Climate Week NYC: Equitable Building Decarbonization & High-Quality Jobs in the Clean Energy Economy

Collectrify would like to extend a warm invitation to join us on Tuesday, September 22 at 11 am - 1 pm for a conversation on Equitable Building Decarbonization & High-Quality Jobs in the Clean Energy Economy.

The conversation centers on a draft Community Centered Regenerative Transition framework, building on Movement Generation's Strategy Framework for a Just Transition. Its aim is simple: put people at the heart of the low carbon transition through workforce development, affordable clean energy and housing, resilient buildings, inclusive governance and collaborative action, so every community can shape and share in the benefits.

 

Together we will:

 

• ​Explore what it takes to match building decarbonization at scale with a regenerative energy transition and quality jobs

• ​Hear from labor, program implementers, policy and international just transition legal experts on where we stand and how policy reform, collaborative governance, narrative shift and training can get us there

• ​Examine the current state of energy efficiency and electrification upgrades and the workforce delivering them

• ​Identify the sustainable funding and cross boundary cooperation needed to unlock equitable electrification and economic development through a skilled workforce

​

​​

Presenters & Collaborators

 

• ​Jamesa Johnson-Greer, Co-Executive Director, Collectrify: A Frontline-Led Energy Fund

• Courtney Hanson, Deputy Director, People for Community Recovery

• Dr. Tedd Moya, Energy Law and Policy | Founder and Principal, Lex Navitas | London, Oxford, Nairobi

• Jacqueline Patterson, Founder and Executive Director, The Chisholm Legacy Project: A Resource Hub for Black Frontline Climate Justice Leadership

• Melissa Shetler, Assistant Director of Labor Outreach and Workforce Equity, Cornell ILR Climate Jobs Institute

• Jennifer Somers, Co-Executive Director, Collectrify: A Frontline-Led Energy Fund​​​

​

​

Presenter Biographies

​

Jamesa Johnson-Greer: Co-Executive Director, Collectrify: A Frontline-Led Energy Fund
 

Jamesa Johnson Greer, J.D. is Co-Director of Collectrify: A Frontline-Led Energy Fund, where she supports community-led climate and housing solutions through participatory grantmaking, cross-sector collaboration, and strategic investment in equitable building decarbonization. She is a systems thinker and relationship builder with over a decade of experience advancing environmental justice, community power, and public policy reform.

 

Jamesa previously served as Executive Director of the Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition (MEJC), where she led statewide advocacy and coalition campaigns to reduce pollution burdens and expand clean energy access in frontline communities. At MEJC, she also launched regranting and capacity-building programs rooted in participatory decision-making and grassroots leadership.

 

Most recently, Jamesa served as a Program Manager at Endyna, Inc., where she oversaw a national technical assistance initiative supporting over 100 frontline organizations applying for and implementing U.S. EPA Community Change Grants. Her work bridged federal policy and community action, equipping grassroots leaders with the tools and resources needed to secure transformational funding.

 

A native Detroiter, Jamesa holds a J.D. from Wayne State University Law School and a B.A. in International Studies from the University of Michigan, with a concentration in Global Health and the Environment. Her work is grounded in a deep respect for frontline wisdom and a lifelong commitment to building just and sustainable futures.

​

​

Courtney Hanson, Deputy Director, People for Community Recovery

 

Courtney Hanson serves as Deputy Director of People for Community Recovery, where she supports day-to-day operations for the community-based social and environmental justice nonprofit.  In this role, Courtney provides campaign strategy and oversight for programs ranging from solar workforce development and clean energy policy to neighborhood-based health and economic development programs. As a social worker with a background in organizing for systems-level change, Courtney has found her passion in bridging the gap between climate and energy policy, community organizing and mental health - supporting community-led efforts to address the collective trauma of environmental injustice. Prior to joining PCR, Courtney spent ten years working on clean energy, climate and environmental justice in the US South and Midwest.

 

Courtney earned bachelor’s degrees in journalism and psychology from Loyola University Chicago and a master’s degree in social service administration from the University of Chicago. When she’s not on zoom calls, Courtney can be found reading, spending time in nature, and traveling in her vintage camper van.

​

​

Dr. Tedd Moya Mose: Energy Law & Policy | Lawyer, Entrepreneur, Academic | Founder & Principle Lex Navitas | London-Oxford-Narobi​

​

Dr. Tedd Moya Mose is an internationally recognised legal scholar, practitioner, and entrepreneur specialising in international energy law, climate policy, and the just transition. He holds a PhD in International Energy Law and Policy and is affiliated with the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford, where his research examines how law, energy, finance, and technology can accelerate sustainable development.

 

An experienced educator, Tedd has researched, taught, and mentored students at the University of Oxford, the London School of Economics, Queen Mary University of London, and the universities of St Andrews, Michigan, Cape Town, and Dundee.

 

As founder of Lex Navitas, he advises governments, multilateral organisations, and industry leaders on complex energy and sustainability challenges, bridging perspectives between developed and developing economies. A committed advocate for education and community development, he serves as an adviser to philanthropies and charities across the UK, the United States, and EMEA, and sits on several boards spanning education, conservation, energy, sanitation, and innovation.

​

​

Jacqueline Patterson: Founder & Executive Director of the Chisholm Legacy Project: A Resource Hub for Black Frontline Climate Justice Leadership

 

Jacqueline Patterson is the Founder and Executive Director of the Chisholm Legacy Project: A Resource Hub for Black Frontline Climate Justice Leadership. The mission of the Chisholm Legacy Project is rooted in a Just Transition Framework, serving as a vehicle to connect Black communities on the frontlines of climate justice with the resources to actualize visions. Prior to the launch of the Chisholm Legacy Project, Ms. Patterson served as the Senior Director of the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program for over a decade.  During her tenure, she founded and implemented a robust portfolio which included serving the state and local leadership whose constituencies consisted of hundreds of communities on the frontlines of environmental injustice. She also led a team in designing and implementing a portfolio to support political education and organizing work executed by NAACP branches, chapters, and state conferences.

 

​Since 2007, Ms. Patterson has dedicated her career to intersectional approaches to systems change. Her passion for social justice led her to serve as coordinator & co-founder of Women of Color United; Senior Women’s Rights Policy Analyst for ActionAid; Assistant Vice-President of HIV/AIDS Programs for IMA World Health, Outreach Project Associate for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Research Coordinator for Johns Hopkins University, and U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer in Jamaica.

 

Ms. Patterson holds a Master’s degree in Social Work from the University of Maryland and a Master’s degree in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University. She currently serves on the Advisory Boards for Center for Earth Ethics and the Hive Fund for Gender and Climate Justice, on the Governance Assemblies for Mosaic Momentum, Environmental Justice Movement Fellowship, and Collectrify: A Frontline-Led Energy Fund, as well as on the Boards of Directors for the Institute of the Black World, the Bill Anderson Fund, the American Society of Adaptation Professionals, the Movement Strategy Center, the Just Solutions Collective, and the National Black Workers Center Project.​

​

​​

Melissa Shetler, Assistant Director of Labor Outreach & Workforce Equity, Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR), Climate Jobs Institute

 

Shetler is a Senior Training & Education Associate at Cornell University’s ILR School Climate Jobs Institute.

 

Shetler began her labor career as a community organizer with the Laborers Eastern Region Organizing Fund, working to build multi-stakeholder coalitions to ensure quality homes and jobs by advancing transparency and labor standards in affordable housing. She was the Director of Organizing and later Political Director for the Metallic Lathers and Reinforcing Ironworkers Local 46, where she led community labor partnerships in NYC and Westchester county, and collaborated in numerous multi-trade organizing campaigns. Melissa was a co-founder of and served as Executive Director for Pathways to Apprenticeship (P2), a direct entry pre-apprenticeship program focused on union career opportunities in the building and construction trades for residents of public housing and justice-involved individuals.

 

Melissa is a program presenter for NABTU's Building Trades Academy, where she teaches strategic organizing. She has an M.A. in Adult Learning and Leadership from Columbia University’s Teachers College and a B.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies from SUNY Empire State College.

​

​​

Jennifer Somers: Co-Executive Director, Collectrify: A Frontline-Led Energy Fund

 

Jennifer Somers has spent more than twenty-five years working at the intersection of energy, climate, health, and justice. As Co-Executive Director of Collectrify: A Frontline-Led Energy Fund, she works on one of the most urgent challenges of our time: solving housing and energy affordability by transforming the built environment into a catalyst of economic opportunity for frontline communities.

 

Jennifer has moved between many worlds that shaped her career, and that movement is central to what she brings to this work. She began as an organizer and project manager with community-based organizations across San Diego, Houston, and the San Francisco Bay Area, leading programs focused on community economic development, energy-efficient and healthy housing, and environmental justice. In one of her most visible roles, Jennifer served as a Senior Policy Advisor for the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy during the Obama Administration, where she led the implementation of federal stimulus dollars that facilitated weatherization and energy efficiency upgrades for over one million homes for limited-wealth families in three years. In doing so, she helped to codify the leadership of the Weatherization Assistance Program in the home performance industry. She went on to serve as Program Director at the U.S. Energy Foundation, managing strategic grantmaking to advance clean energy access and thriving, resilient communities across twelve states.  

​

What Jennifer carried back from those policy and philanthropy roles was clarity that the strongest solutions to the clean energy transition will emerge from community-based leadership. At Collectrify, she works alongside leaders and organizations to ensure that underinvested communities and those who have been living on the fenceline of extractive industry are resourced to shape the policies and economic futures that affect them most. 

​

With a Bachelor of Arts from Fairfield University in Economics and Spanish and a Master of Public Affairs from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, Jennifer’s formal education laid the groundwork for a career in public service—but her commitment to a just transition began even earlier as a Jesuit Volunteer Corps member working on the U.S./Mexico border.  She has served as Co-Chair of the GREEN Working Group for The Funders’ Network, where she spearheaded the development of the Systems Transformation Learning Series for philanthropy, and on the boards of Build It Green and the Interstate Renewable Energy Council. She is a current Salzburg Global Fellow.

​

Jennifer believes that deeper alignment across sectors and bold community-based solutions are the way toward a future free from the harms of fossil fuels—and that the innovation we advance today will shape what’s possible for generations to come.