In response to escalating climate disruption and its disproportionate impacts on marginalized communities, California has aimed to strengthen environmental and climate change literacy and included climate justice in state education code. Yet pre-kindergarten to grade 12 (PK-12) climate change education is impeded by limited support for teachers, no rigorously evaluated curriculum, and the need for clearer definitions of and pedagogies for climate justice. In 2019, the University of California and California State University launched the Environmental and Climate Change Literacy Projects (ECCLPs), a coalition of PK-12 and tertiary educators, researchers, schools, nonprofits, and advocacy organizations, to address these needs by bringing together diverse research and practice communities to amplify impact and empowerment. Using mixed methods approaches, we document emergent findings from ECCLPs’ first year, focusing on the formation of three interdisciplinary committees. We demonstrate how ECCLPs’ inclusive recruitment and meaningful engagement strategies have formed a network rooted in justice with an emerging, process-oriented identity.