Weaving the Threads of the Reuse Economy Tapestry
Coalfield Development and the Role of Reuse in a Just Transition
Welcome to Upstream’s series examining — through storytelling, case studies, and interviews — the principles of a just transition and how reuse is in conversation with every element. In this installment, we learn from the nonprofit organization Coalfield Development about their work forging a just transition to a viable, sustainable economy in Appalachia.
Jacob Hannah, CEO of Coalfield Development, explains the plan for rebuilding and bringing sustainable economic opportunity to West Virginia.
Jacob Hannah comes from a family of coal miners. His father, grandfather, and great-grandfather all mined coal in the hills of Appalachia. Today, he’s continuing that legacy by what he refers to as, “mining the sun” — turning brownfields into brightfields.
But this is only one of the ways he’s seizing innovation and building resilience into his community as CEO of Coalfield Development.
Coalfield Development started in southern West Virginia with a scrappy fundraising strategy, one volunteer, and three crew members (one had recently left the foster care system, another had just transitioned out of the justice system, and a third had exited the coal industry — each had young children). They’ve grown substantially since those humble origins, all the while working continuously to address the social and economic challenges that face Appalachian communities. Sixteen years later, the organization employs about 135 people and serves some of West Virginia’s most disenfranchised community members — removing barriers so they can get back on their feet.
West Virginia has long been Coal Country. But just like other communities built around a single, extractive, and declining economy, the state and its residents are in transition. As coal mines close across the state, Coalfield Development is both building the infrastructure for a resilient, diversified Appalachia economy, and helping the next generation of would-be miners and members of the community pivot to new careers and opportunities. Some skepticism over new economies naturally exists. And polarized rhetoric doesn’t help. But from his experience, Jacob says, “the myth-busting happens with a paycheck.”
Through workforce development, social entrepreneurship, and community-led construction projects, Coalfield Development creates pathways to well-paying jobs and thriving economies. They work with people who may have barriers to employment — lack of vital documents, those exiting substance use recovery, involvement in the criminal legal system, and those laid off due to the declining coal sector. To date, Coalfield Development has helped train more than 3,800 people, created over a 1,000 new jobs, and created over 100 social enterprises by focusing on people, place, and prosperity.
Continuing Appalachia’s heritage of reuse
Reuse is not new. That’s as true in West Virginia as anywhere else. Jacob wants to tap back into that culture of makers and doers who didn’t just throw something out when it was broken, but rather fixed it or turned it into something new. “That's been alive and well in Appalachia for generations,” he says. “How can we celebrate that culture again?”
The answer, at least in part, is the Reuse Corridor — a multi-state coalition including Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Virginia — that is leaning into the heritage of reuse, trading and transporting materials across states to be repurposed, reused, or upcycled. In 2026, Coalfield Development will complete construction of Black Diamond. They’re transforming this 60,000+ sq ft former brownfield site into a hub for the Reuse Corridor that will offer workforce training, a maker space for new social enterprises, and a place to process and distribute materials. Coalfield Development projects that Black Diamond will create more than 500 direct jobs and 7,300 indirect jobs.
“This is a new sector we are incubating with not a lot of institutional strength,” Jacob says. “[We are] building it out as we deploy it.” But doing so can have an outsized impact. Coalfield Development’s work paves the way for reuse buildout by introducing new economic and workforce training concepts to areas that have been left behind by capitalism and a take-make-waste societal mindset. This work also presents an opportunity to create resilient local economies run in part by reuse systems.
Weaving the reuse economy
Upstream and Coalfield Development are working on different threads of the broader reuse economy tapestry. In cases like Black Diamond, the transformation comes in the revitalizing of sites that have been abandoned by a system that extracts resources and wealth from communities — instead turning them into new economic opportunities that circulate wealth within the community. In parallel, Upstream is working to help build resilient, self-sustaining regional economies through reuse infrastructure and systems. Both types of projects — when mindfully designed with all stakeholders at the table — can be cornerstones of a just transition from an extractive, exploitative economy to one that regenerates and repairs. Both can facilitate local economies that center self-determination, robust social safety nets, and ecological responsibility.
As Coalfield Development works toward a new and just economy in Appalachia, Upstream is working toward our vision for a reuse economy through the same paradigm. As we weave our different visions of reuse, we are actually weaving different corners of a shared, greater whole — both building new and better systems as we work toward a sustainable future for all.
