The Green Economy Isn't Coming — It's Here. Who Gets to Be Part of It?

By Jasmine Davenport, Senior Director of Green For All  and Kasheef Wyzard, Senior Director of Tech & Innovation

On June 19, 1865, enslaved people in Galveston, Texas learned they were free two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. What they and other enslaved people were not given was land, capital, or a pathway into the economy that was built from their forced labor. That pattern, freedom without economic access, has repeated itself throughout every economic era that followed: industrialization, the tech boom, and now the green economy. Each time, the promise of opportunity arrived. Each time, the delivery was incomplete. This Juneteenth, Dream.Org is asking a different question, not whether the green economy will create jobs, but who will be positioned to hold them.

Traditionally, in a capitalistic society, economies have treated environmental damage as an acceptable cost of growth. But the green economy promotes an economic system that works with nature rather than against it, one that reduces inequality while significantly reducing environmental risks. This year, Dream.Org has launched two new cohorts to bridge that gap of inequity and open doors of opportunity into the green economy through personal development, leadership training, and direct employment pathways.

The first Green Reentry Incubator launched earlier this year in Charlotte, NC as an 8-week workforce accelerator for justice-impacted individuals to expand their career opportunities into the green economy. Over those 8 weeks, under the leadership of Jasmine Davenport, Dream.Org's Senior Director of Green For All, participants underwent hands-on training from a variety of local experts in solar installation, weatherization, distributed energy resources, and electric vehicles, while gaining networking and resume skills, mentors, and direct access to local employers. A second cohort in the Bay Area is already underway and will cater to the region's unique environment and economic challenges through solar installation training with GRID Alternatives, hands-on exposure with Save the Bay, Wild Oyster Project, and Friends of the Urban Forest. 

“The Green Reentry Incubator helps participants see the bigger picture. It’s not just about a job, but rather how individuals can write their next chapter and be part of transforming their community,” says Davenport.

Charlotte and the Bay Area represent two very different but equally important frontiers of the clean energy transition. While Charlotte sits at the intersection of rapid clean energy growth, workforce demand, and high recidivism, the Bay Area is one of the nation's centers of climate innovation, yet communities continue to experience significant economic inequities and barriers for justice-impacted individuals. The Incubator aims to meet those conditions by preparing participants for a future in the growing green economy while centering the unique experiences and strengths of justice-impacted individuals.

The Pittsburgh Green Workforce Initiative operates through Dream.Org's Tech For All under Dream.Org’s Senior Director of Tech & Innovation, Kasheef Wyzard. It was designed for people who have talent, ambition, and potential but often lack access to the networks, information, and opportunities that turn potential into a career. Through a partnership with the Black woman-led tech startup Frontline Gig, the initiative uses technology to strengthen connectivity between people, resources, and opportunities across the green workforce ecosystem. One of its key resources is the Green Career Exploration Program, where participants receive a formal introduction to green industries and employers, access to coaching, worksite visits, and available career pathways. Their goal over the next two years is to engage 1,000 people, support 250 people through work-based experiences, and ultimately place 100 individuals into full-time employment. Like Charlotte and the Bay Area, Pittsburgh was chosen for its specific conditions, significant investment in infrastructure, sustainability, energy transition, and climate resilience. But many residents, particularly Black residents and historically disinvested communities, remain disconnected from those opportunities. 

“This opportunity is to ensure that communities historically excluded from economic growth can participate in and benefit from the next economic transition,” says Wyzard. “If the green economy is going to be equitable, the people who have borne the greatest environmental and economic burdens must also have access to the opportunities it creates.”

Both programs go beyond participants simply finding a job. They are built around a bigger question of how communities that have historically been excluded from economic growth write their next chapter and help lead the green energy transformation. 

For someone entering the Green Reentry Incubator with no prior knowledge, the connection is quite straightforward. It’s about understanding how communities function, what challenges they face, and how they can be part of the solutions. For example: 

• Solar installation introduces participants to how energy is generated and where clean energy jobs exist.
• Grid basics ask where electricity comes from, why some communities experience more outages, and why energy bills are so high.
• Habitat restoration demonstrates how environmental work can create jobs while improving quality of life. 

And community resilience is the umbrella that brings everything together. 

A resilient community has reliable energy, healthy ecosystems, economic opportunity for its residents, and the capacity to withstand storms, heat, and flooding. 

In Pittsburgh, we take a similar approach when explaining the value of green careers to residents who may never have seen themselves in those roles. We don’t start by talking about climate but by talking about opportunity. The careers that can support a family can't be outsourced, and are connected to investments already happening in the community. Technology is also woven throughout the entire initiative. Through Frontline Gig, participants can document skills, assess career readiness, and connect to employers while also gaining an understanding of how AI is already disrupting industries where Black and Brown workers have historically been underrepresented, making green economy and skilled trades careers among the most resilient pathways available.

Participants from the Green Reentry Incubator earned both OSHA-10 and Weatherization 101 certifications. “Over the eight weeks their confidence levels soared, culminating in the defining moment of dedication and commitment during graduation,” said Jasmine Davenport. In Pittsburgh, the initiative has already helped more than 150 people gain agency, and moved nearly 50 into action. Nate, a Pittsburgh justice-impacted participant who was previously unhoused, has since advanced into a leadership role coordinating crews and community engagement efforts for Pittsburgh's 300-Tree Greening Initiative. Nate saw this as a pathway to building his own landscaping and contracting business while helping others find their way into the green economy. “That's the outcome we're pursuing: progression, leadership, and ownership,” said Kasheef Wyzard.

When we talk about these programs, the conversation must keep returning to a word that has always carried complicated weight in America: freedom. Freedom and economic freedom are interdependent and every generation has faced its own version of the same challenge: how do we ensure that the people who have historically been excluded from opportunity can fully participate in building wealth, stability, and prosperity? 

Economic freedom is the ability to make decisions about your life because you have options. The Green Reentry Incubator is specifically designed to address that gap for justice-impacted individuals, for whom incarceration disrupts employment, wealth building, career progression, homeownership, entrepreneurship, and professional networks. One participant's dream may be a union career with benefits or to own a solar installation company or to provide stability for their family. We help participants access the tools, opportunities, and confidence to define success for themselves.

Economic freedom is the ability to make decisions about your life because you have options.

History teaches us that economic booms don't automatically create opportunity for everyone. The scale of what is happening — AI, energy modernization, climate resilience, sustainable infrastructure — means unprecedented wealth will be created, but many sectors where Black and Brown workers have historically been concentrated are also being disrupted. For perhaps the first time in a generation, we have an opportunity to get people into emerging industries while the tide is still rising instead of trying to recover after it has gone out.

Without programs like these, the clean energy transition would still move forward but it would risk repeating the exclusions of the past. The next cohort for both programs are already in development, focused on deepening stronger employer networks, providing more paid work experiences, more direct pathways to apprenticeships and certifications, and greater opportunities for entrepreneurship and leadership. Scale, for both programs, goes beyond more cohorts in more cities and is truly achieved when programs like this are no longer innovative, but expected. When the question is no longer whether justice-impacted individuals belong in the green economy but how many leadership positions they hold within it.

To local leaders and funders, we ask you not to wait until talent is fully formed before investing in it. Invest in exposure, agency, and in action. The green economy is being built right now. The question is whether we will create pathways that allow everyone to participate in building it or whether we will repeat the mistakes of the past.