Good & Green Jobs: Resilience for the Future

Summary

In 2025, Pacific Community Ventures (PCV) committed to reshaping economic opportunity and promoting a just transition by leveraging human-centered AI to accelerate $100 million in investments to underestimated small businesses in California. By 2030, PCV will support 50,000 entrepreneurs (50% women) and sustain 100,000 good and green jobs, embedding job quality at the center of the shift toward sustainability. Using AI-assisted investment mapping and worker voice tools to surface market gaps, strengthen entrepreneurial ecosystems, and identify scalable interventions, PCV will support fair and equitable capital flows to accelerate a just transition. This work is powered through PCV’s Good Jobs Innovation Lab, launched as a CGI commitment in 2022, and its newly acquired AI-enabled Radiant Data Hub. Together with their commitment partners, PCV will direct restorative capital, business advising, and worker-led solutions into critical sectors, including clean energy adoption, green retrofitting, and resilient supply chain participation.

Approach

To promote a just transition, and small business viability in the age of AI, Pacific Community Ventures (PCV) commits to launch their 2030 Strategic Plan which will deploy $100 million in capital and sustain more than 100,000 good and green jobs across 50,000 small businesses by 2030. Powered by its Good Jobs Innovation Lab (“The Lab”) and its recently acquired Radiant Data Hub (Hub) , PCV offers a bold commitment: leverage AI to unlock stalled capital, ensure it flows fairly, and transform investment into shared prosperity. PCV will transform AI from a driver of exclusion into a tool for accountability, delivering not only environmental progress but also durable economic opportunity for underestimated businesses, workers, and communities.
Building off PCV’s CGI Commitment to Action in 2022 that launched the Good Jobs Innovation Lab, this new commitment activates PCV’s “Research & Action Agenda 2.0,” to position greenhouse gas emissions reductions alongside worker-led job quality and ownership pathways for entrepreneurs and workers as non-negotiable joint outcomes rather than parallel goals.
The Lab will now deploy AI-assisted investment mapping and worker voice tools to surface market gaps, strengthen entrepreneurial ecosystems, and identify scalable interventions. These tools will direct catalytic capital and business advising to the underestimated small businesses most capable of delivering climate-aligned economic opportunity, including through green manufacturing, retrofitting, and resilient supply chain participation. This work will help demonstrate that even in an age when technology threatens to deepen divides, it can instead be wielded to build wealth, resilience, and equity where it is needed most–equipping small businesses not only to survive the transition, but to shape it.Through open-source tools, shared learning, and cross-Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) collaboration, this work will inform national standards for inclusive climate investment, embedding good and green jobs at the heart of community resilience.

Action Plan

This commitment involves three phases: phase 1 for infrastructure expansion and tool deployment, phase 2 for ecosystem strengthening in California, and phase 3 for scaling activities to support national influence.

Phase 1 (Q4 2025-Q3 2026) : Launch Good Jobs Toolkit 2.0; Finalize and Publish Research & Action Agenda 2.0; Upgrade Technology Roadmap; Apply AI Predictive Analytics to Impact-First Investment Strategy; Identify Regional and Sectoral Priorities for Good & Green Jobs; Onboard Commitment Partners; Implement Fund Innovation Pilots.

Phase 2 (Q3 2026-Q2 2028) : Launch Procurement-Readiness & Good Jobs Supports & Tools; Launch Ownership-Readiness & Good Jobs Supports & Tools; Pilot Regional and Sectoral Small Business Ecosystem Communities of Practice; Finalize and Launch Fund and Technical Assistance Innovation Roadmap with Partnerships Playbook; Publish Small Business Good (&Green) Jobs Index Data Tool; Deploy support to 15,000 businesses, supporting 30,000 workers including $60 million in impact-first loans.

Phase 3 (Q3 2028-Q4 2030) : Deploy support to 50,000 businesses, supporting 100,000 workers including $100 million impact-first loans in California; Expand Data Tools for National Mapping, Indexing and Impact Deployment; Provide Direct Support to 25 CDFIs and Entrepreneur Support Organizations.

Background

In the U.S., billions in promised investment from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF) to create good jobs, reduce energy burdens, and support healthy, thriving communities are stalled while inequality deepens.
As today’s AI revolution advances the climate crisis through massive energy demands while concentrating wealth and power in the hands of a few, small businesses and workers are being squeezed by rising costs and eroding social safety nets. It is clear AI will play a defining role in shaping whether opportunity expands or contracts. It is also possible to harness AI to expose inequities and redirect capital, ensuring that technology serves communities rather than exploiting them–helping capital providers understand what keeps small businesses and workers from opportunity.
Without intentional intervention and entrepreneurship support, the pattern of today’s investments and response to the climate crisis risk reinforcing inequity, leaving communities more vulnerable and less resilient. Economic and structural headwinds create persistent challenges for underestimated small businesses. Based on an analysis of data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics across NAICS codes defined by the Brookings Institution, PCV estimates up to 98% of “climate economy” businesses fit this profile and struggle to gain competitive footholds in supply chains and labor procurement pipelines. Innovation is needed to get small businesses the right capital and support to meet this moment, alongside insights to empower investors and communities to change the current trajectory.

Progress Update

Partnership Opportunities

Financial resources: PCV is seeking financial resources to bolster their innovation capacity through the Good Jobs Innovation Lab. Organizational support (enterprise capital) will give their team the flexibility to test new avenues of research, especially as it explores new technological tools. Financial resources will also enable them to deploy small grants to community partners as part of their power-sharing focus.
Implementing Partners: PCV welcomes good jobs and climate practitioners to contribute content and deeper expertise to their tools and research. They would love to work with organizations and individuals with expertise in the climate economy to serve as advisors to PCV’s research as well as its small business owners. PCV would also welcome benefits, small business marketing, retirement planning and asset-building experts to build out their best-in-class technical assistance tools and advising support for place-based practitioners.,Data & AI Infrastructure Support: PCV will offer infrastructure support to CDFIs and practitioners modernizing internal infrastructure and surfacing worker-led job quality solutions for their clients.
Best Practice Information: Through applied research initiatives, the Lab shares best practices on how to catalyze small business and job quality growth through climate investments. Their research is valuable for CDFIs, foundations, and other mission-driven investors looking to target climate capital where it has the most opportunity to support quality job creation and inclusive regional growth.
Community of Partners: PCV prioritizes building entrepreneur support ecosystems that are able to support small businesses throughout various growth and good jobs journeys. PCV can offer strategic partnerships with other organizations doing similar work to jointly support different small business needs that each organization specializes in meeting.