Under the plan, the state's utility companies will work with the Green Justice Coalition and:

The state Energy Efficiency Advisory Council will set up an Equity Committee to see that these new jobs and services reach working class and of-color communities.

The plan calls for several pilot programs which the Green Justice Coalition is now negotiating with the state's two largest utility companies, NSTAR and National Grid. The pilots will use Green Justice's key innovation, community mobilization with "bundling." When community-based organizations mobilize a neighborhood and "bundle" hundreds of local retrofit jobs into one contract, high-road contractors can successfully bid on that contract, hire new local workers, and provide good jobs that bring money back into that neighborhood. "Bundling" will create new jobs in the middle of our jobless recovery and start to repair the state's broken labor market, which provides ever fewer blue-collar jobs. Lessons learned from the initial pilots will be plowed into more new pilots which the utility plan calls for.

The agreement reached is a triple win against the economic crisis, the opportunity crisis, and the climate crisis. Community mobilization and bundling will significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions and help the state meet its GHG reduction goals, especially in marginalized communities with the draftiest, oldest, and least energy-efficient homes.

What is the Green Justice Coaliton?
The Green Justice Coalition is a statewide partnership of more than 35 community organizations, labor unions, environmental organizations and faith based alliances that have come together to build support for MA's move towards an environmental and economically sustainable green economy.
Goals:
- Resources for greening must be accessible to all.
- We must repair economic inequities by promoting family-sustaining green jobs, career pathways and local and community owned businesses
- Economically marginalized communities must be at the forefront of the green wave.

For more information about the Green Justice Coalition strategy and agreement click here

Attached is the testimony we gave at the Energy Efficiency Advisory Committee on July 14 during the citizen comment session at the monthly committee meeting. Also attached is the detailed request from the Coaltion. A formal hearing will be scheduled in early Oct.