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Environmental Justice and Sustainability

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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2021) | Viewed by 54153

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Prof. Troy D. Abel

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Guest Editor

Department of Environmental Studies, Huxley College of the Environment, Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA 98225, USA
Interests: environmental politics; environmental policy; environmental gentrification; environmental governance; environmental justice

Prof. Debra J. Salazar

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Guest Editor

Department of Political Science, Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA 98225, USA
Interests: environmental politics; social movements; statistics

Dr. Patrick D. Murphy

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Guest Editor

Department of Media Studies and Production, Klein College of Media and Communication, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA 19122, USA
Interests: global media; media and the environment; documentary media; media and social justice; ethnographic method; Latin American media and cultural theory

Jonah White, MS

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Guest Editor

Department of Geography, Environment, and Spatial Sciences, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA
Interests: urban development; gentrification; environmental politics and justice

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue invites critical cross-disciplinary examination of environmental justice’s dilemmas for sustainability from geographers, political scientists, sociologists, media and communication scholars, urban planners, and experts from other fields. Many portray sustainability as a harmonious nexus of ecology, economy, and equity popularized with a Venn diagram of three overlapping spheres. Others advocate a fashionable triple-bottom line for business. Urban leaders continue to pursue urban greening strategies to improve livability and redress inequities. However, a growing body of work sees more contradiction, dissonance, and discord than progress in many sustainability efforts. Some scholars even offer alternative and radical visions of environmental stewardship.

While metropolitan leaders embraced sustainability over the last three decades, urban geographies became more divided by race, class, and pollution. The political power asymmetries driving these patterns are also often obscured in sustainability scholarship. Increasingly, studies document how environmental projects ranging from environmental remediation to green space creation either fail to deliver benefits equitably or result in unintended and negative consequences for the most vulnerable populations. Yet, sustainability scholarship still pays too little attention to the ways sustainability policies and movements interact with socioeconomic, political, and historical processes in the production of more or less equitable cities.

In this Special Issue, we seek contributions examining how sustainability strategies intersect with or obscure racial inequalities, social hierarchies, environmental rights, housing segregation, and deindustrialization’s production of new spaces of advantage and disadvantage. We welcome a variety of theoretical perspectives, research methods, and case studies that help to uncover the contradictions of sustainability for environmental justice. We solicit contributions for this project that pay attention to questions of distributive justice, procedural justice, and social justice for sustainability.

Prof. Troy D. Abel
Prof. Debra J. Salazar
Prof. Patrick D. Murphy
Jonah White, MS
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

Environmental Justice
Critical Sustainabilities
Environmental Politics
Media and the Environment
Urban Development
Social Justice

Published Papers (10 papers)

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Research

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21 pages, 6614 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Extractivism and Unjust Food Insecurity for Peru’s Loreto Indigenous Communities

by Caterina Rondoni

Sustainability 2022, 14(12), 6954; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su14126954 - 07 Jun 2022

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2572

Abstract

Background. Many scholars have examined Indigenous food security and sovereignty yet the topic still represents a small share of environmental justice scholarship. Therefore, we completed a case study of the environmental justice challenges concerning food security faced by the Indigenous communities of Peru’s Loreto region. Methods. During 2019, we conducted fieldwork in 64 Indigenous communities of Kukama Kukamiria and Urarina in the Amazon rainforests of Loreto, Peru. Based on a semi-stratified sample and snowball sampling method, we combined participant observation with 139 interviews focused on feeding habits, production and availability, access, utilization, food stability, and perception of food insecurity with the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) method. Results. Analyzing these themes led to worrisome assessments of the food insecurity and institutional limits of Indigenous communities. Because of their geographic location, these communities experience a degraded and unhealthy environment with water and food contaminated by hydrocarbon extraction activity. Furthermore, Peru’s policy of food and nutrition security has public management deficiencies especially in the Loreto region. Thus, many of the efforts adopted remain ineffective. Conclusion. Indigenous communities that live following ancestral culture often lack resources to change their diets. Thus, they frequently suffer the most following the contamination of an environment with which they experience an interdependent relation. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Justice and Sustainability)

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27 pages, 2538 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Full Lead Service Line Replacement: A Case Study of Equity in Environmental Remediation

by Karen J. Baehler, Marquise McGraw, Michele J. Aquino, Ryan Heslin, Lindsay McCormick and Tom Neltner

Sustainability 2022, 14(1), 352; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su14010352 - 29 Dec 2021

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 6567

Abstract

In the U.S., approximately 9.3 million lead service lines (LSLs) account for most lead contamination of drinking water. As the commitment to replace LSLs with safer materials grows, empirical evidence is needed to understand which households are benefitting most from current replacement practices. This exploratory study analyzes factors predictive of whether an LSL was replaced fully (from water main to premise) or partially (only the portion on public property). Conventional ordinary least squares, negative binomial, and geographically weighted regression models are used to test the hypothesis that full lead service line replacements (LSLRs) were less common in lower-income, higher-minority neighborhoods under a cost-sharing program design in Washington, D.C. between 2009 and 2018. The study finds supportive evidence that household income is a major predictor of full replacement prevalence, with race also showing significance in some analyses. These findings highlight the need for further research into patterns of full versus partial LSLR across the U.S. and may inform future decisions about LSLR policy and program design. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Justice and Sustainability)

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30 pages, 5271 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Indigenous Environmental Justice and Sustainability: What Is Environmental Assimilation?

by Stephen R. J. Tsuji

Sustainability 2021, 13(15), 8382; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su13158382 - 27 Jul 2021

Cited by 10 | Viewed by 4540

Abstract

Canada has a long history of assimilative efforts with respect to Indigenous peoples. Legal assimilation efforts occurred on two fronts: the voluntary and involuntary enfranchisement of First Nations people, and the dissolution of First Nations reserve lands. Cultural assimilation occurred through the residential school system, and the removal of Indigenous children from their homes by Canadian child welfare agencies in the “sixties scoop”. Another form of assimilation is through environmental assimilation. I define environmental assimilation as changes to the environment through development, to the extent whereby the environment can no longer support Indigenous cultural activities. Herein, I examine environmental assimilation in northern Ontario, Canada. The “taken-up” clause in Treaty No. 9, the “Exemption Orders” in the Far North Act, the “Except” stipulation in the Mining Amendment Act, and the unilateral streamlining of projects in the Green Energy Act and the COVID-19 Economic Recovery Act—these pieces of legislation pose threats to the environment and serve to facilitate the reality of contemporary environmental assimilation of First Nations. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Justice and Sustainability)

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18 pages, 6056 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Thermal Inequity in Richmond, VA: The Effect of an Unjust Evolution of the Urban Landscape on Urban Heat Islands

by Kelly C. Saverino, Emily Routman, Todd R. Lookingbill, Andre M. Eanes, Jeremy S. Hoffman and Rong Bao

Sustainability 2021, 13(3), 1511; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su13031511 - 01 Feb 2021

Cited by 29 | Viewed by 8489

Abstract

The urban heat island (UHI) effect is caused by intensive development practices in cities and the diminished presence of green space that results. The evolution of these phenomena has occurred over many decades. In many cities, historic zoning and redlining practices barred Black and minority groups from moving into predominately white areas and obtaining financial resources, a practice that still affects cities today, and has forced these already disadvantaged groups to live in some of the hottest areas. In this study, we used a new dataset on the spatial distribution of temperature during a heat wave in Richmond, Virginia to investigate potential associations between extreme heat and current and historical demographic, socioeconomic, and land use factors. We assessed these data at the census block level to determine if blocks with large differences in temperature also had significant variation in these covariates. The amount of canopy cover, percent impervious surface, and poverty level were all shown to be strong correlates of UHI when analyzed in conjunction with afternoon temperatures. We also found strong associations of historical policies and planning decisions with temperature using data from the University of Richmond’s Digital Scholarship Lab’s “Mapping Inequality” project. Finally, the Church Hill area of the city provided an interesting case study due to recent data suggesting the area’s gentrification. Differences in demographics, socioeconomic factors, and UHI were observed between north and (more gentrified) south Church Hill. Both in Church Hill and in Richmond overall, our research found that areas occupied by people of low socioeconomic status or minority groups disproportionately experienced extreme heat and corresponding impacts on health and quality of life. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Justice and Sustainability)

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18 pages, 4056 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Assessing Inequitable Urban Heat Islands and Air Pollution Disparities with Low-Cost Sensors in Richmond, Virginia

by Andre M. Eanes, Todd R. Lookingbill, Jeremy S. Hoffman, Kelly C. Saverino and Stephen S. Fong

Sustainability 2020, 12(23), 10089; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su122310089 - 03 Dec 2020

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 4490

Abstract

Air pollution and the urban heat island effect are consistently linked to numerous respiratory and heat-related illnesses. Additionally, these stressors disproportionately impact low-income and historically marginalized communities due to their proximity to emissions sources, lack of access to green space, and exposure to other adverse environmental conditions. Here, we use relatively low-cost stationary sensors to analyze PM_2.5 and temperature data throughout the city of Richmond, Virginia, on the ten hottest days of 2019. For both hourly means within the ten hottest days of 2019 and daily means for the entire record for the year, the temperature was found to exhibit a positive correlation with PM_2.5. Analysis of hourly means on the ten hottest days yielded a diurnal pattern in which PM_2.5 levels peaked in the early morning and reached their minima in the mid-afternoon. Spatially, sites exhibiting higher temperatures consistently had higher PM_2.5 readings, with vulnerable communities in the east end and more intensely developed parts of the city experiencing significantly higher temperatures and PM_2.5 concentrations than the suburban neighborhoods in the west end. These findings suggest an uneven distribution of air pollution in Richmond during extreme heat events that are similar in pattern but less pronounced than the temperature differences during these events, although further investigation is required to verify the extent of this relationship. As other studies have found both of these environmental stressors to correlate with the distribution of green space and other land-use factors in cities, innovative and sustainable planning decisions are crucial to the mitigation of these issues of inequity going forward. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Justice and Sustainability)

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15 pages, 622 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Environmental Justice in the Case of the Chagos Marine Protected Area: Implications for International Social Work

by Komalsingh Rambaree

Sustainability 2020, 12(20), 8349; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su12208349 - 11 Oct 2020

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 3642

Abstract

Between the late 1960s and the early 1970s, the British government forcibly removed about 15,000 Chagossians from the Chagos Archipelago. Current legislation based on the declaration of the Chagos-Marine Protected Area (MPA) plays a crucial role in preventing the Chagossians from returning to their homeland. In this particular case study, the article aims to analyze discourses related to the establishment of the Chagos-MPA using an environmental justice framework, to consider the implications for international social work practice. Materials from court rulings, official government reports, and academic/journalist publications on the MPA, as well as from seven semi-structured interviews with key informants from three Chagossian communities based in Mauritius, Seychelles, and the United Kingdom were analyzed using ATLAS-ti 8.4 software. The main findings of the deductive critical discourse analysis are discussed concerning substantive, distributive, and procedural environmental justice for the Chagossian community (This term is used for referring different Chagossian communities from Mauritius, Seychelles, and the United Kingdom as a single homogenous group). This article calls for international social work interventions through transnational alliances between international organizations in challenging the socio-political forces that are having deleterious impacts upon the marginalized and disenfranchised populations and their biophysical environment. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Justice and Sustainability)

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25 pages, 1345 KiB

Open AccessArticle

From XS to XL Urban Nature: Examining Access to Different Types of Green Space Using a ‘Just Sustainabilities’ Framework

by Dong-ah Choi, Keunhyun Park and Alessandro Rigolon

Sustainability 2020, 12(17), 6998; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su12176998 - 27 Aug 2020

Cited by 16 | Viewed by 4941

Abstract

Different types of urban green spaces provide diverse benefits for human health and environmental sustainability, but most studies on access to green space focus on neighborhood parks, with less work on smaller or larger green spaces. In this study, we examined sociodemographic differences in access to green spaces of different sizes for 14,385 census block groups in 12 U.S. cities using a ‘just sustainabilities’ framework. We classified green spaces into street-level greenery (XS), neighborhood parks (S–L; walking and cycling access), and large parks (XL; walking, cycling, and driving access). We ran spatial filtering models at the census block group level using different thresholds based on transportation modes. We uncovered a complex picture of inequality, with consistent injustices for XS green space, and fewer injustices for S–L and XL green space based on socioeconomic status and age, and some instances of just distributions for S–L and XL green space based on race/ethnicity. Our findings present a concerning picture for ‘just sustainabilities’: the green space type that is most often part of sustainability and climate adaptation strategies—street greenery—is unjustly distributed, likely as a result of structural racism in U.S. institutions. By examining multimodal access to green spaces of different sizes, this study helps urban greening professionals develop more just and sustainable strategies. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Justice and Sustainability)

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19 pages, 606 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Contested Dam Development in Iran: A Case Study of the Exercise of State Power over Local People

by Elham Hoominfar and Claudia Radel

Sustainability 2020, 12(13), 5476; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su12135476 - 07 Jul 2020

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 4683

Abstract

In this article, we address the interaction of the Iranian State, an agent of power, with affected village residents, as four dam projects are planned and implemented. Dams, recently positioned as a green energy source, are a central component to Iran’s national development strategies; yet historically their construction has been a source of significant conflict and resistance around the world. We focus on ten villages facing displacement or partial loss of lands at the time of the research, and we answer the question: During dam building and resettlement processes, how have residents experienced their role in decision making and the exercise of state power over them? Through a lens of political ecology, we engage with Lukes’ theory of power to interpret data from 18 focus group discussions and 20 in-depth interviews with residents, as well as from 10 interviews with local and state authorities. This case study illustrates how, from the perspectives of residents of rural communities, the Iranian State applies its power over them through multiple, simultaneous means. Coercion, non-decision making, and the withholding of information emerge from analysis as the primary successful mechanisms, while discursive consent-production emerges as largely unsuccessful. We demonstrate how lack of data or other information provision for natural resource development projects can be an important lever the state uses to exercise power, especially when combined with non-decision making. Although all Lukes’ dimensions of power apply to this case, non-decision making was most severe in its experienced effects, as residents suffered from uncertainty and an inability to move forward with individual plans. Our research provides insight into how conflicts over state-sponsored dam building can embody the contest between a sustainable development centered on justice/equity and one centered on economic growth. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Justice and Sustainability)

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Review

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25 pages, 1389 KiB

Open AccessReview

Social-Environmental Conflicts in Chile: Is There Any Potential for an Ecological Constitution?

by Maite Berasaluce, Pablo Díaz-Siefer, Paulina Rodríguez-Díaz, Marcelo Mena-Carrasco, José Tomás Ibarra, Juan L. Celis-Diez and Pedro Mondaca

Sustainability 2021, 13(22), 12701; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su132212701 - 17 Nov 2021

Cited by 12 | Viewed by 6998

Abstract

Social unrest is on the rise worldwide amid deepening inequalities, environmental degradation, and job crises worsened by increasing social-environmental conflicts. In Chile, a social revolt in 2019 resulted in a national referendum in 2020. An ample majority (78.3% vs. 21.7%) voted to draft a new constitution to replace the current constitution drawn up under dictatorship. The result led to the emergence and empowerment of several organizations demanding an “ecological constitution”. In this context, we aim to analyze: (1) the main social-environmental conflicts in Chile and how they are related to the country’s current constitution, and (2) the potential drafting of an ecological constitution that addresses these conflicts. Across different industries in Chile, we observed common problems that are intrinsically related to the current constitution. This relationship seems to be perceived by Chilean citizens since a survey carried out in May 2021 found 79% support for an ecological constitution. Moreover, 105 of the 155 delegates to the constitutional convention proposed three or more environmental principles to be included in the new constitution. A potential ecological constitution entails principles that would improve the current situation of social-environmental conflicts in Chile. Based on our analysis, we recommend the establishment of watershed-based “territorial rights” in the new Chilean constitution to improve sustainability and environmental justice. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Justice and Sustainability)

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23 pages, 310 KiB

Open AccessReview

Assessing the Integration of Environmental Justice and Sustainability in Practice: A Review of the Literature

by Susan Spierre Clark and Monica Lynn Miles

Sustainability 2021, 13(20), 11238; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su132011238 - 12 Oct 2021

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 3436

Abstract

The environmental justice (EJ) movement has been a key factor in the United States’ struggle to provide a healthy environment for all to thrive. The origins of the movement date as far back as the 1960’s, led primarily by people of color and low economic status communities living in America’s most polluted environments. More recently, the just sustainability movement calls for the inclusion of EJ considerations, including social justice, equity, and human rights, into sustainability science and initiatives. Whereas previous work has elucidated synergies between both concepts, this paper provides a literature review of studies that apply the concepts of EJ and sustainability in the US to inform ways in which the concepts are merging (or not) for practical applications. The primary objectives of this review are (1) to identify the common themes in which EJ and sustainability are applied, (2) to qualitatively assess the progression of the integration of these important movements in practical applications, and (3) to inform research gaps that exist in this area. In general, we find that despite the increasing conceptual emphasis on the need to integrate these important concepts, the reviewed scholarship reveals that in practice, the integration of EJ and sustainability remains piecemeal. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Justice and Sustainability)

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