“Sustainability without equity is sustaining inequity.” That’s how Mandy Lee, program manager of the NAACP’s Centering Equity in the Sustainable Building Sector (CESBS) Initiative, sums up the green building movement’s long-standing tendency to shortchange social factors. “Like many other environmental efforts, green buildings are not reaching Black and brown communities,” she says.

This is especially problematic as the climate crisis heats up, and the disproportionate burdens on already disadvantaged communities start to compound. “We’re on both sides of that double-edged sword,” says Jacqueline Patterson, senior director of the NAACP’s Environmental and Climate Justice Program. “Our communities are the sacrifice zone for fossil-fuel-based energy generation, and we are disproportionately impacted by the results of climate change.”