Members of the Community Climate Shift (CCS) initiative gathered in San Francisco, CA at the third annual Community Climate Shift Partner Convening from May 21-23, 2024 to continue strengthening relationships, strategize, align, and collaborate on equitable decarbonization and energy justice initiatives across the country. Click here to see a high-level video recap of our time together!
In January, CCS kicked off its work on the Supporting Equitable Building Performance (SEBP) project after being awarded a $5 million dollar grant from the Department of Energy to work on equitable decarbonization in nine locations across the country. SEBP aims to model community-led energy efficiency policy making in these nine locations, leveraging federal funds with the philanthropic resources in the CCS fund to facilitate direct collaboration between community-based anchor organizations and local governments. At this year’s CCS convening, we were joined by some of the representatives of the community-based organizations working on SEBP including: Community Builders Network in St Louis, Alliance for Affordable Energy in New Orleans, People for Community Recovery in Chicago, Physicians for Social Responsibility- Los Angeles in California, and Washington Interfaith Network in Washington D.C. Current CCS partners and new partners under SEBP had a chance to engage in story sharing to generate ideas, strategies, and lessons learned across their communities.
In addition to relationship building, the convening also focused on refining our strategies to move from community engagement to community ownership. We participated in trainings and discussions led by Facilitating Power on the Spectrum of Community Engagement to Ownership tool. We focused on identifying ways in which the tool can be applied to CCS and SEBP projects and developing a shared understanding of what we mean by “community ownership”– meaning that community members have not just the autonomy but also the capacity to engage in the visioning and development of solutions to their energy efficiency challenges and priorities.
Lastly, we had the chance to see CCS funded work and community leadership in action. Our local partner, PODER, graciously hosted site visits for the group throughout San Francisco where we got to see a wide range of their community resilience work. Partners visited PODER’s new office, a community centered space that also doubles as a completely electric affordable housing building. We had a chance to visit two affordable housing implementation projects that are undergoing building decarbonization and energy efficiency retrofit projects with support from the CCS Fund. We visited the iconic Women’s Building, where we learned about their efforts to retrofit the space into a community resilience center. We walked through the streets of the Mission District where we got to see various murals, telling and honoring the history of the community and sharing solidarity with communities around the world. We visited BCIS Del Pueblo, a community bike kitchen where community members can get education and training around bike building and repair, safely cycling in the city, learn more about transportation equity, and access to free bicycles. Lastly, we got to visit Hummingbird Farm where we heard community members share the history of the farm, learned more about the grasslands and ecology of San Francisco, local sustainable food systems, and got to share delicious fresh snacks from produce harvested on the farm itself. Overall, it was a wonderful gift to be able to witness the change that is possible through years of organizing, labors of love, and when local leaders are deeply rooted and in tune with their community’s needs and priorities.
The 2024 CCS Convening was an opportunity for our partners to continue braiding and weaving our climate stories and work together. As the CCS initiative continues to grow, we honor how our work is rooted in place, community, and justice. We have deep gratitude for our partners in building and shaping this initiative with us and we look forward to next year of work on the horizon.
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