Strategies to Advance Equity in a Challenging Political Climate

In partnership with the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators (NCEL), The Greenlining Institute presented our Embedding Equity Into Policy Toolkit led by our Associate Director of Climate Equity, Hana Creger, and Legislative Fellow, Dohee Kim, at the NCEL’s 2025 National Forum hosted at Boston, Massachusetts on August 1, 2025. For an audience of more than 170 active and environmentally committed state legislators from across the nation, the Embedding Equity Into Policy workshop focused on uplifting best practices for legislators, policymakers, and advocates on how to advance equity with our communities during a politically challenging climate under another reign of the Trump Administration. 

Elevating Equity to Meet the Political Moment

Advancing equity necessitates courage, strategy, and action. As our Greenlining blog, No Retreat: Fighting for Equitable Policies in the Movement & Moment, demonstrates, present-day impacts from redlining and bluelining persist and threaten our fragile democracy, while the Trump Administration actively undermines Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) initiatives, pushes for federal deregulation and rollbacks on life-affirming programs and services for our already disinvested and disenfranchised communities, fosters disinformation and data erasure, and puts working families last in their list of priorities. 

At this critical time, Greenlining offers Embedding Equity Into Policy Toolkit as a resource that draws from real-world examples and lessons across states — offering bold but practical strategies to win with our communities, while keeping equity at the center of our policy work. To improve our conditions for winning long-lasting equity policies, Greenlining identifies a spectrum of equity approaches: from foundational to transformative equity. Foundational equity approaches mitigate harms and lay the groundwork by tracking community needs, building community capacity and infrastructure, while lowering barriers for disinvested communities to access resources. Building upon foundational equity, transformative equity approaches  shift power, dismantle unjust systems and structures, and drive long-term systems change.

Adapting Equity Language for Community Impact

The Toolkit also offers compelling ways on how to best adapt equity language to be responsive to real political constraints. Building narrative power to counter disinformation with facts, using race-conscious proxies for data tracking, implementing a targeted universalism approach, and reframing DEIA to shared values such as “good governance” are all powerful strategies.

A Roadmap to Embed Equity into Policy

In our roadmap to embed equity into policy, Greenlining centers equity in a policy’s goal, process, outcome(s), and evaluation across diverse political, geographic, cultural, and socioeconomic contexts to help policymakers remain adaptive but committed to delivering tangible equity outcomes, so that our communities can live healthy lives, benefit from economic security, and secure opportunity for upward mobility.

As equity is challenged, this is your invitation to hold the line on equity, stand with communities, and shape policies that truly build a just future for everyone.

Description: For your own interactive session, participants can create a bill or legislation that advances equity for a specific community in need. We suggest trying this activity with a minimum of 4 participants. During the activity, we encourage you to discuss the following themes: 

  • How does your legislation advance equity? 
  • How did you adapt your chosen equity components to meet the political constraints?
  • Think about the equity component cards you selected:
    • Where do they fall on the foundational to transformative equity spectrum?
    • How can the foundational equity components lay the groundwork for more transformative equity components in future policy?

Running Time: 30-45 mins

Embedding Equity Into Policy Materials: Embedding Equity Into Policy Toolkit, Embedding Equity Into Policy Activity, Embedding Equity Into Policy Component Cards. 

Download our Equity Lab Materials below!