• Tracking Groundbreaking Climate Action

    A resource page dedicated to evaluation of Transformative Climate Communities program investments

The UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation (LCI) launched this page to centralize resources related to our tracking of progress and outcomes from California’s Transformative Climate Communities Program (TCC) in five sites (Fresno, Ontario, Northeast San Fernando Valley, Stockton and Watts). TCC represents some of the world’s most comprehensive investments in local climate action and has relevance nationally as the federal government advances unprecedented levels of climate investments to benefit disadvantaged communities, under President Biden’s Justice40 Initiative. Lessons learned from TCC could have broad implications for addressing the climate crisis. 

Authorized by Assembly Bill 2722 in 2016, TCC funds neighborhood-level transformative plans and multiple projects to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and achieve a range of local economic, environmental, and health benefits. In addition to fighting climate change, the program empowers communities impacted by legacy pollution and disinvestment to design, implement, and lead projects advancing local resilience, prosperity, and sustainability.

The California Strategic Growth Council serves as the lead administrator of TCC, awarding the following TCC grants:

  • City of Fresno ($66.5 million, Round 1 grantee)
  • City of Ontario ($33.25 million, Round 1 grantee)
  • Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles ($33.25 million, Round 1 grantee)
  • City of Sacramento ($23 million, Round 2 grantee)
  • The Northeast San Fernando Valley neighborhood of Los Angeles ($23 million, Round 2 grantee)
  • City of Oakland ($28 million, Round 3 grantee)
  • City of Riverside ($9 million, Round 3 grantee)
  • City of Stockton ($11 million, Round 3 grantee)

LCI serves as the lead evaluator in all three Round 1 sites, in one Round 2 site (Northeast San Fernando Valley) and in one Round 3 site (Stockton).

TCC includes mechanisms for accountability, including oversight from community members and third-party evaluation from academic researchers.

As part of this, the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation and UC Berkeley evaluation team worked with the Round 1 communities of Fresno, Ontario, and Watts to create the:

Transformative Climate Communities Evaluation Plan

Published in late 2018, this evaluation plan provides a research roadmap that is now used to track and assess local progress and results of TCC investments over a five-year period in the three Round 1 sites. The UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation has since developed supplemental evaluation plans for TCC investments in Northeast San Fernando Valley and Stockton, which are available upon request by emailing luskincenter@gmail.com.

TCC is part of the suite of California Climate Investments funded by the state’s cap-and-trade program. It unifies many of the California Climate Investments project types into a single, place-based initiative. Specifically, TCC funds the following project types:

  • Construction of affordable housing near transit;
  • Installation of rooftop solar and energy efficiency improvements for homes;
  • Purchase of electric vehicles, including buses, that can run on clean energy instead of fossil fuels;
  • Expansion of bus service coverage or frequency;
  • Improvement and expansion of bike lanes and sidewalks;
  • Planting of trees along bike and pedestrian routes and near buildings; and
  • Implementation of waste diversion programs, such as the collection and reuse of food waste and neighborhood-scale composting.

To maximize the benefits of these types of projects, TCC community grantees also must develop and implement the following transformative plans:

  • A community engagement plan to ensure TCC investments reflect the vision and goals of community members;
  • A workforce development plan to bring economic opportunities to disadvantaged and low-income communities; and
  • A displacement avoidance plan to minimize the risk of gentrification and displacement of residents and businesses following neighborhood improvements.

The UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation releases an annual progress report for each of the TCC sites where the center works (Fresno, Ontario, Northeast San Fernando Valley, Stockton and Watts). These reports highlight implementation progress, changing community conditions, lessons learned that can inform future action and results that can be attributed to TCC investments.

The annual reports include several components: background information, profiles of the transformative plans and projects, testimonies from residents and workers in TCC communities, and a wealth of baseline data on community conditions that could change as a result of five years of TCC implementation. This includes data related to demographic, economic, energy, environmental, health, housing and transportation conditions.

Ontario Together (Round I Grantee)

Transform Fresno (Round I Grantee)

Watts Rising (Round I Grantee)

Green Together/NE San Fernando Valley (Round II Grantee)

Stockton Rising (Round III Grantee)

Check out these annual summaries of community-led climate action:

LCI provides the following repository for open access to all code developed by LCI for the purpose of TCC evaluation:

TCC Evaluation GitHub Repository 

This repository can be used by researchers to replicate our findings (for verification) or methods (for use in other evaluations).

Principal Investigator

V. Kelly Turner, Ph.D

UCLA Project Director:

Jason Karpman

UCLA Researchers:

Elena Hernandez
Samantha Astudillo
Colleen Callahan

Graduate Student Collaborators:

Abhilasha Bola
Emma French
Lillian Liang
Xochitl Lopez
Linda Mitchell
Melody Ng


Photo caption/credit: Left: A GRID Alternatives crew installing solar panels on the Bridges at Florence affordable senior living apartments in the Transform Fresno project area. Photo credit: Fresno Housing Authority; Middle: Children in front of the Watts Towers. Photo credit: Orr, Los Angeles Times; Right: UCLA graduate student researcher Elena Hernandez (left) receives a tour of the Huerta del Valle Community Garden, led by an Ontario community leader, Beatriz Castro. Photo credit: UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation.