BDC’s Definition of Centering Equity
Centering equity at BDC means doing conscious and deliberate work to ensure that we prioritize, collaborate with, and defer to historically marginalized and underrepresented communities, especially BIPOC communities, in our work to fight climate change and decarbonize the built environment. We commit to measure and evaluate the impact of our work to better ensure that our policies do not perpetuate past harms or create new inequities while also striving to create a better world in which people thrive.
BDC’s Statement on Why We Center Equity in Our Work
We envision a future in which all people are benefitting equitably from a healthy, affordable, and decarbonized world. In order to achieve that vision, equity must be centered in our work for at least three reasons:
- Numerous systems of oppression have forced communities of color and low-income communities to bear cumulative environmental, social, and financial harms and we recognize that race is a primary indicator of these inequities. Without conscious and deliberate action, our work has the potential to recreate and exacerbate those historical and contemporary inequities.
- We have an opportunity to leverage our position of power as a coalition in ways that support communities that have been cumulatively harmed as well as historically underrepresented in positions of power in the energy and climate space; and therefore, a responsibility to influence our broader network to advance equity.
- We must leverage this monumental moment to do better than we’ve done before, to right past wrongs, and work as a coalition to build new systems that are cooperative, regenerative, sustainable, and just.