Community-based planning processes like Transformative Climate Communities (TCC) and California Green Zones can provide immigrant communities with better environmental health conditions, while also contributing to a stronger local economy.

In California, the disproportionate placement of industrial and transportation infrastructures in communities of color – including immigrant communities – have led Black, Brown, and Indigenous residents to experience greater pollution burden and environmental health hazards than white residents. This has often been the result of the exclusion of these communities from planning processes – but some programs are working to change that. The Transformative Climate Communities program, administered by the state’s Strategic Growth Council, is a place-based funding program that seeks to “empower the communities most impacted by pollution to choose their own goals, strategies, and projects to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and local air pollution” – and has awarded significant funding to places with large immigrant communities like South Stockton, the Inland Empire, and Barrio Logan in San Diego. A 2024 report by The Greenlining Institute and the USC Equity Research Institute found that TCC was a strong model for funding community-driven climate projects, and called out the program’s strength in catalyzing local collectives between governments, communities, and nonprofit organizations to achieve tangible progress in addressing environmental injustices.

One of the co-sponsors of the legislation that established TCC in 2016 was the California Environmental Justice Alliance (CEJA), whose California Green Zones program is another place-based initiative that “uses community-led solutions to transform areas overburdened by pollution.” “Green Zones” where CEJA and their partners have done such work include Fresno, where residents have asked for green spaces, housing, and transit access to replace industrial development in lower-income neighborhoods; the Southern San Joaquin Valley, where residents have formed their own multilingual advocacy organizations in Tulare and Kern Counties; and Los Angeles, where three neighborhoods with significant immigrant populations have been prioritized for improved environmental health standards by city officials because of local advocacy efforts.

To learn more about the TCC program, visit their website here. To learn more about CEJA’s Green Zones initiative, visit their website here. To read the report from The Greenlining Institute and the USC Equity Research Institute, click here.

Photo credit: Environmental Health Coalition