What is Environmental Justice?

What is Environmental Justice?

Environmental justice is the principle that all people—regardless of race, ethnicity, income, or national origin—deserve equal protection from environmental and health hazards and meaningful involvement in environmental decision-making. The movement emerged in the early 1980s in the United States when studies documented that hazardous waste facilities, polluting industries, and environmental degradation were disproportionately concentrated in communities of color and low-income neighborhoods. Environmental justice encompasses both distributive justice (fair allocation of environmental benefits and burdens) and procedural justice (equitable participation in decisions that affect community health and environment).

Why It Matters

The evidence of environmental inequity is overwhelming and persistent. A 2021 EPA study found that Black Americans are exposed to 1.54 times more particulate matter pollution than the overall population, while communities below the poverty line face 1.35 times greater exposure. The same patterns hold globally: a 2023 Lancet Planetary Health analysis found that low- and middle-income countries bear 92% of pollution-attributable deaths despite generating a fraction of global industrial output. These disparities are not accidental—they reflect decades of discriminatory land use decisions, exclusionary zoning, redlining, and political marginalization.

The health consequences are stark. Communities adjacent to petrochemical facilities along Louisiana's "Cancer Alley" experience cancer rates significantly above state and national averages. Residents of the Navajo Nation continue to suffer health effects from Cold War-era uranium mining, with cancer rates elevated 25 years after mine closures. Flint, Michigan's water crisis exposed 100,000 residents—predominantly Black—to lead contamination for over a year due to cost-cutting decisions that would never have been made in an affluent white suburb.

Environmental justice has moved from activist demand to policy framework. President Biden's Executive Order 14008 (2021) established the Justice40 Initiative, directing that 40% of the benefits from federal climate and clean energy investments flow to disadvantaged communities. The EPA's EJScreen tool provides nationally consistent environmental justice screening data. The EU's European Green Deal includes environmental justice principles, and the Escazú Agreement (2018) established environmental democracy rights for Latin America and the Caribbean. These policy developments signal a fundamental shift in how environmental governance accounts for equity.

For corporations, environmental justice is increasingly material to operations, reputation, and regulatory exposure. Permit applications for industrial facilities in environmental justice communities face heightened scrutiny, extended review timelines, and community opposition. Financial institutions are integrating environmental justice screening into lending decisions. The SEC's climate disclosure rules require consideration of physical climate risks that disproportionately affect vulnerable communities in which companies operate or invest.

How It Works / Key Components

Environmental justice analysis begins with screening—identifying communities that bear disproportionate environmental burdens. Tools like EPA's EJScreen, California's CalEnviroScreen, and the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool (CEJST) combine environmental indicators (air quality, proximity to hazardous sites, water quality) with demographic indicators (race, income, health outcomes, linguistic isolation) to identify disadvantaged communities. These tools inform regulatory decisions, funding allocations, and community engagement requirements.

Procedural justice requires that affected communities have meaningful participation in decisions that impact their health and environment. This means more than public comment periods—it means early and ongoing engagement, translation services, accessible meeting locations and times, technical assistance funding, and genuine responsiveness to community concerns. The EPA's 2022 Legal Tools to Advance Environmental Justice guidance strengthens requirements for considering cumulative impacts—the combined health effects of multiple pollution sources affecting a single community—rather than evaluating each facility in isolation.

Remediation and prevention address existing injustices and prevent new ones. Superfund cleanups in environmental justice communities have historically been slower and less thorough than in wealthier areas—a disparity the EPA has committed to addressing. Cumulative impact assessment, adopted in New Jersey (2020) and proposed in several other states, requires consideration of existing pollution burdens when permitting new facilities, effectively preventing further concentration of hazards in already-overburdened communities.

The intersection of environmental justice with climate change creates compounding vulnerabilities. Low-income communities and communities of color are more likely to live in flood-prone areas, heat islands, and coastal erosion zones, while having fewer resources for adaptation—less air conditioning, less insurance, less mobility. Climate adaptation strategies that fail to prioritize these communities risk exacerbating existing inequities. Environmental justice frameworks applied to climate planning ensure that adaptation investments reach the people most at risk, not just the assets most valued by the market.

Council Fire's Approach

Council Fire integrates environmental justice considerations into climate resilience, infrastructure planning, and sustainability strategy. We help clients conduct meaningful community engagement, assess cumulative impacts, and design projects that deliver equitable benefits to overburdened communities. Our climate adaptation work explicitly addresses the intersection of environmental injustice and climate vulnerability—recognizing that the communities least responsible for climate change are often most exposed to its consequences and least equipped to adapt.

Frequently Asked Questions

How is environmental justice different from environmentalism?

Environmentalism traditionally focused on conservation, pollution reduction, and ecosystem protection—often without explicit attention to who bears environmental burdens and who benefits from environmental amenities. Environmental justice centers equity: it asks not just "is the air clean?" but "whose air is clean and whose is not?" The environmental justice movement has documented that mainstream environmentalism sometimes advanced priorities (wilderness preservation, species protection) that did not address the pollution concentrated in low-income communities and communities of color. Today, many environmental organizations have integrated justice principles, but tensions remain around priorities, leadership representation, and resource allocation. Environmental justice is fundamentally about power—who gets to decide where pollution goes, who participates in those decisions, and who benefits from environmental investments.

What is the Justice40 Initiative and how is it working?

Justice40, established by Executive Order 14008 in January 2021, directs that 40% of the overall benefits of certain federal investments—including clean energy, climate resilience, remediation, and water infrastructure—flow to disadvantaged communities identified through the CEJST screening tool. Over 500 federal programs across more than a dozen agencies are covered. Implementation has been uneven: some agencies have integrated Justice40 effectively into program design, while others have struggled to define and measure "benefits" flowing to disadvantaged communities. Community organizations have raised concerns about the tool's methodology, the difficulty of accessing federal funds, and the gap between benefit targeting and actual community outcomes. Despite these challenges, Justice40 represents a historic federal commitment to environmental equity that has shifted how agencies design and evaluate programs.

Can corporate sustainability programs advance environmental justice?

Yes, when designed with genuine community partnership rather than corporate convenience. Companies can advance environmental justice by: reducing emissions and discharges at facilities in overburdened communities beyond regulatory minimums; investing in community health monitoring and environmental remediation; ensuring community benefit agreements accompany new facility development; diversifying supply chains to support businesses in disadvantaged communities; and advocating for stronger environmental regulations rather than opposing them. The critical test is whether corporate actions are driven by community-identified priorities or corporate PR objectives. Companies that engage environmental justice communities as partners—sharing data, funding independent technical review, and accepting community-defined metrics of success—build durable social license and contribute to genuine equity.