Eight local organizations will participate in the City of Eugene’s Sustainability Equity Panel. The panel will meet twice a month from June 2021 to May 2022. It will advise City staff to ensure that new sustainability-focused projects in areas including transportation, climate action and housing are sensitive to the needs of marginalized communities. Participants were selected to ensure broad representation and provide a mix of voices from both small grassroots groups and larger organizations. They are:
- Sapsik’ʷałá Teacher Education Program
- Eugene-Springfield NAACP
- Community Alliance of Lane County (CALC)
- St Vincent De Paul Society of Lane County
- Community Outreach Through Radical Empowerment (CORE)
- Lane Independent Living Alliance (LILA)
- The Arc, Lane County
- Lane East Asian Network (LEAN)
“Nobody knows the needs of our community better than the organizations that serve our marginalized residents,” said Mayor Lucy Vinis. “Climate change is a huge challenge, but it is also an opportunity to build systems that break down historic barriers to participation. We’re grateful to these organizations for sharing their expertise and helping Eugene to embed equity, accessibility and inclusion into our sustainability work.”
The panel will look at transportation and housing policy because these are key to reducing the climate impact of human activity, but these have also historically been areas in which the exclusions faced by marginalized groups are institutionalized and perpetuated. National research and local experience have shown that the impacts of climate change tend to disproportionately impact marginalized communities, such as communities of color, the elderly, low-income communities, and people experiencing disabilities.