New Grants Bolster Initiative for Energy Justice

01.02.21 — The Barr Foundation and the Heising-Simons Foundation have joined the roster of funders to the Initiative for Energy Justice, which supports the delivery of equity-centered energy policy research and technical assistance to policymakers and frontline communities across the country. Co-founded in 2018 by Professor Shalanda Baker ’05, Shiva Prakash ’16 and Subin DeVar, the Initiative for Energy Justice is housed at Northeastern University School of Law. The Barr Foundation is providing $400,000 and the Heising-Simons Foundation is providing $200,000, which together with previous funding seed funding and ongoing support from the Kresge Foundation and Surdna Foundation, will bring the Initiative’s total grants to more than $1.4 million since its founding.

“By every measure, low-income communities and communities of color bear the most inequitable burdens of the energy system. We formed the initiative to support communities and policymakers in the creation of a more just energy system,” said Baker, author of Revolutionary Power: An Activist’s Field Guide to the Energy Transition (Island Press 2021).

The recent infusion of support provides funding for DeVar to join the Northeastern University School of Law community as director of the Initiative for Energy Justice. He will lead the expansion of the team to include the creation of an energy justice fellowship program for recent law school graduates and early-career researchers. Subin is a graduate of Berkeley Law and the University of Texas. He most recently served as the director of the Community Renewable Energy Program at the Sustainable Economies Law Center in Oakland, California.