Be a catalyst for change to ensure access to healthy water systems for everyone
Rewriting codes, laws, and policies to ensure equitable access to water, sanitation and food systems that are resilient to climate change and other forces.
Recode develops building code and policy changes to create equitable and sustainable water, site sanitation and nutrient recovery solutions at the local, state and national level. We believe that better water and sanitation systems in the US can make communities more resilient and just if we thoughtfully engage impacted community members. To help solve this crisis, we must listen and adopt solutions from the lived experiences of those who lack adequate access to water and sanitation. We then work with regulators, utilities, experts in water and sanitation, community leaders, legislators, and others to create codes, laws and policies that increase access to sustainable water systems.
Equity
Recode’s vision includes governance that encourages innovation for watershed health and community resilience in the face of climate change and other disruptions.
This type of governance can only be created through the lived experiences of impacted community members and it must ensure solutions that benefit all communities. Recode convenes both community residents (who share their lived experiences) and technical experts to write and rewrite building codes and policy. Our goal is to generate solutions that benefit people living on low incomes and people of color, ensuring that policy benefits are available to all communities.
Building Code Development
Recode’s strategy on changing or creating building code and policies is to hire local community members as equal exchange partners and to augment the effectiveness of our technical expertise. This process is focused on increasing decision-making diversity, avoiding unintended consequences and prioritizing solutions for those most affected. Recode then works with regulators, public agencies and industry on changing or creating building code with these live-experiences as guide posts.
Programs
The successful measure of our work is not measure with a new policy, building code or law, but in the process of creating lasting change. By working with those most affected by levers of oppression (capitalism, colonialism, racism, and patriarchy), we are breaking the institutionalize structures in which rules and regulations have been created. Our success then is measured in the scaffolding structure of this community-based governing approach.
First is coalition building and empowerment.
Second is a common call to action.
Next is planning and drafting of governance.
Last is passage of laws, regulations and policies at the highest levels.
We anticipate that our work is slow, deliberate and methodical. We will measure success in empowered community members and not the number of policies written. We will measure goals in the number of common “calls to actions” and not laws passed. In community we can create lasting and meaningful change.
“Recode was an invaluable asset in the campaign for legalizing graywater reuse. Recode ably coordinated the many groups working on this bill and brought the voice of the grassroots to the legislative table. Recode’s efforts to remove regulatory barriers to sustainability is incredibly important work.”
— Ben Cannon, Oregon Representative
Contact
Feel free to contact us with any questions.
Email
info@recodenow.org
Phone
(503) 893 9584