Maren Costa
Candidate for City Council, Seattle, WA
Maren is a 21-year resident of West Seattle, a Public School mom, tech leader, start-up advisor, and climate justice organizer. She has more than two decades of experience and holds more than a dozen patents as a senior leader at tech companies including Adobe, Amazon, and Microsoft, where she managed big teams and million-dollar budgets, and frequently brought competing teams together to get more done more efficiently. While at Amazon, Maren became so discouraged by their lack of action on climate change that she co-founded Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, which used first-in-the-industry collective organizing tactics to rally thousands of tech workers, bringing international scrutiny to Amazon's climate negligence, and resulting in multi-billion dollar climate commitments. Now, Maren is running to represent Seattle's District 1 to help lead a more sustainable, equitable, and safer Seattle.
Maren’s Vision
Transportation
Fight for subsidized, affordable and/or free public transit.
Build out EV charging infrastructure.
Electrify Seattle’s short haul trucking and port docks.
Build out safe bike infrastructure.
Partner with King County to fight to expand and improve the city’s transit system.
Buildings, Housing, and Greening the Urban Environment
Transition to the use of electric heat-pumps in commercial and residential buildings.
Push for faster timelines for the Mayors Office’s Building Emissions Performance Standards. This would require buildings larger than 20k square feet by 2035 instead of 2050. as well as implementing stronger enforcement mechanisms.
Partner with environmental groups to fight for major state and federal subsidies to reduce the cost burdens associated with the transition to heat-pumps.
Fight to make every library and community center in Seattle a climate resilience hub with clean air, heat-pump cooling, microgrid solar power, and access to social services associated with extreme weather events.
Fight to better fund parks, rain gardens, bioswales, green roofs, green walls, planter box barriers, green medians, street trees, and urban forests.
Improve Seattle’s tree cover to reduce daytime temperatures.
Renewable Energy and Green Union Jobs
Fight for Seattle City Light to start equitably planning for and building out renewable power generation that can meet the city’s energy needs and create union jobs in the green economy.
Work with port of Seattle, businesses, and unions to ensure the Seattle will be a leader in creating union jobs for the development of renewable energy infrastructure.
Work to secure state, federal, and private funding to make South Seattle College a top university in the nation focused on setting people up for good careers in the green economy
“I believe in starting where we are and acting locally. When I worked at Amazon, I got fed up with working for a corporation that was willfully degrading the planet that we will entrust to our children and grandchildren. So my colleagues and I stood up and organized -- and in many ways, we won. Now, I'm running for Seattle City Council largely because I believe we can do more on climate justice: affordable housing in our city, near great transit and on tree-lined streets; electrify the port; train skilled union workers in our high schools and community colleges; and create climate resiliency hubs in every neighborhood.
I envision a future where all Seattle residents can live healthy, prosperous lives, in a thriving sustainable ecosystem. I'm proud to run on climate! I hope you'll join us: mareforseattle.org”
— Maren Costa
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