Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI)

“I stand unequivocally in solidarity with the fight for racial justice and equity, and the end of oppression of Black people.  Our agency is working to understand the role we have played as a government agency in a system that perpetuates racial inequality, and how, through allyship and the fulfillment of our mission, we can support Black, Indigenous, and People of Color.  We recognize and value our community-based partner organizations and grantees that are committing their time and hearts to advancing racial equity.

We will work to bring the change that we want to see in this country into our own institution and our work across California.”

– Sam Schuchat, Executive Officer, State Coastal Conservancy

The State Coastal Conservancy has developed draft Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) Guidelines to articulate guiding principles about our agency’s role in promoting equity, inclusion and diversity and addressing environmental justice. The guidelines were adopted by our Board on September 3, 2020.

The JEDI Guidelines can be found here.

The JEDI Guidelines are intended to provide an overarching framework for the ongoing work of Conservancy staff through a public-facing document adopted by the Conservancy board. The State Coastal Conservancy JEDI Guidelines in Action summarizes ongoing and potential future actions that the Conservancy staff and board has undertaken or can undertake to implement the JEDI Guidelines. This list of actions will grow and evolve over time and is intended to capture the specific actions we can take to realize the broader intentions of the JEDI Guidelines.

The guidelines were informed by an online survey of people working in Environmental Justice to get their perspectives on which priorities are most important for the guidelines to encompass, and a series of targeted interviews and focus groups throughout the state to obtain more in-depth feedback.  A synthesis of the survey results can be found here, and reports prepared by each of the focus groups’ moderators can be found here.

A draft of the Guidelines were presented to the Conservancy Board in December 2019.  A memo that was presented to the Conservancy Board at that meeting on the process of developing the guidelines can be found here.

A one-hour webinar on the draft guidelines was held on January 30, 2020.  A recording of the webinar can be found here.

A public workshop on the guidelines was held in Oxnard on February 2, 2020.  Notes from that workshop can be found here.

We conducted a public comment period from December 2019 through April 17, 2020.  We are very thankful for the comments that were sent in and revised the JEDI Guidelines to reflect feedback we received in writing and at meetings.

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please email JEDI@scc.ca.gov.

Resources:

• Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) Guidelines
• September 2020 Board Memo regarding Final Guidelines
• State Coastal Conservancy JEDI Guidelines in Action
• Reports from Focus Groups
  • Focus Group Participants
• Synthesis of Survey Results
• December 2019 Board Memo regarding Draft Guidelines
• Recording of January 2020 Webinar
• Notes from February 2020 Public Workshop
• Frequently Asked Questions on the JEDI Guidelines