UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation

​​The ubiquity of plastic in the modern economy has created a global crisis. Plastic pollution is now found everywhere, and increasingly poses grave risks to human health and the environment. Recycling has proven ineffective to address the plastic crisis, with only a small fraction of global plastic ever being recycled. However, while the plastic pollution burden is widespread, lower-income communities and communities of color are disproportionately exposed. In response, California's Senate Bill 54 seeks establishes a state investment fund to address plastic-related impacts within communities. This policy brief informs decision-makers on how to prioritize SB 54 platic pollution mitigation funds, equitably.

This brief highlights some, but not all, of what may be needed to address heat in schools. It is not intended to be fully comprehensive. For example, it is outside the scope of this document to focus on labor-related actions. Additionally, we focus on actions that can be taken at the state level. Yet we recognize the critical role of school districts and schools to address heat. A focus on the local level, involving interviews with school employees, could be the subject of a separate paper on heat and schools. Addressing extreme heat is only one piece of making schools more climate resilient. Our heat-specific action areas fit into a broader landscape of work for climate-resilient schools. To illustrate, the Climate Ready Schools Coalition calls for increased funding and a “Master Plan for Sustainable and Climate-Resilient Schools” to identify and guide a wider set of investments to promote equity, health and climate mitigation alike in schools.

Plastic is a fossil fuel product. Despite efforts to find alternatives, 99% of plastic is derived from oil and gas. As regulatory efforts to date have largely failed to address profligate plastic production, the sector continues to grow rapidly, accounting for a sizeable and growing portion of global fossil fuel yields. The plastic sector is thus responsible for both a significant amount of global warming potential and a fraction of localized pollution risks from oil and gas extraction and refining operations commensurate with its consumption. Past research has clearly established the link between living near oil and gas development and a litany of health risks, and these exposures tend to be inequitably distributed across populations. This paper expands on the authors' previous work, outlining the Three-Part Framework for Identifying Plastic-Burdened Communities by conducting a high-resolution geospatial analysis of every operational oil and gas well and refinery in the State of California - the upstream stage of the plastic supply chain. The results show that communities living in close proximity to oil and gas infrastructure are consistently home to greater proportions of Hispanic/Latino and Black residents and lower proportions of White residents; have lower median household incomes and higher poverty rates; have lower levels of educational attainment; and face higher levels of environmental burden and rates of harmful health conditions. The authors recommend that California’s governance decisions regarding the oil and gas industry take into account its links to plastic-related environmental injustice, and that communities experiencing exposure risks from multiple stages of the plastic supply chain be prioritized for public investment.

In the middle of a heat wave, schools have to decide how they will keep students safe — the state does not require any specific planning or actions.

Switching from gas to electricity for home energy use reduces indoor air pollution, improves health, and can reduce carbon emissions to meet climate goals, depending on the electricity source. But going electric is often an expensive, complex, and confusing endeavor, and many households have difficulty navigating the process and paying for appliances and retrofits. These community engagement materials aim to help residents learn about the process, the purpose, and the trade-offs of home electrification, as well as resources available to help. The Overview Fact Sheet outlines the purpose, benefits, and process of decarbonizing homes, from electrifying to shutting down fossil fuel infrastructure. It provides basic information on the costs and benefits for households.

These materials were developed as part of Power Up South L.A., a partnership between the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation and Redeemer Community Partnership. This initiative aims to lay the groundwork for residential building electrification in and around the Exposition Park neighborhood of South Los Angeles. Power Up South L.A. is a part of the Justice First project—a community climate planning collaboration between academic researchers and underserved communities making or affected by energy transitions.

Heat exposure is a problem for California school children — but we don’t have the data to understand how big a problem.

Customer choice in energy is spreading quickly. Multiple states allow cities and counties to purchase electricity on behalf of their communities — a procurement model called community choice aggregation. This paper uses California as a case study to examine how community choice aggregators are affecting levels of renewable energy at the local and state levels. We find that CCAs have had both direct and indirect effects that have led to increases in the clean energy sold in excess of the state’s renewable portfolio standard (RPS) goals.

In the face of climate change and ongoing environmental racism,1 the federal government and the State of California are engaged in parallel missions to invest in reducing environmental harms while uplifting pollution-burdened communities. At the federal level, the Biden administration’s Justice40 Initiative mandates that disadvantaged communities receive at least forty percent of the benefits of certain federal investments.2 Executive branch agencies are now working to meet Justice40 goals through their programs and investments. This work comes as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law of 2021 and the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 have provided over $500 billion in funding for environment- and climate-related programs, providing an unprecedented opportunity to advance environmental justice.3 As the federal government works to ensure that benefits are more equitably distributed throughout the country, it can learn from many state-level strategies and actions— especially from California, which has made significant progress in focusing investments in disadvantaged communities over the past decade.4 Our client, the California Strategic Growth Council (SGC), administers the Transformative Climate Communities program (TCC), a competitive grant program that invests in climate, economic, and health benefits for communities facing environmental and economic burdens.5 SGC is working to help federal agencies achieve more equitable investment outcomes, in part by incorporating design features of TCC into climate equity investments throughout the country. To inform SGC’s federal engagement efforts, we explore how agencies with Justice40- covered programs can adopt SGC’s equity-focused practices for place-based, community-driven climate programs to achieve more just investment outcomes. We identify opportunities for SGC to support federal agencies’ Justice40 goals, highlighting where there is potential to incorporate TCC features. We use several methods to address our research question, including interviews with federal government officials and SGC staff; a survey of federal employees; and an analysis of department websites, strategic plans, and other materials concerning Justice40 and environmental justice efforts.

The Metropolitan Water District (MWD) serves local member agencies which in turn supply water to nearly half of California’s population. The MWD’s Local Resources Program (LRP) helps fund projects designed and proposed by its member agencies to produce more locally-sourced water in Southern California, to bolster the region’s self-resiliency and reduce reliance on imported water sources. As of 2022, MWD states that its LRP supports close to half of the recycled water and groundwater recovery production in the district’s service area (MWD CAP, 2022). Southern California has been in a state of water crisis since patterns of record-breaking drought began in the early 1990s.Southern California’s reliance upon imported water supplied from the State Water Project (SWP) and the Colorado River has come under threat. Faced with expanding cuts in water supplies delivered via the SWP, the region has needed to draw more and more water from the Colorado River to meet residential needs, putting water sources at risk of drying up or being unable to produce hydroelectric power. Hence, programs like the LRP which stand to help reduce water demand from member agencies have only grown in importance. Before our study, an independent, public analysis of LRP funding distribution and an in-depth survey concerning the perspectives of receiving member agencies had not yet been conducted. Accordingly, in this study, in cooperation with MWD and many of its member agencies, our research team assessed existing documents, conducted interviews, and performed statistical analyses on funding trends from the program’s inception in 1984 to today. In our evaluation of the LRP, the overarching question we are aiming to address is: “What has been the effectiveness of MWD’s Local Resources Program in terms of water resilience and equity, and can it be improved?” This research seeks to inform how the LRP fits into a comprehensive vision for Southern California of a long-term transition to local water resources.

Community Choice Aggregations (CCAs) have emerged as a key mechanism for local governments to procure electricity, often with a focus on increasing renewable energy adoption. This report provides a comprehensive analysis of CCAs in the U.S., quantifying their electricity sales, customer base, and renewable energy procurement trends. Findings indicate that while CCAs can enhance local control and accelerate voluntary green power adoption—accounting for 9% of national voluntary green power sales in 2016—they face significant challenges, including maintaining cost competitiveness, balancing local autonomy with regional cooperation, and securing long-term renewable energy contracts. Additionally, CCAs must navigate regulatory hurdles such as exit fees and resource adequacy requirements, particularly in states with regulated electricity markets like California. Key recommendations include enhancing customer awareness, developing flexible enrollment policies, and fostering collaboration among CCAs, utilities, and policymakers to ensure sustainable expansion and increased renewable energy procurement. Addressing these challenges will be crucial for maximizing the environmental and economic benefits of CCAs while ensuring grid stability and market efficiency.