One of our most engaging panels at the 2024 Solar Summit in early October was about energy equity and energy justice.  Solar Washington board member Charlee Thomson, who works for the Northwest Energy Coalition, organized and moderated the panel.  “These two topics, equity and justice, are integral to the clean energy transition and the advancement of solar energy. While we are reaching beyond the typical scope of what folks generally think of as solar energy, we wanted to put solar in the broader context of the clean energy transition.” The panelists, Environmental Justice Council Climate Justice Advisor Jonathan Chen, Spark Northwest Policy Manager John Seng and Climate Solutions Consultant Ali Lee, provided insights for the audience.

Chen started the discussion by sharing a story of a friend who grew up with energy insecurity. When his friend was a child, her parents struggled to pay for electricity. During the summer, when the children were not in school, they would cancel the internet so they could keep the lights on.  “That highlights the necessity of energy justice and energy equity - making sure clean energy is accessible to all is transformative.”

“The work I do as a climate justice advisor relies on two recent transformative policies,” Chen said. “One is the Healthy Environment for All (HEAL) Act, which required the state government to integrate environmental justice policies and practices into all facets of government. The other is the Climate Commitment Act (CCA). The largest polluters in our state have to pay a price for pollution. I integrate those two policies and work at an intersection of communities, tribes and state agencies.”

Seng went on to explain that there are at least three pillars of energy justice. One is for energy to be affordable, accessible and reliable. Two, everyone has equitable access to participate in planning and decision making about energy production and distribution. And finally, the production, distribution and end use of energy does not disproportionately impact any particular group of people.

Two key components, Seng said, are procedural justice and distributional justice. “Procedural justice and distributive justice are new terms that are starting to pop up.” Thompson interjected. “Procedural justice is about access to decision-making spaces, enabling communities to feel empowered, and to be able to take decisions and take ownership of energy." Procedural justice is concerned with the fairness of the processes and procedures used to make decisions and allocate resources. Distributive, or distributional, justice is about the energy benefits and burdens being distributed equitably or evenly across all communities.” Other pillars, she said, are recognition justice and restorative justice. Recognition is recognizing who is impacted, who is benefiting, why, and what needs to be done to uplift these communities. Restorative justice means changing the system, so it works equitably for everyone.”

“Our economy and our energy system are transforming extremely quickly. We need to make sure that urgency doesn't cause us to replicate the same harms that have happened in the past. The energy system is causing disproportionate harm to Black and Brown communities, indigenous communities, working class and low-income folks, in terms of pollution and energy cost.” For example, solar siting: “We need to install a lot of solar all across the state. We need to be thoughtful about where we're doing that, who owns it, and who benefits.”

Describing Spark Northwest work to empower communities to design and engage in clean energy solutions, Seng cited the Clean Energy Ambassadors that, according to the Washington Department of Commerce "would provide education, planning, technical assistance and community engagement throughout the state. If enacted, it would also offer funding to support these efforts and focus on expanding clean energy access for everyone, ensuring a just transition to a net-zero economy. Commerce is pursuing multiple funding sources that could enable the program to move forward in early 2025."

"Energy can feel like a top-down concept", Seng observed. “It's really important to have local experts and advocates, such as clean energy investors, who are able to bring the concepts home in a way that feels engaging, relevant and appropriate for local goals and priorities.”

“Community building and collaboration is a lot of hard work,” Lee added. “Having that grounding of knowing what community you're going into, walking around, talking to people, making sure you've got a feel for the community, is hard work. A thriving community takes a lot of time. That's some of the things that we work on. That's why the Ambassador program is important, because you're getting that place-based feel when you're going in, working collaboratively as a community.

As a member of the Clean Energy Siting Council, Chen explained that “One of the mandates of this Council is to provide the legislature with a list of recommendations on how we develop a more efficient, effective and equitable way of siting clean energy. This past year, we listed recommendations that communities and tribes want. Missing was the voices of the individuals most impacted by the harms of clean energy. What we are trying to do this coming year is to figure out ways we can bring those voices to the table.”

Taking solar to the next level means providing communities with a place that feels safe and comfortable for everybody, for example by having a contractor or somebody from the community coming in and getting to know people on the ground. “There's a lot of free money out there for clean energy, but some of it's just sitting on the table. Entities like non-profits, government, organizations and agencies looking to support frontline environmental justice communities and the energy transition should be focusing on that fact.”

Understanding what constitutes a community is important. Communities can be location-based, but also ethnically- or culturally-based. Certain populations need a certain area and will therefore be impacted by a certain environmental harm. Those are the communities we want to cater to, to hear from, and we want to give money and resources to. This may include people who work in that community but do not live in that area, e.g., those building things or growing food in that area. While they do not live there, they are still impacted by the same environment of pollution that's impacting that area. Engaging the community therefore requires bringing to the table the different people who may eventually be affected. 

Chen also worked on a solar install funded by the Portland Clean Energy Fund, in collaboration with a Community Land Trust, called Proud Ground and another nonprofit called Solar for All. "We got funding to install free solar on 15 homes, prioritizing BIPOC-owned homes. It sounds like a great deal: Free solar! We were calling and emailing people, and nobody was getting back to us. Eventually we decided to host an educational event with folks who were trusted [by the community]. People could hear speakers from [the local organization] Proud Ground, and then from solar installers. When we have these workshops, people are excited about solar.”

Asked about environmental justice concerns, Chen responded: “we have to understand that there's always going to be a cost to energy. Our dams have gifted us with clean energy but also created irreparable damage to tribes. I've also heard from communities and tribes that they understand that they are on the front lines of the worst impacts for climate change. We have yet to develop any kind of conflict resolution tool process for the different parties involved. A community or a tribe may agree that they are not opposed to the development of clean energy but say 'no' because they are concerned that it is going to devastate cultural resources and harm native foods.  Then, what do we do? We don't have a process that's agreeable to all parties. That is something that we should develop. The developers of industries and state government should develop incentives for co-development, co-owning between the developers and the communities the most impacted by these projects. If they have a buy-in, they'll be more likely to agree to it. For utility and small-scale energy, we have to make sure information is communicated in easily accessible ways. Finally, we need to reduce the financial risk.”