The Bridges We Build:

In 2025, we introduced a one-year Bridge Plan to guide our work through a period of uncertainty and transition.

Founded in response to the systemic exclusion of communities of color from economic and political opportunity, Greenlining has long worked to transform inequitable systems across sectors – from finance and technology to climate and transportation. This Bridge Plan reflects a recommitment to that mission, grounded in the realities of this moment.

Designed to provide both clarity and flexibility, the plan allows us to stay focused on our core priorities while adapting to shifting political and economic conditions. It serves as both a shield – protecting communities from further harm – and a seed, laying the groundwork for the systems and solutions needed in the future.

As our financial systems evolve, ensuring communities of color have equitable access to capital is essential to building economic stability and opportunity.

That’s why Greenlining supported the advancement of AB 801 (Bonta), the California Community Reinvestment Act, a critical effort to modernize and strengthen financial protections and opportunities for communities impacted by decades of redlining.

The federal Community Reinvestment Act has played an important role in expanding access to credit, but gaps in the regulatory framework – combined with the rise of financial technology companies not subject to CRA oversight – mean that many institutions continue to evade accountability for serving communities equitably.

This has left communities of color, small businesses, and low-income neighborhoods without access to capital.

AB 801 addresses these challenges by establishing a state-level framework to ensure financial institutions serve the communities where they operate fairly.

The bill expands oversight to a broader range of lenders, including fintechs, and strengthens standards for transparency and accountability.

In partnership with community-based organizations and allies, we supported the bill’s passage through the Assembly through research, coalition advocacy, and policymaker engagement. The bill will move forward as a two-year measure in the 2025–2026 legislative session.

Greenlining played a key role in shaping California’s Cap-and-Invest reauthorization to ensure the program is designed to provide meaningful benefits to communities most impacted by pollution, climate change, and rising costs.

As Lolly Lim, Senior Program Manager for Climate Equity, noted, “this policy is not just about carbon markets or regulatory compliance; it has real, lasting consequences for the communities hit hardest.” The decisions made through reauthorization will shape California’s climate future for the next 20 years, making equity-centered design critical.

Through sustained engagement in the reauthorization process, we helped secure long-term funding for programs that deliver safe drinking water, affordable housing, transit, and air quality improvements in priority communities. These programs will now receive continuous funding, providing stability for community-led solutions that have historically faced inconsistent support.

We also advanced provisions to direct more utility rebates to households, helping reduce electricity costs while supporting the transition to clean energy. These investments are especially critical for low-income households already facing rising energy burdens.

At the same time, we pushed for stronger oversight and accountability measures to ensure the state meets its net-zero goals by 2045 and that polluters are held to higher standards.

Together, these changes ensure climate policy delivers not just emissions reductions, but real investments that improve affordability, strengthen resilience, and support communities that have long been left behind.

As automated decision-making systems and artificial intelligence reshape access to financial systems, jobs, and essential services, we are working across the public and private sectors to ensure the rapid pace of innovation does not deepen existing inequities. Without safeguards, emerging technologies risk reinforcing longstanding patterns of discrimination against communities of color.

We advocated for AB 1018 (Bauer-Kahan) to establish stronger transparency and regulatory standards, ensuring AI and automated systems do not replicate patterns of redlining or restrict access to credit, jobs, and essential services. We also engaged decision-makers and advocates, including the California Privacy Protection Agency, California AI Working Group, and OpenAI Advisory Commission, to elevate the need for safeguards that protect vulnerable communities.

We published analyses highlighting how financial technologies and Big Tech practices can exploit communities of color – helping shape policy responses and public understanding. These efforts support a future where innovation expands opportunity rather than deepens inequity.

Greenlining’s Climate Equity team launched Homes Before Highwaysa campaign and data tool exposing the human, economic, and environmental costs of California’s ongoing highway expansion projects.

We led research and analysis documenting how highway expansion continues to target communities of color and low-income neighborhoods – demolishing homes, displacing families, and worsening air quality – while failing to deliver on promised benefits like reduced congestion.

With the campaign, policy experts introduced an interactive tracking tool that makes the disparate impacts visible, equipping advocates, policymakers, and the public with data to understand how more than 200 planned highway projects intersect with the state’s housing, affordability, and climate crises.

Through this work, Greenlining is advancing a clear call to action: stop investing in projects that destroy homes and deepen inequities, and instead prioritize transportation solutions that protect communities and make life more affordable.

Greenlining’s policy experts continued to fight for transportation decisions that protect our communities’ health, advance climate justice, and ensure the transition to clean mobility reaches the people most burdened by pollution.

As federal leaders moved to weaken clean air protections, including California’s authority to set stronger vehicle emissions standards, we worked alongside environmental justice and clean transportation partnersto defend the right of communities of color and low-income communities to breathe clean air.

At the same time, we pushed California leaders to maintain equity commitments in the state’s transition to cleaner transportation. Through the Charge Ahead California Campaign, Greenlining submitted joint recommendations to the California Air Resources Board calling for policies and investments that equitably advance the state’s zero-emission vehicle transition and expand access to clean mobility for the most pollution-burdened Californians.

Transportation advocacy focused on ensuring funding and regulatory decisions reflect the needs of communities most impacted by pollution, disinvestment, and rising costs. This work contributed to more accountable policies that reduce emissions, lower costs, and expand access to clean transportation.

We supported the launch of the CleanRIDES Network, marking a major step forward in shifting transportation systems toward equity, affordability, and sustainability.

As part of the network’s core team, we helped guide strategy, fundraising, and work planning with a racial equity lens – ensuring that priorities reflect the needs of communities most impacted by pollution, disinvestment, and high transportation costs. The network brings together more than 100 organizations across climate, transit, labor, housing, business, and public health to align around a shared vision for cleaner, more affordable transportation.

Alongside the launch, the network released a national policy analysis outlining how state-level reforms can reduce pollution, lower costs, and improve mobility. The findings show that shifting investments toward transit, active transportation, and electrification can significantly cut climate emissions, reduce time spent in traffic, and save households money each year. As Hana Creger, Associate Director of Climate Equity, noted, “a clean, affordable transportation system is key to thriving communities and a strong economy.”

This work comes at a critical moment. Despite California’s climate leadership, transportation investments continue to prioritize highway expansion, driving up costs and worsening pollution in communities of color. The CleanRIDES Network is advancing policies that redirect funding toward solutions that are more equitable, sustainable, and cost-effective.

Greenlining’s Economic Equity team collaborated with financial institutions, advocates, and community partners to develop a set of standards for banks designed to embed equity into banking practices.

Throughout the year, we engaged 16 partners and community-based organizations to ground the development of the standards in the lived experiences of communities of color, ensuring the framework reflects real barriers to access and affordability. Building on that foundation, we hosted a convening in October 2025 with targeted financial institutions to gather input on implementation and feasibility.

The convening created space for direct dialogue between banks, community advocates, and coalition members – surfacing both the opportunities and challenges of aligning financial practices with equity goals. As Erica Plasencia, Senior Program Manager for Economic Equity and lead author of the Greenlined Banking Standards, writes, the standards are “a blueprint for financial institutions to ensure that banking products, services, and practices directly confront long-standing barriers to access and affordability.”

Discussions focused on how institutions can move beyond commitments and toward measurable changes in products, services, and investment strategies that better serve underserved communities. This approach reflects a broader goal: ensuring that racial equity is not treated as an add-on, but embedded into how financial systems operate.

The Greenlined Banking Standards will be released in Summer 2026, with implementation focused on accountability, data transparency, and sustained partnership with financial institutions and community stakeholders.

Climate finance – funding that invests in climate change solutions – faced significant setbacks in 2025, as federal rollbacks weakened key investments as well as protections, including climate risk guidance for banks, climate disclosure requirements, and Community Reinvestment Act regulations that would have incentivized investments in disaster recovery.

In response, we focused on advancing solutions at the state level. This included supporting California’s efforts to lead on corporate climate disclosure requirements, helping ensure that financial risks tied to climate impacts are more transparent and better accounted for.

We also continued to elevate growing concerns around bluelining – the emerging pattern of insurers and financial institutions withdrawing from communities most exposed to climate risk.

We brought national attention to these risks through a Shelterforce op-ed co-authored by Monica Palmeira and Sharon Cornelissen, Director of Housing at the Consumer Federation of America, which highlighted how climate-driven insurance practices can replicate historic discrimination. As Palmeira and Cornelissen note, “The same communities that were redlined in the past are now at risk of being ‘bluelined’ – priced out or shut out of insurance markets altogether.”

We also presented this research at national conferences and began advancing a new campaign focused on increasing insurer investments in community climate resilience in California – working to ensure that financial systems support, rather than abandon, communities facing the greatest climate risks.

In October 2025, we co-hosted the Blueprints for Change convening with the Urban Sustainability Directors Network and Upright Consulting Services, bringing together federal, state, and community leaders to examine how infrastructure investments reach communities of color and historically redlined neighborhoods.

As funding from the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law was cut short, the convening created a critical space to reflect on early implementation efforts. Participants identified both promising practices and persistent barriers, particularly the lack of support for community-based organizations tasked with delivering projects on the ground.

Discussions highlighted a clear gap between top-down investments and community readiness. After decades of disinvestment, communities need more than funding – they need early support to build capacity, leadership, and systems.

Insights from this convening will inform a forthcoming report with recommendations to strengthen equitable infrastructure investment.

The California Racial Equity Commission finalized its framework marking a major step toward embedding racial equity into how state government operates. Greenlining played an active role in shaping this effort over multiple years, contributing policy expertise and helping ensure the framework reflects the lived experiences of communities of color. Our engagement focused on strengthening accountability and advancing tools that move beyond high-level commitments – supporting agencies in setting measurable goals, using data to assess impact, and tracking progress over time.

The Commission was established following Executive Order N-16-22, signed by Governor Newsom in 2022, which mandated that state agencies take concrete steps to address demonstrable inequities, laying the groundwork for a more coordinated, statewide approach to advancing equity.

The Commission was tasked with developing a framework to guide how agencies identify disparities, engage communities, and integrate equity into policy design and implementation. The final framework creates a foundation for more consistent and transparent approaches to equity across state government, helping move California toward systems that are designed to serve all communities more equitably.