What is environmental justice?

Also referred to as “eco-justice,” environmental justice focuses on achieving environmental equity. It encourages populations to have meaningful involvement in the policies that shape their communities and fair treatment in the decision-making processes that ensure environmental protection.

There are three types or principles of environmental justice:

• Distributive justice: The equitable distribution of environmental risks and benefits.
• Procedural justice: The fair and meaningful participation in decision-making.
• Recognition justice: The recognition of oppression and difference in environmental justice communities.

Environmental injustice is the idea that environmental harm is inequitably distributed and influenced by patterns of racism and inequality. Environmental injustice occurs when low-income or otherwise underserved communities are impacted and overburdened by factors like toxic waste, resource extraction and other land uses from which the residents of those communities do not benefit.

For example, it is more likely for an interstate highway system to run through a marginalized community.¹ In majority-white and wealthy neighborhoods, there are more investments in infrastructure, environmental laws are enforced and polluters are more likely to be held accountable. Community leaders in these areas are also connected to the decision-making process within zoning boards or city councils, who can better protect their interests.

Environmental injustice is also a public health issue. Residents of neighborhoods located near industrial sites, waste transfer stations, landfills and other sources of pollution may experience exposure to environmental hazards that pose serious health impacts.

The environmental justice movement has been primarily driven by people of color. It can be traced back to the Indigenous environmental movement, which is the struggle by Indigenous Peoples for sovereignty and land rights through more than 500 years of colonialism.

The modern environmental justice movement is considered to have begun in the United States. A transformer company in Raleigh, North Carolina started illegally storing industrial waste containing polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) along rural roads in fifteen North Carolina counties. In 1982, state officials choose Warren County, which is rural, poor and majority Black, as the site to store PCB-contaminated soil from the illegal dumping sites. Residents had concerns about the chemicals entering the water supply.

The decision gained international attention. Local resident protesters were joined by national organizations, such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The marches and nonviolent street protests continued for six weeks and 500 people were arrested, which marks the first arrests in history over a landfill site. While the protests ultimately failed to stop the use of the landfill, the event was widely cited for being the first major milestone in the movement for environmental justice.

The movement quickly expanded worldwide. Notably, the surge of exports of hazardous materials to countries in the Global South, starting in the 1980s, propelled the international environmental justice movement, leading to 1991’s First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit held in Washington, D.C.

In many ways, the environmental justice movement was born from the US civil rights movement of the 1960s. Many of the organizations and leaders who participated in the Warren County protests were also involved in the civil rights movement. Often, these leaders were affiliated with African-American churches, such as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the United Church of Christ.

The term environmental racism was defined by civil rights leader Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. He defined the phrase as “the intentional selection for waste facilities in communities that are primarily populated by people of color and low-income and migrant workers”.

The overlap between the two movements exists because residents in America’s most polluted environments, such as the case of Warren County, are statistically more likely to be people of color and those living in poverty. These areas typically have lower property values due to a history of “redlining”, the practice of denying loans and insurance to communities of color. Redlining leads to more communities of color living in areas with increased environmental risk. Residents also face increased health risks, like higher rates of asthma, cancer and other illnesses.

In response to the Warren County protests, the Commission for Racial Justice studied the placement of hazardous waste facilities in the US, finding that race was the most important factor in predicting the placement of these sites. Also, the 1983 Government Accounting Office (GAO) study showed that three-quarters of the hazardous waste landfill sites in eight southeastern states were in primarily lower-income, Black and Latino communities.²

Exposure to environmental harms like pollution is correlated with poverty. Poorer countries suffer from more environmental harms while higher-income countries produce most of the pollution.

The terms “Global North” and “Global South” categorize two regions of the world in terms of both geography and economic power. Countries in the Global North are Western, typically high-income countries, north of the equator. The Global South is used to define low-income countries that are south of the equator and often former colonies of countries in the Global North.

As countries in the Global North achieve sustainability milestones, more regulations have increased the cost of getting rid of waste. In response, some companies and governments export their waste to countries in the Global South, where regulations are less strict, exponentially increasing the environmental burden on the region.

Climate change also creates situations of environmental injustice. The impacts of climate change—like extreme temperatures, increased precipitation and sea level rise—disproportionately affect low-income communities. Those living in flood zones, for example, are more likely to reside in underserved neighborhoods.

Environmental law protects the environment by governing how humans interact with the environment and living things. Modern environmental policy intends to improve and maintain environmental quality and lessen the detrimental effects to human health.

Environmental laws include laws on air pollution, water quality, waste management, contaminant cleanup and chemical safety. On a global level, legally binding international agreements cover various environmental issues. Protocols are subsidiary agreements that are built from a primary treaty, the most well known being the Kyoto Protocol. A result from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Kyoto Protocol commits state parties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

There are cost barriers that are related to environmental justice issues, as the process often involves litigation. Legal fees, for example, are a challenge for those fighting against environmental justice concerns. Minority communities, who are already disproportionately impacted, often do not have the financial resources to oppose hazardous waste sites or address other disparities.

According to the Global Atlas of Environmental Justice (EJAtlas), there are 4,076 social conflicts that are created by environmental injustices worldwide as of April 2024.³ Here are just three examples:

Over the years, hundreds of environmental justice grassroots organizations and community outreach groups have worked with various stakeholders to further environmental justice initiatives and shape environmental justice strategy. Overall, the goal is to achieve agency for marginalized communities in making environmental decisions that affect their lives.

In the US, President Biden signed Executive Order 1400 during his first week in the White House, which started the most ambitious environmental justice policy agenda that is ever undertaken by the federal government: "Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad." The order builds on the foundational efforts of Executive Order 12898, "Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations", which was passed to ensure no federal agency environmental policy would disproportionally affect minority-ethnic, disadvantaged communities.

Globally, the environmental justice movement is advocating for environmental health issues to be addressed by the United Nations. In 2022 in New York City, the 76th UN General Assembly adopted a resolution to recognize “the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment”, but the right to a healthy environment has not been added to the UN Declaration of Human Rights.⁴