Maren Costa has announced her candidacy for the District 1, Seattle Council race. Costa made news in 2019 when she organized an Amazon Employees for Climate Justice campaign. That led to a lawsuit by the National Labor Relations Board which was ultimately settled. In her announcement online she states:

"Maren Costa has more than two decades of experience and holds more than a dozen patents as a Design Leader at tech companies including Adobe, Amazon, and Microsoft. She is an advisor for three climate start ups: Power Bloom Solar, Carbon Zero, and Impact Karma. A passionate advocate for women’s rights, workers’ rights, and ethics in AI, Maren is also a founding member and the current President of Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, a worker-powered organization credited with monumental wins, such as Amazon’s Climate Pledge, and Jeff Bezos’s $10 billion Earth Fund. 

Maren and her colleague Emily Cunningham were fired from Amazon in April of 2020 for standing up for climate justice and for warehouse workers’ safety during Covid. Amazon’s actions were highly contested—nine US Senators and fourteen US Attorneys General wrote an open letter to Jeff Bezos contesting the firings, and the National Labor Relations Board filed suit, which was settled out of court. 

Maren recently worked at Microsoft, focused on leading projects centered on the intersection of design, technology, and a sustainable future. She is proud to have launched Ethical Shopping making Bing the first major search engine to incorporate ethical shopping filters. She also lead the internal effort to make Microsoft’s 401(k) plan climate-safe. Originally from Northfield, Minnesota, Maren has lived in Seattle since 1991, and West Seattle since 2002. She is an LGBTQ mom of a non-traditional, blended family. Her partner and his two teenagers live in White Center, and she and her two teenagers live in West Seattle. All four kids are in Seattle-area Public Schools."