Public Utilities Commissions (PUCs) have been established to regulate monopoly utilities. However, utilities continue to enjoy profits by a faulty design.

As advocates develop their own 100% regenerative policies, there may be some confusion as to what is considered renewable and regenerative.

Data from 2015 shows that public entities supply power to roughly 14% of U.S. customers.

A renewable portfolio standard (RPS) requires utility companies to source a certain amount of the energy they generate or sell from renewable sources such as wind and solar

Many 100% energy policies omit an essential piece of an effective plan for the full transition to a 100% regenerative policy: an explicit commitment to transition completely off of fossil fuels.