Our Team / Irene Takako Farr
Irene leads environmental justice policy initiatives that incorporate community experience and knowledge into strategic decision-making and policy development.
Irene works with local communities, advocates, government, and the private sector to address California’s most pressing climate challenges through equitable and just policy solutions. Her experience includes building, facilitating, and sustaining cross-sector dialogue to uplift community needs and advance community-driven policy solutions. At Better World Group, Irene has worked on policy development and advocacy at local, statewide, and national levels, focusing on the intersections of environmental justice, renewable energy, zero-emission transportation, housing, wildfires, water, oceans and coasts, and waste and recycling.
Irene advances environmental justice community priorities by bridging community engagement with policy implementation. She led the formation of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power Community Advisory Board and continues to facilitate its work, helping ensure community voices inform the utility’s transition to 100% renewable energy. In 2025, she led a statewide outreach effort with community partners to shape California’s first-ever Zero-emission Vehicle Equity Action Plan for the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development. She also supported collaboration between organizations across the U.S. to develop a scoring rubric that evaluates ports nationwide based on their commitments to reducing emissions and engaging local communities.
Her work further includes helping develop the California Ocean Protection Council’s groundbreaking Equity Plan in 2023 and co-facilitating the Environmental Justice Advisory Board that guides its implementation. She was as a contributing author to the California Natural Resource Agency’s Salton Sea Community Needs and Recommended Actions.
Irene serves on the board of Pasadena Audubon, where she supports the organization’s efforts to reinforce outdoor access and education for San Gabriel Valley residents.
Prior to joining Better World Group, Irene explored climate justice in the context of urban planning, transportation, and labor as a UCLA research assistant. She was a graduate fellow at the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies in 2020.