Research Guides: Environmental Ethics: Environmental Inequity & Justice

What is it?

From the Encyclopedia of the Environment - "...environmental inequalities are the expression of an environmental burden that would be borne primarily by disadvantaged and/or minority populations or by territories suffering from a certain poverty and exclusion of these inhabitants."

https://www.encyclopedie-environnement.org/en/society/environmental-inequalities/

From the US Environmental Protection Agency - Environmental justice is the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income, with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies. This goal will be achieved when everyone enjoys:

The same degree of protection from environmental and health hazards, and
Equal access to the decision-making process to have a healthy environment in which to live, learn, and work.

Read the Factsheet about the EPA's Office of Environmental Justice

https://www.epa.gov/environmentaljustice

Where to find more information

California Environmental Justice Alliance
The California Environmental Justice Alliance is a statewide, community-led alliance that works to achieve environmental justice by advancing policy solutions. We unite the powerful local organizing of our members in the communities most impacted by environmental hazards – low-income communities and communities of color – to create comprehensive opportunities for change at a statewide level. We build the power of communities across California to create policies that will alleviate poverty and pollution. Together, we are growing the statewide movement for environmental health and social justice.
Chemical & Engineering News | The Rise of Environmental Justice
A recent article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America put the impact of pollution on communities of color into a full racial-equity framework (2020, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1818859116). On average, the study found that non-Hispanic white people experience a “pollution advantage” of 17% less air pollution exposure than is caused by the goods and services they consume. In contrast, Blacks and Hispanics bear a “pollution burden” of 56% and 63% excess exposure, respectively, relative to the pollution caused by their consumption.
City of Sacramento | Environmental Justice
Environmental Justice (or EJ) is defined by the California Environmental Justice Alliance as:
“The basic right of people to live, work, go to school, and pray in a healthy and clean environment—regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, age, culture, ability, nationality, or income.”
Climate, Migration & Displacement Platform
We bring together civil society, activists, and experts engaged in climate, migration, and displacement issues to improve understanding and align advocacy across policy spaces.
Climate Reugees
Climate Refugees is a human rights organization that calls for the protection and rights of those displaced by climate change. Through advocacy, storytelling, case studies and global monitoring, we shed light on the complexities of climate-induced displacement, its human rights implications and the climate injustice at its roots.
Ecological Society of America | Traditional Ecological Knowledge
The purpose of this Section is to: (1) promote the understanding, dissemination and respectful use of traditional ecological knowledge in ecological research, application and education; (2) to encourage education in traditional ecological knowledge; (3) to stimulate research which incorporates the traditional knowledge and participation of indigenous people and; (4) to increase participation by indigenous people in the Ecological Society of America
EJAtlas | Global Atlas of Environmental Justice
The EJ Atlas is a teaching, networking and advocacy resource. Strategists, activist organizers, scholars, and teachers will find many uses for the database, as well as citizens wanting to learn more about the often invisible conflicts taking place.
Encyclopedia Britannica | Saving Earth
2021 marks the 51st anniversary of Earth Day the beginning of a critical decade to save our planet’s health. Learn about what we’ve accomplished and failed to accomplish in the last 5 decades, and explore some of the key environmental problems we have yet to solve. Discover the promising solutions that do exist for these challenges and meet the figures and organizations—past and present—who have led the charge. Get involved while we celebrate Earth and take care of our precious, fascinating, beautiful home!
The Environmental Justice Coalition for Water (EJCW)
A statewide coalition of grassroots groups and intermediary organizations building a collective, community-based movement for democratic water allocation, management, and policy in California. EJCW empowers the most under-served communities, including those of low-income and communities of color throughout California to advocate for clean, safe, and affordable water.
Global Alliance of Territorial Communities
The Global Alliance of Territorial Communities (GATC) is a political platform of indigenous peoples and local communities united to defend Mother Earth for all humanity’s present and future benefit. Our alliance represents 35 million people living in forest territories from 24 countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. We are defenders of over 958 million hectares of land.
Grassroots International
Our mission is to connect people in the US with global movements that defend land, territory, water, food, seeds, and the earth. Together, we address the root causes of injustice and oppression, and build alternatives that nurture human rights, ecological justice, and liberation. We do this through grantmaking, social action, and philanthropic leadership.
Indigenous Environmental Network
Established in 1990 within the United States, IEN was formed by grassroots Indigenous peoples and individuals to address environmental and economic justice issues (EJ). IEN’s activities include building the capacity of Indigenous communities and tribal governments to develop mechanisms to protect our sacred sites, land, water, air, natural resources, health of both our people and all living things, and to build economically sustainable communities.
Mapping Inequality | Redlining in New Deal America
Redlining directed both public and private capital to native-born white families and away from African American and immigrant families. As homeownership was arguably the most significant means of intergenerational wealth building in the United States in the twentieth century, these redlining practices from eight decades ago had long-term effects in creating wealth inequalities that we still see today. Mapping Inequality, we hope, will allow and encourage you to grapple with this history of government policies contributing to inequality.
Migration Policy Institute (MPI)
Founded in 2001, the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) has established itself as a leading institution in the field of migration policy and as a source of authoritative research, learning opportunities, and new policy ideas. MPI maintains a special commitment to work on immigration and integration policies in North America and Europe, where its two offices are located, but it also remains active around the world, and takes a global and comparative approach to migration issues when possible.
NAACP | Environmental & Climate Justice
Climate change and environmental injustice: we work to address the many practices that are harming communities nationwide and worldwide. We fight for the policies needed to rectify these impacts and advance a society that fosters sustainable, cooperative, regenerative communities that uphold all rights for all people in harmony with the earth.
National Congress of American Indians | Tribal Food Sovereignty Advancement Initiative
NCAI’s Tribal Food Sovereignty Advancement Initiative (TFSAI) supports the development and strengthening of tribal nations’ efforts to build and protect the Indigenous food systems that have long sustained their citizens, communities, and cultures.
National Family Farm Coalition (NFFC) | Food Sovereignty
Today, we are the only national coalition representing grassroots farm, ranch, and fishing organizations in the nation’s capital. Through our 30 member groups, we represent in 42 states. Our members are fighting for farmer rights, fair prices, clean air and water, strong local economies, the right to sell and buy locally-grown and -processed food, the right to be free from corporate domination, the right to live in vibrant and healthy rural communities, and much more.
RAND Corporation | Environmental Racism A Tool for Exploring the Enduring Legacy of Redlining on Urban Environments
Redlining was a practice beginning in the mid-1930s by which federal and local governments and financing entities denied financial services to Black people and other people of color in the United States. It is an example of government-endorsed structural racism that has had a lasting influence on mobility and wealth generation. Previous research has shown that residents of formerly redlined neighborhoods exhibit worse health, to this day, for birth outcomes, prevalence of chronic disease, health care utilization because of asthma, and cancer stage at diagnosis
Role of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Environmental Justice (IF10529)
ScienceDirect | Environmental Justice
Environmental justice is defined as equitable exposure to environmental good and harm (Wolch et al., 2014).
From: Urban Ecology, 2020
The Sierra Club | Environmental Justice
Our Mission: To discuss and explore the linkages between environmental quality and social justice, and to promote dialogue, increased understanding, and appropriate action.
The State of Diversity in Environmental Organizations: Mainstream NGOs, Foundations & Government Agencies
The report, “The State of Diversity in Environmental Organizations: Mainstream NGOs, Foundations & Government Agencies,” is the most comprehensive report on diversity in the environmental movement. It surveyed 191 environmental non-profits, 74 government environmental agencies, and 28 leading environmental grant making foundations to investigate their gender and racial diversity composition, the majority of which state diversification as a “value.” The study included confidential interviews of 21 environmental leaders from diverse backgrounds and experience. The result was an overwhelmingly white "Green Insider's Club."
U.S. Food Sovereignty Alliance
The US Food Sovereignty Alliance (USFSA) works to end poverty, rebuild local food economies, and assert democratic control over the food system. We believe all people have the right to healthy, culturally appropriate food, produced in an ecologically sound manner. As a US-based alliance of food justice, anti-hunger, labor, environmental, faith-based, and food producer groups, we uphold the right to food as a basic human right and work to connect our local and national struggles to the international movement for food sovereignty.
The United States Department of Justice | Office of Environmental Justice
The Department of Justice is committed to addressing environmental justice concerns in every community. Many components within the Department of Justice address environmental concerns in communities across the country.
What is food sovereignty?
Food sovereignty is the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems.

Last Updated: Feb 12, 2024 12:03 PM