We envision a world where communities create and control
diverse food systems without extractive energy.

Food and energy have long been focal points for the Law Center’s work. We support the land, funding, and workplace democracy needs of these sectors, while continuing to work with sector-specific clients and collaborators.

Food Sovereignty

Our food system is not well served by today’s predominant food business models, which incentivize growth, shareholder profit maximization, absentee ownership, and exploitation of resources. The ownership and governance structures of an enterprise largely determine the motivations that drive it. And the large, centralized food producers that dominate food systems today are usually owned and governed by white men and driven by financial bottom lines to the detriment of more important ends: equitable control over the food system, providing healthy food and fair economic opportunity to people working within the food system, and redressing injustice.

Systemic oppression within our food system has most negatively impacted rural communities, communities of color, and low-income communities, so our focus is on supporting these historically and currently marginalized communities to take back control over the economic engines of our food system. The cornerstone of our work is the belief that enterprises should be owned and controlled by the workers and communities who depend on them, and this is true for the food economy as much as any other sector. We believe that the right to define how local food systems are organized belong to the people who participate throughout the food chain, from the farm to the compost pile.

Energy Sovereignty

From 2013 to 2021, Sustainable Economies Law Center focused on legal support and policies to build democratic community-owned renewable energy projects. In 2022, we decided to expand the scope of this work after taking time to reflect, write, and make videos, along with our close collaborators at People Power Solar Cooperative. Our prior work sought to build pockets of energy democracy within a field dominated by investor-owned utilities and profit-extracting energy companies. Now we're going beyond the narrow strategy of developing cooperative solar projects, and we're exploring bigger possibilities for climate and economic justice. 

We invite you to learn more by watching these videos:

1. Fields of Energy Democracy grapples with what “energy democracy” means and describe four fields where we can cultivate meaningful democracy. 

2. Land Return as Energy Justice describes how our insights led the Law Center to center a lot of our work on land return to Black and Indigenous people and on cultivating deeply participatory organizations. 

Here are two long-form essays offering perspectives on this work. Neither necessarily represent the views of the Law Center or People Power, but they tell parts of the story and offer perspectives of some who were involved:

1. Essential Connections for Energy Democracy, telling more of the story of Sustainable Economies Law Center's energy work from 2013 to 2022, by Janelle Orsi

2. Thoughts on People Power Solar Cooperative and Energy Democracy, telling the story of People Power and its various projects from 2018 to 2022, by Grayson Flood

People Power Solar Cooperative has also been putting together videos, articles, and events to engage communities to re-imagine their work. You can find these materials on their website here: Resources from People Power Solar Cooperative.