Everyone wants thriving neighborhoods—places where people and planet are both prioritized. Whether you are shaping infrastructure, guiding policy, planning districts, or building coalitions, the goal is the same: to create sustainable neighborhoods for all. That vision has always driven the EcoDistricts community, and it continues forward in the Just Communities Protocol.
The Accredited Practitioner (AP) program is built around that Protocol—a national standard that centers racial equity and climate justice in neighborhood-scale development. It affirms not just your technical skill but your commitment to systemic repair, regenerative design, and shared power. What should be standard—designing with care, resourcing communities equitably, stewarding land, and honoring local culture—has too often been sidelined. This program helps make it the norm.
If you’re someone who plans, organizes, designs, builds, or funds communities and you’re ready to apply a more principled, place-based, and community-accountable approach to your work, the AP program is for you.
Here’s what the journey to becoming an AP looks like, step by step.
Step 1: Understand What the AP Program Is (and Isn’t)
The AP program is for people ready to do this work with integrity.
It’s not a branding exercise or a quick training on best practices. It’s a hands-on process that helps you apply the Just Communities Protocol— helping neighbors and practitioners worldwide co-create more just, liberatory, and green communities.Â
Just Communities is a transformative movement that connects visionary leaders, innovative projects, and collaborative networks to advance equitable and regenerative urban and community development solutions. Two pillars of the Just Communities Protocol are racial equity and climate justice. They shape every phase of neighborhood-scale community development—from planning and design to investment and implementation. The Protocol recognizes that the legacy of segregation, disinvestment, environmental harm, and displacement is not just historical—it is ongoing, with measurable impacts on land, health, education, infrastructure, and opportunity. Racial equity is not treated as an add-on; it is the starting point. The Protocol calls for specific strategies to dismantle systemic barriers, redistribute resources according to need, and center the voices and leadership of historically excluded communities. At the same time, climate justice ensures that environmental sustainability and repair are inseparable from community health and land stewardship. Together, these pillars define what just, future-ready development must look like.
Becoming an AP means you’re committed to aligning your work with these values—not in theory, but in practice.
Step 2: Understand Who the AP Program is For
The Accredited Practitioner (AP) program equips leaders across sectors with the tools to embed racial equity, climate resilience, and community regeneration into their everyday work. Whether you’re planning, organizing, designing, or investing in communities, the AP program offers practical strategies to drive just and lasting change.
Practitioners apply the Protocol in ways that reflect their unique roles:
- Community-based organizations use it to facilitate inclusive engagement, build power, and organize for change.
- Municipal planners apply it to guide equitable planning, zoning, permitting, land use, and infrastructure.
- Designers and engineers use it to shape district-scale urban design and infrastructure strategies.
- Developers embed it into project design, funding priorities, and accountability practices.
- Philanthropic institutions and impact investors align grantmaking, capital deployment, and evaluation with equity and sustainability goals.
Step 3:Â Participate in the Live 2-Day Accreditation Course
The AP course takes place over two days in a live, virtual setting—bringing practitioners together from across the country for a collaborative learning experience. This is where the tools come to life, the conversations deepen, and your connection to the broader network begins to grow.
This gathering is a facilitated space to learn in community. It’s where you’ll:
- Explore real-world case studies alongside fellow practitioners
- Share strategies, challenges, and insights from your own work
- Connect across roles, geographies, and lived experiences
- Leave with new tools and new collaborators
Whether you’re a public agency staffer, urban planner, or real estate developer, this is a space for shared growth and learning among a diverse community of practitioners. We don’t all do the same work, but we all care about doing it differently and better.
Step 4: Get Accredited and Contribute to the Information Exchange
Once you complete the course and take the exam, you become an Accredited Practitioner—and part of a larger, evolving ecosystem of peers, tools, and support.
That includes access to the Information Exchange: a growing collection of resources created by and for APs. It features toolkits, planning guides, metrics, case studies, and examples that support justice-centered work across sectors.
Anyone can browse the Exchange. But only certified APs can contribute to it.
This distinction matters. The Exchange isn’t just a static resource library; it’s a space of trust and shared learning. It reflects the values of the network: transparency, collaboration, and commitment to doing better together.
Step 5: Carry It Forward
Becoming an AP isn’t a one-time experience—it’s an ongoing practice.
Many APs go on to redesign internal processes, train their teams, shape public engagement strategies, or shift their organizations’ perspective on power and accountability. Some host peer sessions. Others mentor new APs or partner across sectors on new projects.
However you move forward, you’re not doing it alone. You’re part of a network that’s committed to equity, not as a trend, but as a standard.
Ready to Start?
The next AP Live course is September 11 and 12. If you’re ready to deepen your practice, sharpen your tools, and join a community of peers doing transformative work, this is your invitation.
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The future we need is already being built. Let’s make it the norm.