About CARB’s Racial Equity Lens

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The California Air Resources Board (CARB) envisions a future where all Californians equitably breathe healthy and clean air, benefit from actions to address climate change, and where race is no longer a predictor of life outcomes. Using a racial equity tool, known as CARB’s Racial Equity Lens (REL), helps CARB achieve this vision of racial equity.

CARB’s REL is rooted in the philosophy of cultural humility, which emphasizes the lifelong commitment to self-evaluation, self-critique, and developing partnerships with community partners — especially leaders and community members directly impact by our work. This commitment helps to identify and address the power imbalances which create or perpetuate disparate impacts on California’s communities. For that reason, CARB’s REL has been designed as both an analytical tool and a process to be continually refined based on its use, learnings from staff, and community insights.

What are racial equity tools?

Racial equity tools — broadly defined as a set of methodologies that can be used to identify and mitigate systemic biases within policies, programs, and practices — provide actionable strategies and practical, data driven insight into decision making to help governments and other entities lead with race in the development and implementation of their policies, practices, and other actions.

Why did CARB develop CARB’s REL?

Applying a racial equity lens to CARB programs, policies, and practices supports CARB’s adoption of Resolution 20-33, which established an explicit commitment to racial equity and social justice and guides much of CARB’s racial equity work. The application of a racial equity lens also supports CARB’s efforts to address Governor Newsom’s Executive Order N-16-22, which requires state entities to embed racial equity strategies in their work, in part by developing or updating strategic plans to promote equity and respond to identified disparities. 

As described in CARB’s Racial Equity Framework and Model for Change, a crucial element of CARB’s racial equity work is operationalizing racial equity by deliberately assessing our work and better embedding considerations of race through the use of data-driven racial equity tools. Recognizing the need for a tool tailored to the diverse needs of staff, CARB began efforts to develop CARB’s REL in 2021 by researching similar efforts from other government agencies and drawing on expert guidance from organizations like the Government Alliance on Race and Equity and the US Environmental Protection Agency. 

What does CARB’s REL currently look like?

The current version of CARB’s REL is a series of equity-centered, data-driven questions, shown in Figure 1, that provide staff with a structured, yet flexible, approach to incorporate racial equity impact analysis in the various planning steps for proposals of policies, programs, and actions by:

  • Describing the legal, policy, and organizational frameworks at CARB for staff to consider racial equity.
  • Identifying the information staff should consider in determining any racial equity concerns involved in the policy, program, or action.
  • Characterizing and highlighting questions about racial equity that staff should ask and address in each step of the process.
  • Providing strategies and techniques for staff to better understand the racial equity specific outcomes and impacts of the policy, program, or action.

Figure 1: An overview of the current version of CARB’s Racial Equity Lens.

An image with the center reading Racial Equity Lens, there are two people watering a tree and there are smaller graphics of seeds being planted, seedlings being watered, sunshine and rain, a growing tree, a mature tree, and an apple. The text lists categories and questions of the Racial Equity Lens. 1. Proposal What is the Policy, Program, or Action being developed? Does the proposal have specific racial equity goals, concerns, or considerations? 2. Data What are the data underlying this proposal? What qualitative data should be collected? How does this data help us understand the root cause(s) of the inequity we are trying to address? 3. Engagement Who would be engaged, why and how? Refer to the Community Engagement Model when developing the plan 4. Analysis and Strategies Who benefits from or who will be burdened by the proposal? What strategies are being considered to mitigate unintended consequences and disparate impacts? 5. Implementation What is the plan for implementation? How will the plan ensure intended outcomes are achieved and aligned with racial equity goals? 6. Accountability How will the proposal outcomes and equity goals identified be tracked evaluated and communicated?

How has the current version of CARB’s REL been applied so far?

Between 2022 and 2024, staff piloted CARB’s REL with select divisions, including applying CARB’s REL to a community engagement strategy and in modifying the research planning process. CARB staff are currently developing a report on these pilot exercises that will be publicly released in spring 2025.

Thoughtful reflexivity, continual refinement, and persistent action are necessary to ensure that critical information is shared and continually acted upon in pursuit of just outcomes. To ensure that CARB’s REL best meets the needs of staff using the tool, as well as the needs of the communities it is intended to serve, CARB is committed to engaging in necessary developmental work prior to launching CARB’s REL agency wide.

What are the next steps for CARB’s REL?

The next step for CARB's REL is for staff to work with communities to continue refining the tool by incorporating insights from the lived experiences of communities, helping to validate the tool’s practicality and cultural sensitivity. CARB is currently working with community leaders and racial justice experts to help refine CARB’s REL and inform staff’s approach to applying the tool. 

Continuous dialogue and feedback will help to refine the tool and resources, build trust, and reinforce CARB’s commitment to long-term organizational change that advances racial equity. CARB plans to host more meetings on CARB’s REL in the future, where, through open discussion, staff aim to gain community insights to understand community priorities for assessing disparate impacts and inform the refinement of CARB’s REL. Information about these meetings will be posted on this webpage as they become available. In the meantime, please email any questions or insights on CARB’s REL to equity@arb.ca.gov.