 Good morning and welcome to the social justice webinar series. My name is Charmaine Ward-Millner and I lead the corporate relations team across the state. I'm also the chair of the social justice initiative for Georgia Power. So before we get started I want to do a safety briefing which is what we always do before we start a meeting. So if you are in your office or if you're in one of our Georgia Power buildings you probably know where the exit signs are but please just look around look to your right, look to your left and front and look behind and make sure you know where the exits are and how to get out the building. Now if you're at home one of the things I want to make sure that you know also is where the exits are but you're probably familiar with that but look on the floor and make sure that you don't have any drawers sticking out or any folders or books sitting on the floor or any obstacles that could be in your way when you try to exit. Also make sure you're not cooking. What we found is a lot of people are trying to multitask so make sure there's nothing in the oven, there's nothing on the cooktop. Go ahead and turn those things off. We want to make sure that everyone is safe. So with that so excited that you have joined us for the fifth of our six social justice webinars and so today it is Energy Justice and what I'd like to do is to spend a little bit of time just level setting and providing you with an overview of the social justice initiative. So it all starts with the moving to equity. Now this was announced back in January of 2020 by Tom Fanning CEO of Southern Company and it was to address some of the social injustices that we had all seen and heard during those times right. So moving to equity and you see it on the screen it's also referred to as MTE and so this is really looking at all of our business policies, our business practices, how we make decisions to ensure that there is equity in the five critical areas that we use to run our business and as talent, culture, community, political engagement and suppliers and so again is looking at all those practices. So I'll give you one example of something that's been done recently and that's in the talent commitment and that is now that in the interview process and in the job hiring process we are redacting the resumes and what that means is that we're taking resumes and we're taking everything off that might tell a person's race or gender or age or anything like that and we're really just trying to show on that resume the skills, competencies, the experiences and so it's not until later in the process that the manager would actually get to see all of that other information and so this is a way in our hiring practices of making sure that there is more equity and so we're doing things like that in each of these areas looking at the policies and the procedures again to ensure we have equity in these critical areas. Now the second thing is that I want you to focus on community. So underneath the community commitment you can see that this is where the social justice initiative lies and this is the commitment of $225 million over five years to advance racial equity and social justice and we're going to do this by investing in distressed and disadvantaged communities and so that's what we're talking about today is the social justice initiative. So this is part of the community commitment. So now let's look at the social justice and so with social justice there are four pillars. Now when we initially started there were three pillars I just want to spend a few moments on this. These four pillars education equity, criminal justice equity, economic empowerment and energy and justice and energy justice are not by happenstance. So last year there was a cross-system committee that was put together so people from all different op-codes and I'm very excited that I was part of that committee and we got together to determine where are the biggest disparities? Where are the biggest gaps? We talked to other non-profits, we talked to other corporations, we looked at best practices, we looked at all kinds of data and then we said now that we understand those gaps and disparities where can the resources this company has make the biggest impact and so that's how we came up with the social justice pillars. Now I started out with three pillars and just recently in the last couple of months we added the energy justice pillar. So when we think about investments, when we think about volunteering and employee engagement we're talking about these specific areas as it relates to social justice and so I want to just take you through very quickly at a high level each of the pillars. So we look at education equity. We're talking about the entire continuum so starting with early childhood we want to invest in those organizations that help with language acquisition with K through 12 specifically around reading and math and STEAM. We also want to focus on investing in higher education specifically HBCUs and PWIs which are primarily white institutions that have a large group of minority students, a large population of minority students I should say and so those are all areas that we want to invest in around education equity. When we look at criminal justice equity again it is going from the beginning to the end. We want to be very comprehensive in terms of our investment and so we want to invest in organizations that provide programs before people even get into trouble. So how can we invest in youth prevention programs so that they know that there are other ways that they can other ways that they can proceed that there are other initiatives and things that they can do so that they don't even get to prevention. The other thing is we want to invest in programs that will focus on pre-arrest and diversion so you may not know that when a person gets pulled over a policeman can determine whether they send them to jail or whether they send them to a pre-arrest program. So we want to invest in those programs and then we want to invest in reentry programs and so that is once individuals are incarcerated and they do their time they pay their dues and they come back into society that they have the resources that they need both training and wraparound sources so that we so that they can come back into the community and be thriving citizens and we also want to invest in those programs they help to educate the responders so that they know how to de-escalate and that they know about these various programs. When we go to economic empowerment pillar this is really a big pillar it's really focused on two different things one is entrepreneurship and the other is investment in our community specifically having thriving communities so you think when you talk about entrepreneurship we're talking about investing in those organizations they help entrepreneurs build capacity have access to capital understand financial literacy and budget budgeting understand how they can do have more efficient processes in their companies investing in organizations that will really help these entrepreneurs so they can take it to the next level and we're talking about community investment we're talking about investing in those organizations around affordable housing infrastructure those things that will create thriving communities and then let's go over the energy justice so energy justice here the first thing we're talking about is really investing in those organizations that are addressing energy burden and that's where an individual has a significant amount of their salary that they're paying for energy we also want to help organizations that are focusing on energy assistance so think about our Salvation Army project share that's a perfect example investing in other organizations like that and then finally giving these disadvantaged and distressed communities access to energy efficiency programs and weatherization programs we want to make sure that all communities have access we move to just transition it's very much the same thing so we want to make sure that we're focused on e transportation and having access to electric cars and to charging stations what good does it do to have an electric car if you can't get to a charging station so making sure that those are in all communities across the state and that communities have access to renewables whether it's solar or air or or hydro and then making sure that we're focused on investing in those organizations that provide job training around sustainability and then the final thing is environmental justice and that is really looking at those communities that might be impacted because they're a fence line which means they are next to one of our assets and that could be a headquarters a substation a generation plant or those communities that are frontline meaning they're right in the area of critical weather and they're constantly getting hit with critical weather so we want to make sure that we are investing in organizations that support these communities so when we're talking about investing in social justice this is what we're talking about and we know that if we invest in these very specific areas and a lot of people say well gosh you're so specific correct it is intentional what we know is that the shotgun approach does not work we need to be intentional and invest those dollars very in a very focused way so that we can begin to really change their trajectory and we think we can let's go to the next slide so what are we investing so from a Georgia power perspective well you may remember I talked about 225 million from Southern Company and that also includes an engagement of our employees so from a Southern Company perspective we've also committed to 5000 employee mentors and so because what the reason we've done that is it's not just cash we also want to engage people and so it's important that we do both and so when we look back at Georgia power and say well what does that mean to us so it's 87 million over five years and you can see on the slide how that money is allocated for each of those pillars and then per year is 18 million dollars now I know I have some math majors out there they're saying wait a minute Charmaine that doesn't add up you're right and that's because we just added the energy justice pillar and we won't begin investing in that pillar until 2022 and so for us the GPC employee mentors is 250 mentors a year and we know that our employees are already volunteering they're already mentoring so we are confident that we are going to exceed this number so now the last thing I've talked a lot about MTE moving to equity I've talked about the social justice initiative next slide please um and then what I want to do is talk about DE and I and how all of these things fit together we often are asked wait a minute I'm confused this I hope will kind of explain it and that is a very simplified slide it's very um you know a simplified definition but think of moving to equity as the overarching framework in terms of how we're going to adjust racial inequities and how we're going to adjust social justice and then when you look at the social justice initiative these are our external initiative for how we will advance racial equity right and then DE and I is internally focused so that is how as employees we interact with each other we celebrate our differences we make sure that we are being inclusive so if you think about it DE and I is the internal and social justice is the external now there are some places where that blurs but this is again a simplified way of just beginning to think about it and both of these things fall under moving to equity so with that I hope that this is really provided just a really quick and um easy overview of our social justice initiative but I'd like now to just show your video by Chris Womack our CEO who really talks about it even better than I do so can we play the video at Georgia Power we believe it's our responsibility to be an active champion of the communities we serve that's why we're excited to stand with our communities to tackle systemic equity issues across our state we're committing 87 million dollars to address these issues over the next five years focusing on supporting and partnering with organizations that assist with education equity criminal justice entity justice and economic empowerment and we're building a team of more than 250 employees who will serve as mentors to our state's young people helping shape Georgia's future leaders this financial investment and our commitment to mentoring while just a part of our overall equity efforts are one way we can make a real impact in distressed and disadvantaged communities and continue to be a champion for all Georgians thank you Chris that was great so I know that you guys really um appreciate it you know his perspective on why we're doing it and how important the social justice initiative is at this time I have the honor of introducing our awesome moderator who is Jeff Smith and Jeff is the Energy Efficiency Strategy Manager and then he is going to introduce this amazing panel of subject matter experts that we have today and just sit back because we really have a lot of good information inside that we want to share with you Jeff it is all yours and to echo what you said we do have an amazing group of panelists so I will keep my comments brief and go on to the experts in this field and but before we do that I just wanted to quickly address three things the first of which is just an overview or a definition of what is energy justice and that'll just help frame what we're talking about for the rest of this discussion and and the basic definition of it is it's the goal of achieving equity in both social and economic delivery of energy matters while also remediating decades long social economic and health burdens of those customers that are disproportionately disadvantaged so as we think about that in our community and in in georgia powers territory uh communities of color communities of color often bear the brunt of these social problems um higher utility bills air quality and health issues that go along with it and increased vulnerability to natural disasters so as georgia power along with the experts that we have on today's discussions we're committed as you've seen through charmain's discussion to helping solve energy justice and hopefully after this discussion you will be motivated to do the same so the next thing we want to kind of quickly talk through is what are the challenges with energy justice and if you'll look at the the left side of this slide in those boxes you'll see that it is a broad reaching topic and it has a variety of of of issues and things that lie within it and the start of that really is energy equity in some areas you'll hear it referred to as energy burden you may hear both of those terms on and off today but essentially energy equity is very common for those that are in the most need to pay a disproportionately high percentage of their income towards their energy bills and their energy cost so energy equity is at the heart of of energy justice the next thing you'll see there highlighted is just transition and think about where we are in the world today with the growing electric transportation market that we have we're starting to see just a strong growth in renewable energy battery storage advanced energy efficiency and all customers should be able to take advantage of those not just those that are at or above marginal or average income and also in that just transition space there's a workforce that's needed to to develop and grow this infrastructure and these are technical high paying jobs and there's opportunities in these communities that we're highlighting to train those folks to do some of this work and to help relieve their energy burden and their economic situation so that's part of what we will be talking through today another challenge in the energy justice space is communities that are below the average median income in the state are also those same communities that suffer some of the environmental impacts that that Charmaine talked about earlier and in many cases those are communities of color and they don't have some of the resources to improve the situation in that space and then you know lastly some of the challenges that we'll talk about are policies and policies are also very broad reaching they can be federal state and at local levels and those are not necessarily things that that move or get adopted quickly so those can be some of the challenges with energy justice that we'll be talking through and trying to identify ways to overcome that and the last thing I'll say before we kick it over to our panel of experts and have a more broader discussion is that last bullet there how does energy justice connect to our business how does it connect to george power well first and foremost electricity like other energy sources is a primary need for all customers and we deliver that so it's obviously a direct tie to our business in that space when we think about the state of georgia as a whole it has a high number of citizens throughout the state that suffer from energy burden so just a little more formal definition of energy burden is that's customers that have six percent or more of their income goes towards their energy bills and those disproportionately high cost are a way that we can start looking at how does georgia power and how do we work with our customers through that space and these customers as we think through them they're our family they're our friends you know they're our coworkers they're people that we work with in our communities and we interact with on a daily basis and making sure that we have a way to help remove these obstacles and improve their quality of life is essential to us in our company and lastly georgia with georgia power whereas we're an energy company we're also energy partners to our customers and it's on us it is a part of what we do to help make sure all of our customers have affordable and reliable energy and so as we move through this discussion over the next several minutes that's the lens that we're looking at this through so just wanted to kind of quickly highlight that and now we'll move into introducing the stars of our show today so as I ask each one of you if you would just quickly talk about who you are what who you work for and any other pertinent information you want to share as we get through this so Cyrus you want to go first thank you Jeff I'm so glad to be here before I introduce myself I want to say a few words of thanks first to Jeff and the team for considering us part of this group part of this panel it's good to see a few colleagues that I haven't seen in quite a while because of the pandemic and it's good to meet some new ones as well I also want to acknowledge Jeff has been a long-serving member of the Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance Board and we are grateful for his service I want to acknowledge Chris Wilmack Georgia Power CEO who I've had the good fortune to meet through Southern companies stakeholder meetings that they hold on an annual basis it's a rare treat to meet the leading executives of the utilities that work in our region and Southern has been outstanding in creating those opportunities and I can see Chris's influence all over these initiatives so it's it's really inspiring to be here I want to thank y'all for tuning in I know there have been some technical difficulties that is just the reality of the zoom world I appreciate you sticking through us and I also want to acknowledge all of the company's first responders there are many throughout the company who are working hard at keeping our power on restoring it when it goes out and dealing with conditions that keep you away from your families when most of us are huddling together and and you know concern for our own well-being so just want to know want you to know that we appreciate you in that role my name is Cyrus Bedwar I serve as the director of energy efficiency policy for the Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance we are a regional non-partisan non-profit organization headquartered here in Atlanta however we serve 11 states starting up in Virginia going through Kentucky Arkansas Louisiana and looping back around the coast or as another former boss of mine put it we serve the area where you can get sweet tea and grits and plentiful supply I've had the pleasure of working with many of the utilities in our region to work collaboratively to bring more energy efficiency to the table and I'll be speaking a little bit more about how that relates to the social justice efforts we're talking about today thanks so much thanks Cyrus Angelo thank you I'd first like to also thank the panelists that are here with me today and I'd also like to thank Jeff and his team for putting this together and bringing us all here together to discuss these important issues but I'd also like to thank Dr. Mark Berry Mark Berry has been an incredible supporter of the work that we do at the Green Youth Foundation and understands the importance of being able to provide this access to disenfranchised and disfavored young people so that they too could understand the role that they can play in this environmental justice movement so my name is Angelo Ezilo I am the founder and CEO of Green Youth Foundation our organization over the past 17 years has been focused on connecting underrepresented youth and young people to careers in the environmental sector we've done that through um environmental education that continuum that I believe Charmaine spoke of environmental education um providing um internship paid internship opportunities for young people to work with our part our federal land management agency partners like the park service department of energy fish and wildlife forest service and so forth but also through our urban youth core program um which is a young a program that provides hard skills as well as soft skills to underrepresented young people in the metro Atlanta area we serve um our organization is based in Atlanta um but we serve the country of the U.S. and we're also um internationally we have a presence in international um countries as well particularly in Africa countries in Africa so looking forward to um this discussion today so we can talk about some of these really critical issues that we all know need to be addressed immediately thank you thanks Angelo Shandra thank you Jeff and thank you to george power for convening this this conversation today I'm super excited to be a part of it I am the CEO of resolve consulting which is a consulting practice with the mission to work with companies community-based organizations academia to increase the impact of their utility energy and climate initiatives with an equity centered and justice centered delivery infrastructure so really continuing the work that I did for the last four years as the just energy director at partnership for southern equity where I focused on energy equity um partnerships where we focused on community organizing uh community leadership development and coalition building all related to making sure that the people who are most impacted um by issues related to utility planning uh energy planning and decision making are involved in and leading and have a voice in the full spectrum of energy planning and decision making um so getting people involved um at the public service commission uh getting people involved in the demand side management working group um that Jeff has led um for so long for us and and many partners so I am excited um to talk about the connection um between equity and energy the connection between justice um and energy and why that is so important um to any um social justice effort um focused on lifting people out of poverty um and advancing a more just and equitable clean energy future great thanks Chandra and Nataki good I guess it's afternoon now so good afternoon and thank you so much Jeff um and Simone Carter for the invitation to be here today to speak um with or alongside these very esteemed panelists today um my name is Dr Nataki Osborne-Jelks I am co-founder of the West Atlanta Watershed Alliance uh otherwise known as Wawa excuse me uh and we are a community based organization that works on the west side of Atlanta both northwest and southwest Atlanta to really grow a cleaner greener healthier and more sustainable west side um and we do that work through organizing through participatory research and community science as well as education and we center environmental justice and issues of equity in our work and as we do that work we find ourselves on the west side of Atlanta being overburden with a number of challenges from exposure to environmental toxicants and stressors in some cases lack of investment you know in our infrastructure and then we also hold within our community a number of the neighborhoods or zip codes that have some of the highest energy burden in the city so these issues are very important to us in recent years we have sort of added a strategic focus on climate and equity issues and which we're looking at issues around energy efficiency we're looking at kind of this trifecta of insecurities that we'll talk about a little bit later and then we're also looking at people's access to things like energy efficiency and you know renewable energy alternatives in in in our communities so I'll just stop there but thank you again for the invitation to be a part of this really important discussion I'm so glad that Georgia Power is having this discussion and was very excited to learn of all of the strategic initiatives that Georgia Power is engaging in in this space great thanks Nataki and last but not least Colleen good I guess afternoon thank you so much I'll echo everybody's thanks for the invitation I'm Colleen Kiernan I'm the senior director for government and community affairs at MARTA which is metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority I've been in this role for just about three years and some of you may be familiar with my name most of my career was with the Sierra Club so it's good to be with you again with this role with this hat I'm not sure and when Ronnie and Monique approached me to participate in this conversation I was a little bit confused about what I would add to the conversation that my colleagues are going to bring to you today and I think that you know as the utility industry is very quickly evolving I think that we'll find that the transportation industry is becomes the most important area to address as far as climate change is concerned and also I think that there's a conversation to be had about transportation there's of the southern company platform so I mean I think that if you if you think about the resources that each of us has as human beings we have time money and relationships and so the access to you know our institutions be it education healthcare shopping visiting friends worshiping the access that we have is sort of underpins the level of equity that we're able to achieve so I will try to fit what I say into the buckets before us in terms of energy equity but I just wanted to call out at the beginning that I think that transportation equity and justice is perhaps an even bigger conversation and I think that you know Georgia Power and Marta I think have a lot to a potential really important partnerships to that we've already undertaken and that we can continue to pursue so look forward to this conversation thanks great thank you so we'll go ahead and get started with our with our questions and the conversation Nataki I want to come to you first could you give us a talk a little bit about energy insecurity and in particular how our low income communities and communities of color the most impacted by it sure thank you for that question Jeff and I think you began to sort of talk about this in your comments earlier about energy burden and this percentage that people would pay of their you know monthly income to go toward energy costs and so when we talk about energy insecurity we're talking about the hardships that people experience really just trying to meet basic needs inclusive of trying to pay for their household energy needs there is a ton of research and evidence that shows that communities of color low-income communities are some of the communities where people are spending a disproportionate amount of their income on energy cost it's not just you know energy there are other utilities that can come into the mix but energy is one of those that we're we're definitely very concerned about when we talk about energy insecurity it's also talked about in the context of this idea of the trifecta of insecurities so we're talking about energy we're talking about housing as well as food and on the housing side in in some cases you know what is connected to that high energy burden or paying a disproportionate amount for energy cost it's living perhaps in an older housing stock that is energy inefficient and so again as people are just trying to heat or cool their homes you know basic things that that we all need to do from time to time you know the lack of kind of upgraded you know housing or this housing that may be older you know puts you know some communities more at risk from a financial burden but also from a health burden from a public health side of things and the same you know communities and same households you know as they are grappling with these issues around paying for their energy cost in some cases you know people are making trade-offs in terms of you know what they can even access in terms of food you know hence this whole trifecta of insecurities so I'll just kind of stop there but you know as we talk about you know energy insecurity I'm glad that you've lifted up already you know this idea of energy burden and this critical issue for low-income and communities of color with respect to people just not you know being able to to always afford you know the the cost associated you know with something that is very basic and needed by everybody great well said Nataki thank you Chandra I'm going to come to you now if you could I know you when you gave us an overview of you and your role now could you talk about a couple of concrete things that utilities can do to support racial equity and social justice as it pertains to energy justice absolutely and thanks to Nataki for for that framing I think there are three things off the top one second my computer is having a major fan issue it's just needed to turn that off I think there are three things that utilities can do around one increasing investments in energy efficiency and that's important from a transformational investment standpoint versus more of an incremental investment standpoint that's particularly important because we know that energy efficiency is yes can help us reduce energy burden by lowering utility bills particularly when we're investing in weatherization and energy efficiency can reduce the household's bills around 25 you know 20 to 25 percent based on what the what the measures are but also investing in energy efficiency can support stabilization of energy costs we talk about these strategies around weatherization energy efficiency rooftop solar particularly now paired with storage and neighborhood cited community solar neighborhood cited micro grids these are all opportunity these are all investment opportunities and priorities for utilities we know here unfortunately in the south southern states consistently rank at the bottom of lists for energy efficiency and we consistently rank at the top of lists for energy burden so we have some work to do on a flip there and that is a primary strategy that utilities have direct control and opportunity to be able to increase investment in number two I will say related is to leverage resources operational and financial to create partnerships and direct investment where gaps may exist in other related delivery around energy efficiency and weatherization for instance partnerships with the weatherization agencies there's understand that there are partnerships around ensuring that through george powers energy assistance program around energy assistance related to emergency utility assistance but what we want is to make sure that folks aren't consistently having to constantly come back for that same assistance over and over our partners at community action agencies and other support agencies and in community talk about well we're seeing the same folks you know the the same time so what are utilities doing to increase investment leverage those partnerships and resources of you know major operational and financial resources to streamline those delivery systems so we are not just putting a bandaid on issues but instituting reforms and streamlined strategies to move us forward in a progression to solve some of these issues which is is definitely in the power of utilities being able to direct investments and particularly in partnership with the folks on this call and and many agencies the third thing I will say utilities can do is partnering on being more transparent with data and access better understanding of who is and who isn't benefiting from various utility programming or other opportunities allows us the collective us the utility and community partners and state agencies to better prioritize resources and better direct investment to areas that are more energy burdened areas that do house communities overburdened by environmental injustice areas that need our recovery whether you know we're still recovering from the economic recession due to COVID but also natural disaster so this really ties also back to the pillar and focus around just transition so those three things increasing investment to transformational investment not incremental investment levels around energy efficiency leveraging resources internal operations and as well as financial in partnership and also partnering on that data that data access great thanks Chandra Cyrus I'm coming to you next you and your organization do a ton of work in the energy efficiency space in Georgia and the surrounding southeast community can you talk a little bit about what you think the role in energy efficiency is towards achieving energy justice thanks Jeff and I'm gonna I'll say first it's so heartwarming to hear you know quite diverse organizations voicing the same issues it means I think we're making progress we're starting to see things similarly we don't need to see things the same way we can do better work if we all have different approaches to addressing these issues so I'm going to I think I think both Nataki and Chandra have touched on many points that I would echo I will say also that I think the universe knew I was going to be on this panel talking about this stuff and so literally in the past few days it's thrown me a few resources that I'm going to draw on first and the the first one I'll turn to is I heard on a webinar this Monday led led by EPA region four and the speaker was talking the speaker was from the environmental justice office within the regional office and they were talking about the difference between equity and justice and I think it's very powerful that the company has chosen energy justice as it's it's aligning title for this initiative and the speaker said something along the lines of pursuing equity means closing the gaps that exist among segments of our population pursuing justice means addressing the reasons for those gaps in the first place and I think that's relevant to our conversation today because it helps put different parts of the conversation in perspective so to me I'm the director of energy efficiency policy and policy is more often than not the reason for differences in services and opportunities for various parts of our population I'll come to that I'll come to that second I think programming is the way in which we can immediately address some of the inequities that we see before us and I'll kind of cast this in this in Cia's journey on this issue so normally energy efficiency is has been for much of its life a pretty wonky issue it's not been sexy we know that we can't compete with solar panels even policymakers get more excited about seeing solar farms than they do about seeing a caught gun but it is we I've been working in this space for almost 20 years because I deeply believe it's important so about 10 years ago the federal government invested what we thought was a generational investment in energy efficiency through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and Cia took 25 million dollars of that investment and worked with 16 communities around the region to set up energy efficiency programs where a utility was not already offering such a service and as part of that we were required to offer financing everyone would thought that energy efficiency financing was going to be the silver bullet because the way energy efficiency works is you make a upfront capital expense in all the equipment all the changes everything you need to do and then you recover the savings over time so that's a bit of a mismatch if you don't have the cash to invest upfront it's hard to get to those savings so financing it was thought would get us over that barrier as you can imagine with a large federal program there was a lot of reporting and analysis and I remember the day a colleague who is reviewing some of those reports and analysis walked into my office and said you know it looks like the financing programs that we offered reach people who didn't really need them and conversely it didn't reach the people who we thought could really benefit from them and that was really the beginning of my organization's journey towards equity moving to equity in Charmaine's words we would we would continue in various ways exploring this topic and bringing it more closely integrated with energy efficiency in the work we do and one of those one of those ways we're proud to say is manifest right now with Georgia power so while the sorts of financing we offered during the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act didn't work very well there has been a much more promising model developed called pay as you save which overcomes that barrier of putting out a large chunk of money and then not recovering it for years on end and I am thrilled to say that Georgia power was the first investor on utility in the country to offer a pilot program that is currently operating in energy burden neighborhoods in Atlanta and Athens based on this model so fast forward to 2020 it was a year of reckoning for all of us we were first hit by the COVID pandemic which threw many of us on our heels just because of the massive changes we had to make in our lives but I will remember very clearly the day I learned the news about at Arbury's killing I was just about to jump on a team meeting and I had I had literally just seen the headline and I was shaken and it showed up in the meeting and it led to organizational conversations about what what that meant and later George Floyd and on and on what that meant to our work and how we needed to reframe that so we started looking at the intersection of racial injustice and energy efficiency and we've come up with a framing we called energy and security our organizational view is that present day energy insecurity is rooted in historic racism and particularly policies around real estate and housing and finance so folks may be familiar with the concept of redlining in which certain areas of certain communities were outlined and they were not able to receive investment get access to financial and other resources to improve their conditions and those are the same areas that we see when we do analysis on energy burden that are facing the highest energy burdens and this this seems like a distant issue I mean it's not it's not likely that anybody right now kind of thinks about redlining but literally as I mentioned earlier the universe needed always offering me some resources to prepare for this conversation and today there was an article on redlining and how these covenants still exist on the books even though they are both illegal and no longer enforced and there's a story if you look on npr today that you can find about this issue that really brings home how these things continue to exist in our lives and so going back to the difference between equity and justice energy efficiency is a way of starting to remedy these inequities by investing in homes investing in improving their condition the indoor air quality reducing the energy bills etc etc we can start to close the gap of these differences in different parts of our population from a justice point of view you know that took me a minute to think about what are the policies that may be embedded in our energy systems that maybe we may not be fully aware of that contribute to these continuing inequities and one thing that we have observed we have learned by being invited into conversations is that there are the public service commissions that regulate companies like Georgia power are often required to make decisions based on economic efficiency what these decisions don't always take into account are issues of equity and increasingly common issues of climate and so when you look at when you zoom out you look at what are the reasons for the conditions that we find ourselves in you know there are a number of efforts exploring what it would mean to integrate climate and equity into the regulatory mandate that governs these bodies and leads to decisions that impact companies like Georgia power so i'll stop there great thanks iris by angela i'm coming to you now if you could could you talk to us a little bit around what what does the future of clean energy jobs look like as we talk about you know a lot of these opportunities and and work that needs to be done there there needs to be a workforce to do it so from your perspective could you share that with us sure sure the the future is very bright and i think for for clean energy jobs i mean when you look at the the rate and pace of change happening in the world is totally exponential and you know it's really important for us to see that in order for us to to keep up with that pace we need to start viewing the types of jobs that we're going to be having differently they're not going to be the ones of the past so when you look at the jobs of the future you're looking at energy efficiency you're looking at clean vehicles renewable energy um and then that brings in wind turbines and solar turbines and so forth and i think one of the issues is and i i so appreciate your comment all of your comments but syra she talked about the importance of intersectionality you know and that we really can't even talk about energy energy justice environmental justice without thinking about racial justice and you know the impact that it's had on certain communities so to the goal of achieving equity in both social and economic participation in the energy system we have to look at who is at the table who has a voice you know so that these issues won't keep occurring over and over again you know and that's kind of wondering why do we keep getting to this point a large part of it is making sure that the jobs that are there that are the jobs of the future there's some jobs that are going to be happening our future jobs for our youth haven't even been invented yet you know so that's how quickly this stuff is happening but we need to make sure that people of color diverse communities those communities that have been disenfranchised are at the table and that's kind of what's critical for us at Green Youth Foundation is making sure these young people that typically don't have a voice or a seat at the table are aware of these opportunities and are aware of these jobs and are aware that they can be these change makers that we need in place so that they can be responsive to some of these critical issues that are plaguing society so my answer to your question of what does the future look like I think if we all can put on this we need multiple perspectives and stakeholders and voices at the table and if we can all put on this new hat if you will that that because I think COVID has shown us that the way we work the way we communicate the way we shop you know our form of money everything is changing rapidly so we really have to like stop thinking about things the way of the past and and and really look forward to the future and that future has to include young people from different walks of life that's the only way that we're going to be able to move this forward and not wind up in the same place that we are today in the future great thanks so much Angelo Colleen um so from with Marta I know transportation is key to everything that that you do could you talk a little bit about how you see transportation impacting the economy and the social mobility and how it pertains to this topic today around energy justice yeah thanks for the question and I'll go back a little bit and reference what Cyrus was talking about about redlining you know and I think also Angelo was also talking about the intersectionality of this all but you know land use energy and transportation are inextricably linked together and you can't solve one without addressing the other two so like also as we've been talking we're was thinking about you know the earliest days of Atlanta's transportation system was our streetcar system that was built by Georgia Power and it fundamentally offered equity for young people old people you know people with disabilities people um you know everyone could ride the streetcar and as you know that was dismantled in favor of the you know roadway based system that we are most the construction of many of those facilities you know the data for example you know really cut apart communities and is sort of a historic injustice that we can now seek to address through better land use um energy and transportation policies also um wanted to as we've been talking I was thinking about you know the access that I was talking about in the introduction to jobs education healthcare you know housing affordable housing you know all of these things contribute to what we are as a culture and a society and I just wanted to share this story um you know Marta provides transportation service in Fulton to Cab Clayton County in the city of Atlanta and in the pandemic we were faced with a difficult choice to suspend we have right now 110 bus routes but we suspended 70 of them in order to run more buses on fewer routes so that people could social distance and we weren't you know moving folks around in a you know incubator of disease but one of the most surprising reactions that I got was a call from the mayor of sandy springs Rusty Paul who was calling about a bus route 74 that serves southwest to cab county and I was like why is Rusty Paul asking about 74 and it turns out that there's this cake shop in Roswell that you know their employees relied on the 74 and the cake shop was having you know the employees weren't able to get to work and the cake shop was struggling as a result and so it just sort of really hit home to me you know throughout our region how much we really are linked and how an impact you know in one area of the region you know can cascade through and have effects in other places and so I think that um in addition to the inequities that we've created with transportation it is also an integral part of the solution towards a more just and economic um equitably equitable future great I don't fit in the box but sometimes I'm doing my best now you're doing awesome thank you so much and I think one thing that's you know becoming very obvious as we as we talk through this is it's a big issue right and a big issue needs multiple um points to help find solutions and so Cyrus I want to come back to you if you don't mind and from your perspective talk about partnerships I mean as we think through how do we move towards um a limit or just to providing energy justice and eliminating some of the barriers that are there what sort of partnerships do you see that that are important in helping to address energy justice in our territory yeah thanks Jeff um so uh there I I stand corrected I said energy efficiency is probably the one of the least sexy uh elements of the work we do I'm reminded yesterday Jeff and I were at a conference together and we had a speaker on a subset of energy efficiency called demand response which is is possibly even drier and less interesting um but the speaker said something quite uh remarkable at the end of her her remarks and she said you know I can't remember what the question was but her response is I like to think of the utility as a community you know as a platform for bringing people together and so um I'm still processing that comment and think about what it means to me uh but I'll offer that because I think it's relevant to to the question you posed Jeff um in our work uh we are very excited about integrating two different sectors into the work that we do one is housing and I think I explained and others have touched on the reason that partnering with the housing sector is so important to addressing the inequities and perhaps to some degree the injustice of the situations that we face right now so just quickly because of that historic racist policy there has been disinvestment in certain communities you simply don't have the funds to improve your building and therefore it falls into disrepair uh and it needs fixing um uh and and secondly something I've come to realize in in my line of work is that nobody owns the home when you think about it when you have a car you have a variety of very distinct service providers to get the things you need you have a gas station or soon to be you know a charging station uh you have a mechanic you have a car wash you have the auto parts store it's very clear where you go for what things for your car when it comes to the house it is not at all clear you can go into Home Depot you can go into a hardware store but unless you're an expert you know you often have to look at 17 YouTube videos to figure out what you need what you need to do so nobody owns the home and we've been we've been in conversation with many of our utilities uh about that question and I was talking to a co-op from Alabama yesterday who in addition to doing energy efficiency audits is now doing because they offer because they're a co-op they can offer broadband they're also doing technology audits for their customers they're looking at the technologies that are or are not in the home and these are often for homes and homeowners who have never had good internet access so they don't they can't even imagine the different things you can do with good internet so they're integrating that and they're trying to be a trusted partner a good source of information about the different benefits and improvements in quality of life that their customers can achieve through kind of evaluating the different options and making making sound decisions because nobody owns the home there are there's a patchwork quilt of housing service agencies they're often very hyper local and they they do urgent repairs and rehabilitation so we've started to engage with these partners for lack of other options and we're trying to understand how they work uh they will often be the ones that can address the conditions that we and utilities find most perplexing which is those homes which are in such disrepair that they can't even accept weatherization they can't accept energy efficiency because there's a hole in the roof or there's mold in mildew um or there's a health and safety condition that tightening the house will only make worse um but utilities are not authorized to spend on those things right um so this pre-weatherization these agencies are starting to understand the role they play in improving customers lives more holistically but they need resources they need expertise they need training and so we think that through these partnerships with utilities and these housing service agencies we can start to move to needle um and I'm really pleased to say um that for the first time uh so I live uh on the east side of Atlanta and I have joined the board of what's called the Martin Luther King service project which works to keep uh low-income seniors in their homes in the city of Decatur by making these urgent repairs um and we are so thrilled that for the first time Georgia Power has come on as a sponsor of that project which we'll be doing over MLK weekend uh in 2022 um the second and I'll be quick on this is health care health care uh why well I think I think it was Nataki but may have others others may have pointed out that health impacts that come with um uh disinvested housing with unhealthy housing um Mo Mildew uh the the simple inability to keep the temperature at a healthy level uh too hot in the summer too cold in the winter that can exacerbate a lot of pre-existing conditions right now many of the uh customers that find themselves in an energy burdened position may also be uninsured and so when an asthma attack happens they will go to the emergency room and we will all pay for that um an emergency room visit I am told is twenty five hundred dollars a hospitalization for an asthma attack can reach up to twenty thousand dollars now Jeff knows how much you can do to a home for twenty thousand dollars um it is a lot so we can start to shift those dollars away from the post intervention and into a pre-intervention through energy efficiency through weatherization through holistic healthy housing uh interventions uh I think we can do a lot for a lot less and so we're excited to explore partnership with health care providers insurers and others to realize this and I'll stop there great thanks Cyrus and I know you know Georgia Power is excited to potentially work with y'all on a pilot around the intersection of energy efficiency and health uh and so again something that's that's important to us and we're looking forward to seeing if we can prove that out um Shondra heads up I'm getting ready to come to you but there's a question uh Cyrus I wanted to give you an opportunity to track it down we've got some folks asking if you could provide the title of the NPR article on redlining that you referenced earlier um and that way we cannot share that with folks I will be happy to do that I'll say it aloud right now and then I'll drop uh resources in the chat to Monique and and she can share them so it's called racial covenants a relic of the past are still on the books across the country uh so I'll send the title on the link um yeah please do because otherwise we better have some fast riders out there sure so show Shondra um when it talk when we talk about energy efficiency and when we talk about energy justice in particular um in the energy utility decision and as it pertains to energy and utility decision why is it important for racial equity and social justice to be discussed in that looks like we may have lost Shondra um so while we're waiting on Shondra to come back and I will re-approach that question Colleen uh let's let's talk a little bit about Marta and zero emissions and the transportation options that that that you have and how that can help both from an environmental and from an energy justice um perspective and the in the territories that y'all serve sure thank you so as you probably know um since 1979 Marta has been running the combined bus and rail system in Atlanta and so our heavy rail system that spans from North Fulton to the airport and West Atlanta to um East Acab um does runs on electricity and I think at various times we are perhaps Georgia Power's largest partner so we already have that going for us and our heavy rail trains can move more people really you know can move hundreds of thousands of people a day um and there's the capacity to do more the two things that I wanted to share that are on the horizon and that we're continuing to work on is that we have been adding electric charging so we have them now at six of our rail stations as well as at the Windward Parkway Park and Ride as well as at our Laredo bus facility and so I ride by the Candler Park Edgewood station frequently and all of the is not unusual to see all of those charging stations being utilized so it really heartens me that people are um doing a clean commute they're taking their electric vehicle to the George Power charging station at the train station and getting on the electric train the future thing that will be on the streets at some point in 2022 is the first six electric buses will be rolling and that's a partnership between Marta Georgia Power Center for Transportation Excellence CTE um that's funded in part by the Federal Transit Administration and it is our hope that with events of this week with the authorization that there will be a great deal of additional support for more of that so delighted to have those three partnerships and I think that we can continue to do more together great thank you um Angelou I have a question for you and then Nataki I'll come into you next so Angelou if you could talk about why is it essential to have a diverse workforce in the environmental sector and in the different areas of work that we talked about from that will be growing in this space in the near future sure I mean it's just really critical to represent representation is very critical um in every area now you know but one of the things that we've seen in the environmental sector is that it's been extremely homogeneous and representation has not been there um Dr. Dorsett Taylor has a green 2.0 report that shows that you know within federal agencies and environmental NGOs and so forth there's just like 14 percent of diversity at these top organizations in the environmental sector and our belief and I think a lot of people particularly on this panel can make that connection that if you don't have people from various backgrounds in communities of color in these roles within these environmental sectors and organizations then there's no representation and then that kind of leads to this lack of equity in these different areas so there's a direct connection to diversity in the workforce as it relates to equity and making sure that young people understand the role that they could play and that the fact that we need them in this environmental sector is very critical right now especially as we have a changing demographic in society we have all these issues that we are plagued with you know we're talking about energy burden and you know um resiliency climate all these different things are impacting these disenfranchised and disfavored communities the most the most impact is coming to these communities so it's very important to have representation from these communities that are working and have a voice and are advocates for the rights of the communities but also working in these spaces so that they can effectuate change very good thank you and Nataki I want to apologize in advance I'm about to throw a long question at you um so you know what are some solutions that can help bring about energy justice and reduce energy insecurities in communities and then part two of that question is based on some is based on some questions we're getting from some folks on the call is in particular how do we focus around rental properties where property owners may be focused on renting their space more so than ensuring that tenants have affordable energy bills so if I need to repeat any of that I'm more than happy to but I'd love to get your insight on that so I'll start with some of the other experts weigh in on this as well but I guess to your first piece about kind of energy justice I think there have actually been a number of things that have already been said that can come together to be part of that that answer or part of that solution so you know as we think about you know justice energy justice um you know we're thinking you know obviously about um really just ensuring that um that people you know have access to the resources that that they need um to live you know healthy lives and so as we think about that we're thinking about that in the context of um the energy burden the energy insecurity that certain households and you know populations face and how do we erase that you know how do we eliminate that how do we maybe taking kind of what Cyrus was talking about first begin to excuse me close those gaps in and so some of what's been suggested already in terms of the investments in energy efficiency programs um really looking at how we get beyond the pilot stage you know for some of those um I think it's really important when we look at you know the numbers around you know how many people are burdened how many people are impacted um you know let's let's run the pilot programs let's tweak them and then figure out how these things get a chance to be you know implemented on on a much broader scale um Chandra mentioned earlier um you know the work that she has engaged in around um you know the psc um and making sure that you know people know that there is a public service commission that is making you know decisions um about you know things like you know the rates that we pay for our energy costs and so how do we make sure that people have greater access um to these decision-making tables one that they know that it exists and that they have a way to influence that um based on their ability to share the impacts um that folks are experiencing so you know there's just this notion that communities should have a say so and should have agency and shaping their own energy futures is really important making sure that those voices are heard around you know energy efficiency you know as that starting point or that low-hanging fruit but then to a broader suite of renewable energy alternatives that we can all tap into so as we talk about kind of trying to achieve that energy justice you know it's it's about putting all of these things into place and it's about you know ensuring um that communities that are already overburdened um and disadvantaged uh from a number of different perspectives um you know folks who are living in these historically redline you know neighborhoods and and otherwise making sure that um you know we don't continue to have these situations where those who are least able to pay are severely overburdened um you know with uh with the cost for you know paying for for energy um so that really you know gets to focusing on some of these root problems uh and and challenges and you know looking at um the resources that people have access to in the communities in which they live is really important and so as you talked about the the I guess the question about renters I don't know that I have the answers to this but um I'm gonna just bring up maybe a model of something that is happening um you know still in the utility space but kind of on the water side um and there probably are a lot of other you know things that I'm not thinking about um that folks especially who work on this on the policy side on a day to day basis will have a much better answer for but as we are thinking about um and piloting things that could work uh one program that I'm aware of um that is you know it's not a fix all um but it's something in the um the water space um that the city of Atlanta has actually implemented something called care and conserve and so there um where there are households that you know have high water bills um that might connect to the infrastructure in people's homes and to you know leaky toilets or faucets or you know whatever it is that's driving up the cost um of of water for people um the city has has worked and they've worked through nonprofit organizations like uh Integrity CDC um and South Face and and perhaps others to do some sort of diagnosis of these homes um and to provide some assistance to people to repair what is what's what's leaking and what needs to be fixed to try to reduce the costs that people you know are paying for the water and just because you live in a home as a renter you are not um um you're not ineligible for this program as long as the homeowner you know um agrees to have the repairs done at no cost you know to to them so that's maybe one example I'm sure there's a lot in terms of the weatherization you know kind of weatherization uh and energy efficiency programs that would also kind of fit the bill for that that perhaps you know don't need to have um you know as long as the homeowner is is amenable to it the people you know then we can get the help to those who need it so I'll stop there because others may you know have better ideas or solutions and you know Todd yeah I think that gives us a great example to think through and think beyond you know whatever that utility sources and a model that that may work you know for that space so thank you for that. Chandra I want to come back to you and I think this will probably be our last question unless there's any more that comes through from the audience um but and I'll try to ask my question a little clearer this time um so why is utility decision making a racial equity and social justice issue? Yeah great great question uh I think something that's really interesting that I've learned recently as someone who's been grounded in um engaging with communities and partnering with communities to increase their civic engagement muscle right I mean whether it's in front of the public utility commission whether it's at the state house we're in the middle of municipal elections in Georgia no matter where it is whether it's running for the boards of electric membership cooperatives that the core of this work um is about people and about engagement equity is about people justice is about people uh and something that I learned around public participation is that the UN actually in their definition of poverty includes a lack of access to decision making as an indicator of poverty and when we link those things where people are not engaged and active in the full spectrum of decision making um related to energy related to utilities or related to housing the talk he's lifted up um Dr. Diana Hernandez talks about the trifecta of insecurity food housing and and energy when we don't have people engaged who are being disproportionately impacted negatively impacted directly or indirectly then that that is why that that is so important so when we continue to ask ourselves why are we still talking about energy burden why are we still talking about issues around lack of penetration around you know weatherization after 30 years why can we point to not just the problem but also the direct um root um of the problem we talked a lot about redlining which is directly related to housing disinvestment and and failing infrastructure um when we don't have the people who are experiencing um those impacts when we don't have the people who whose lived experience um is around having to every single day um fight these overlapping issues then we're not creating solutions that are directly going to support people who are experiencing those issues so then what we see is a a band-aid situation versus grabbing an issue at the root and creating the systems transformation that is necessary to move each other out of these oppressive oppressive systems and the disproportionate and inequitable impacts of these systems so that is a long way around of of talking about the critical importance of people to be engaged in these in these processes at the public service commission at their utility commissions at their electric membership cooperative boards at at city council where cities are talking about 100% clean energy commitments or the transformative investments that we're all expecting to to flow from from to states from from the federal government we will never move forward on addressing and tackling these issues if we don't have the people who are most impacted not just at the table but maybe creating their own tables in their own conversations because the people closest to the problem are the people with the best solutions great well thank you um I think we've had all of the questions answered that have come through from from our audience again I thank y'all so much panel for your time and your expertise and you're helping us understand in more detail what energy justice are what some of the issues around it are and more importantly what some of the potential solutions are very much appreciated I hope from from the audience's perspective we've learned more and learned some opportunities to maybe reach out and help solve some of these issues with our friends and neighbors and customers and Monique I'm going to kick it back over to you to talk a little bit about the upcoming opportunity thanks Jeff and thank you to our very esteemed panelists for this great discussion on energy justice and thank you for attending our fifth webinar in a series of six social justice webinars you will receive a brief survey of five questions that will take less than two minutes to complete your feedback is important and will be considered for future webinars the final webinar will be held on tomorrow and the conversation will focus on mentoring and will feature Rita Breen charitable charitable giving executive director along with a panel of community leaders you don't want to miss it we'll see you tomorrow