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Tara Marchant, Emerald Cities Oakland Director, brings eight years of experience in energy efficiency policy and workforce development, including five years at EC Oakland. She has received her Permaculture certificate which significantly change her perspective on existing infrastructure, behavior and collaborative eco-systems. Tara works across a host of stakeholder organizations (public, labor, community and industry and workforce development) to bring a collective effort to retrofitting large-scale buildings in Alameda County to be more energy efficient and produce family-wage jobs.

Recently, Tara was appointed by to sit on the Alameda County East Bay Community Choice Energy Program as a Steering Committee member.  Currently, Emerald Cities Oakland is convening Anchors For Resilient Strategies (ARC) funded by the CA Endowment, Kaiser and Kresge to name a few.  This initiative will look at the purchasing power and procurement of public anchors like Kaiser, Dignity Health and UC Berkeley to leverage opportunities to create new social enterprises/businesses in East Oakland and Richmond.

As the creator and program manager of the Greenlining Institute’s Green Assets Program (now the Environmental Equity program), Tara worked with advocates and elected officials to include communities of color and low-income communities in California’s commitment to going green.  She was the lead for the Greenlining Institute’s co-sponsorship of the Community Benefits Fund (AB1405) now SB535, which will direct millions of dollars to low-income communities through the AB32 carbon auction. In addition, she co-authored a report calling for economic opportunity in under-served communities: Greening Our Neighborhood & Putting Americans to Work: A Case for Carbon Reduction & Job Creation.