Clean Power.
High-Road Jobs.
Real Community Benefits.
MISSION
Stronger Together: Uniting Four Movements in Common Cause
California’s clean energy transition is a once-in-a-generation opportunity — but only if organized labor, environmental justice organizations, Community Choice Energy Programs (CCAs), and climate advocates stop working in silos and start working together.
We unite these movements around one goal: enforceable high-road standards that ensure clean energy delivers real benefits for workers, communities, and the climate — and helps California meet its ambitious climate goals.
High-road standards define what responsible clean energy development looks like in practice. They are actionable, not aspirational — designed to be embedded in contracts, RFPs, and procurement policies so that when public agencies like CCAs make clean energy decisions, good intentions become measurable outcomes.
Our Standards
High-Road Clean Energy, Defined
Four commitments that give CCAs a clear, enforceable framework for responsible clean energy procurement.
1. Workforce Quality
Prevailing wages, project labor agreements, apprenticeship, local and targeted hire, and pathways for small and diverse contractors — building careers and keeping clean energy dollars in the community.
2. Community Benefits
Meaningful engagement before projects are sited or contracted. Health protections and air quality commitments. Benefits negotiated, tracked, and verified — not announced and forgotten.
3. Siting & Development
Clear siting criteria that prioritize previously developed land, protect sensitive habitats, and respect community priorities from the earliest stages of procurement —not as an afterthought.
4. Climate & Accountability
Transparent reporting on outcomes — from recommendation and contracting through construction. Enforceable commitments. Results communities can see and verify.
HOW WE WORK
Hard Work, Real Outcomes
The Alliance works across four interconnected fronts — aligning labor, environmental justice, and CCA partners — to move high-road clean energy from policy commitments to real, durable outcomes.
- Procurement Standards: We work directly with CCAs to embed high-road standards into procurement policies, contracts, and RFPs — helping ensure project labor agreements, local hire, and community and environmental protections are built in before projects are awarded, not negotiated after.
- Community Investment & Program Alignment: We work with CCAs and partners to align how investments and programs are structured — from resilience and electrification initiatives to storage policy — connecting program design and investment decisions to union jobs, frontline community benefits, and California’s climate goals.
- Collaborative Advocacy: We bring together labor, environmental justice, climate, and CCA partners to build shared understanding of each other’s challenges — aligning stakeholders around common goals and advancing advocacy campaigns that move high-road clean energy policy forward across California.
- Implementation & Monitoring: Policy adoption is the beginning, not the end. The Alliance is building the coordination and accountability infrastructure needed to support implementation — tracking procurement activity, engaging with CCA staff, and developing tools to capture and act on agenda and contracting data across agencies.
Work With Us
Add your organization to the growing coalition of labor, environmental justice, climate, and CCA partners building high-road clean energy across California.
SUPPORTERS
Stronger Together for California
We’re expanding high-road clean energy standards across California, accelerating clean energy by showing the market what great projects look like.
—Eric Veium, Co-Director
Labor, environmental justice, climate and CCA organizations building high-road clean energy.
