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Social justice and environmental sustainability are often joint policy objectives, however, achieving the dual goal of just sustainability has proved difficult in both theory and practice. Scholars argue that a key challenge is balancing trade-offs between sustainability and justice objectives. This is evident within government-led housing, where there is little consensus regarding how to balance the housing needs within the context of existing unsustainable and unjust urban forms, resource constraints and high inequality. This paper explores this conundrum by examining how different logics and motivations influence justice and sustainability outcomes of two government housing projects in Johannesburg, South Africa – Pennyville and Lufhereng. We apply the concept of conflicting rationalities [Watson, Vanessa. 2003. "Conflicting Rationalities: Implications for Planning Theory and Ethics." Planning Theory & Practice 4 (4): 395–407] within a new context, thereby extending the theory and understanding of planning in the face of tensions and trade-offs. Three themes are used to surface different rationalities that influence just sustainability: (1) the assumption that justice and sustainability can be achieved simultaneously within government-led housing, (2) how power, influence and coordination within government contribute to disjunctures between justice and sustainability, and (3) assumptions around infill versus urban expansion for achieving just sustainability. The paper reveals how institutional dynamics, politics and conflicting rationalities diverted each project from their envisioned outcomes. The results show that disconnects between theory and practice are not necessarily driven by conflicts between justice and sustainability, but rather obscured rationalities. Focusing on conflicts between justice and sustainability can deviate attention away from the practical, and sometimes mundane, processes that cumulatively undermine progress towards justice and sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past five years, there have been growing calls for transformative responses to sustainability challenges, supported by increased transformative action in the pursuit of environmental justice. In parallel to this development within the policy arena, the concept of transformation and its potential is also attracting more attention within the research community. This paper uses the example of the Urban Natural Assests for Africa (UNA) programme to explore what transformative change might mean for cities and how this might be achieved through enacting just processes. It explores in some more detail different approaches to transformative change to explain how and why an enabling perspective on transformation is considered to be fruitful in developing the understanding of transformative capacity for change. The paper then explores how the programme was able to foster this capacity, with what consequences for the African cities and what it implies for the nature of change for urban social and environmental justice in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Citizen science is advocated as a response to a broad range of contemporary societal and ecological challenges. However, there are widely varying models of citizen science which may either challenge or reinforce existing knowledge paradigms and associated power dynamics. This paper explores different approaches to citizen science in the context of air quality monitoring in terms of their implications for environmental justice. This is achieved through a case study of air quality management in Dublin which focuses on the role of citizen science in this context. The evidence shows that the dominant interpretation of citizen science in Dublin is that it provides a means to promote awareness and behaviour change rather than to generate knowledge and inform new regulations or policies. This is linked to an overall context of technocratic governance and the exclusion of non-experts from decision-making. It is further closely linked to neoliberal governance imperatives to individualise responsibility and promote market-based solutions to environmental challenges. Last, the evidence highlights that this model of citizen science risks compounding inequalities by transferring responsibility and blame for air pollution to those who have limited resources to address it. Overall, the paper highlights the need for critical analysis of the implications of citizen science in different instances and for alternative models of citizen science whereby communities would contribute to setting objectives and determining how their data is used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-determination aims to provide everyone the opportunity to sketch their life trajectories. Seemingly aspirational, paths are continuously influenced throughout childhood by both favourable and unfavourable factors. Natural environmental exposures have considerable impacts on development that give rise to transgenerational and community-wide consequences by influencing physical, emotional, and cognitive growth. Each interference can affect academic performance, the ability to reach one's full potential, and ultimately generational social mobility. The ongoing relationship between early development and hindered self-determination is particularly concerning for non-white and low-income communities in the United States, where children experience disproportionately poor environmental conditions. This paper discusses the multi-scalar effects that stem from such exposures to propose environmental justice efforts as the path toward protecting self-determination. Through reviewing human rights, environmental racism, and capability considerations, the paper illustrates how decades of research have cumulated to create a progression toward equity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The accessibility of public open spaces (POS) is assessed by comparing the characteristics of these spaces with the population characteristics across various urban units. Known as “equity mapping” of POS, this method identifies and addresses spatial inequities and environmental justice issues related to POS accessibility. However, research in this area has advanced further in countries with data availability at small spatial scales (e.g. census tracts), enabling the measurement of accessibility within walking distances. To address the challenges of conducting research in data-limited contexts, this case study in Izmir (Türkiye) investigates which spatial analyses can facilitate the development of a comprehensive equity mapping of POS accessibility. Türkiye has demographic data available at the neighbourhood level, including age, gender, and education, but lacks data on income, race/ethnicity, and other characteristics commonly used in mainstream research. This paper assumes that children, the elderly, and low-education groups (a proxy for income level) have a greater need for POS. It explores three forms of overlay analyses: feature-based, raster-based, and fishnet-based. Additionally, it examines the metropolitan area and its sub-regions as terrains with different POS accessibility. The results highlight the Centre as having the weakest POS accessibility in neighbourhoods with high child ratios and low education levels. The fishnet-based density analysis offers a finer lens for identifying the locations of priority areas for POS provisioning, even within neighbourhoods. HIGHLIGHTSFor improving public open space (POS) accessibility, GIS-based measurements of physical and social data can determine priority areas in the cityPOS accessibility measurements in mainstream research use certain data and spatial units unavailable in data-limited countriesIn data-limited countries, the grid-based density analysis can provide more accuracy about priority areas for POS planningTaking the city with sub-regions of different POS accessibility helps with determining priority areasIzmir’s central city and neighbourhoods with high child ratios and low education levels have the weakest POS accessibilityFor improving public open space (POS) accessibility, GIS-based measurements of physical and social data can determine priority areas in the cityPOS accessibility measurements in mainstream research use certain data and spatial units unavailable in data-limited countriesIn data-limited countries, the grid-based density analysis can provide more accuracy about priority areas for POS planningTaking the city with sub-regions of different POS accessibility helps with determining priority areasIzmir’s central city and neighbourhoods with high child ratios and low education levels have the weakest POS accessibility [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Waste is an urgent global challenge. Patterns of excessive resource consumption and disposal are causing immense environmental and social damage. This paper argues that solutions to the waste crisis must be intersectional – addressing the ways in which multiple, overlapping forms of oppression are embedded in resource consumption and the generation of waste. Existing approaches to reducing waste in the U.K. and other Global North contexts have largely failed to take such an approach, but we identify grassroots innovations as a movement which may be well positioned to confront waste challenges in an intersectional way. Drawing on 19 interviews with practitioners and experts in the field of Grassroots Waste Innovations (GWIs), as well as analysis of select documents relating to key waste prevention projects, the article investigates the extent to which GWIs are taking an intersectional approach, and what this looks like. The research finds that GWIs are not generally understood in an intersectional way, but some compelling examples can be found. Framings, project design, and coalition-building emerge as key features of an intersectional approach. However, there are also some significant constraining factors. These include concerns that placing too much emphasis on multiple political causes will be off-putting to participants, lack of capacity, unhelpful funding structures, and the risk of tokenising people from marginalised groups in an attempt to increase diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The smart city framework, while initially received with enthusiasm, has been critiqued for reproducing urban inequalities rather than reducing marginalisation. This paper demonstrates how application of an equity lens within a smart city framework can advance justice by addressing air quality inequities in a diverse coastal city. We conducted a pilot study in which integrated air quality sensors are deployed for criteria pollutants in two contrasting neighbourhoods, to demonstrate that the smart city framework can be used with an equity lens for baseline data collection and analysis to support communities of colour in advocating on their own behalf. Communities of colour are disproportionately impacted by poor air quality, pollution exposure, and health burdens. Research shows that marginalised communities often lack air quality sensors installed by traditional regulatory measures. Thus, smart city technology using targeted deployment of air quality sensors can aid neighbourhood-level sampling, and data can be leveraged by marginalised communities for policy development to address inequities in pollution exposure and health impacts. In this study, air quality sensors were deployed and integrated with a web-based interactive platform called Community Resiliency Information Systems (CRIS) to compare a white, affluent neighbourhood with a marginalised, predominantly Black neighbourhood in Saint Petersburg, Florida. Data collected indicates significant differences in concentrations of air pollutants in the study neighbourhoods; exposure levels are higher in the poor, minority-dominated neighbourhood. CRIS facilitates two-way communication between residents and policy makers, demonstrating that careful application of technology can produce data to support community advocacy and address environmental inequalities. Key policy highlightsThe smart city framework integrated with air quality sensors has the potential to advance justice when applied through an equity lens.This pilot project demonstrates air quality inequities at neighbourhood level comparisons (affluent vs marginalised) in a coastal city – exposure levels are higher in the poor, minority-dominated neighbourhood.The CRIS platform facilitates two-way communication between residents and policy makers, demonstrating that careful application of technology can produce data to support community advocacy and address environmental inequalities.The smart city framework integrated with air quality sensors has the potential to advance justice when applied through an equity lens.This pilot project demonstrates air quality inequities at neighbourhood level comparisons (affluent vs marginalised) in a coastal city – exposure levels are higher in the poor, minority-dominated neighbourhood.The CRIS platform facilitates two-way communication between residents and policy makers, demonstrating that careful application of technology can produce data to support community advocacy and address environmental inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indigenous peoples around the world tend to be disproportionately affected by resource extraction activities having access to fewer technical, legal and other resources to participate effectively in the decision-making process. Taking a resistance movement concerning the Phulbari Coal Project in Bangladesh, through qualitative research, this paper examines how Indigenous peoples frame their claims in a mining conflict situation. The Phulbari resistance movement took place more than a decade ago in Bangladesh, however, local Indigenous peoples, Bangalee farming communities, and activists still bear the spirit of the movement. As such, this study seeks to test the claims of how the Indigenous and farming communities, and the actions of national and transnational environmental justice organisations in the Phulbari resistance movement form part of an environmental justice movement. The paper argues that various components of Indigenous resistance and claims may contribute to the overall goals of the environment justice movement against powerful transnational corporations in the global South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper asks how the pandemic has affected climate governance, with a specific focus on just transition in cities. We respond to Westman and Castán Broto's (2021) challenge that three assumptions are frequently reproduced in the urban climate governance literature and ask: (1) Are social justice and environmental sustainability separated? (2) Does a sectoral perspective on cities constrain conceptions of climate justice? and (3) Is there action rather than just plans? We address these questions by studying three cities in the South West of England (Bristol, Bath, and Exeter) that have expressed aspirations for rapid and just transition to net zero. There are promising signs of climate action, although the pandemic slowed it down somewhat. Climate justice is not sufficiently embedded in plans or actions. Commitment to just transition is present but partial and often unspecified. Social justice and ecological sustainability are too often treated as separate goals, more likely to come into conflict with each other, than addressed jointly. Too much climate work in cities takes place in silos around energy and transport but separate from other sectors. There is a notable failure to engage with civil society for a just transition. We conclude that for cities to truly implement a just transition, better engagement with grassroots actors from across sectors and parts of society is necessary. The development of tools which support cities to analyse the complex interplay of distributional, recognitional, participatory and restorative aspects of justice could be an important part of delivering this change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many respects, France's solar photovoltaic policy jump-started the development of what could be called "individual" photovoltaic projects: one project, one roof, one owner. Given this policy framing, projects that pursue an alternative approach to solar development (more-than-individual investment strategies) have to channel their assembling in different ways. This paper investigates community-based solar experiments – the "centrales villageoises" in south-eastern France's Rhône-Alpes region. This approach is innovative as it consists in assembling multiple panels on multiple roofs with mixed (public and private) owners. The analysis follows these emerging collective solar projects as a matter of binding together a large set of heterogeneous materialities, such as panels, roofs, buildings, electricity grid network and landscapes, and providing them with a shared status. We argue that the solar resource is defined along with these emerging socio-technical systems. Thus, its appreciation as a "common good" (or lack of such) relies on methods, tools and capacities that allow protagonists to have flexibility in forming material entanglements endowed with a collective dimension – sharing roofs, investments, risks and gains. Finally, the analysis shows that a fair solar energy project is one that not only fairly redistributes the benefits but also, in the long run, preserves the possibility of having collective discussions on diverse dimensions, especially the integration of social and landscape-related issues (landscape of justice) within the solar energy's development agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The market for local food has grown considerably over the course of thirty years. At the same time, even robust local food systems may reproduce injustices that have long marred corporatized food systems. In this paper, we explore the relationship of environmental justice to local food systems by asking two questions. First, are farmers markets (FMs) more likely to be found in wealthier, whiter communities? Second, are FMs providing people who are not members of socially privileged groups with an opportunity to buy food grown in accordance with organic principles? Drawing on survey data from FMs in New Jersey, we find that, although community demographics are strongly associated with FM location, social privilege is not associated with where organic farmers sell produce, once the lens of analysis is narrowed to just communities with an FM. But although food grown without agricultural chemicals is widely available at FMs in the study area, organic farmers who accept payment via WIC or SNAP are not more likely to sell at FMs in lower-income communities, and fewer organic farmers than non-organic farmers accept payment via WIC or SNAP. The presence of organic farmers at FMs in a wide range of communities suggests that expanding access to locally sourced fruits and vegetables may be able to play a small but not insignificant role in reducing exposure to agricultural chemicals. However, organic food would be more accessible at FMs in low-income communities if more organic farmers participated in nutrition assistance programmes like WIC and SNAP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Australia, local communities often enact Community-Based Initiatives (CBIs) to respond to climate change through Climate Change Adaptation (CCA). CBIs can also be integrated into the Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) agenda. The paper explores the extent to which CBIs promote the mainstreaming of CCA into DRR. Primary data were obtained from interviews with representatives of CBIs and supporting organisations in three local governments of the Hunter Valley (New South Wales, Australia). Findings show that CBIs recognise the potential contribution of climate change in modifying the local hazard profile. CBIs mainstream CCA into DRR by following four approaches: environmental and social justice; sustainability and transition; ecosystem-based approach; and adaptive planning. Partnerships were identified both among CBIs and between CBIs and City Councils; however, conflicts between CBIs, City Councils and business actors emerged, and a lack of commitment by multi-level governments in responding to climate change was revealed. The findings show that CBIs consider CCA and DRR within a broad everyday context related to vulnerability and local development. But we argue that assigning responsibility for climate change issues to CBIs is not a panacea and should not be the only local climate change response. Instead, CBIs need to be included in a larger and long-term commitment by actors that possess access to resources, such as higher levels of government. The paper provides a local Australian perspective on the effectiveness of mainstreaming CCA into DRR and furthers the conversation for the benefit of other communities facing similar challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to apply an intersectional environmentalist lens to the circular economy (CE) transition in Flanders. CE discourse often takes a deterritorialised approach, that is, a focus on innovation and growth. This approach tends to neglect local knowledge and background skills that can inhabit and work with landscapes in balanced ways to enable a fully circular society. This knowledge is partly embodied by "nobodied" actors. After introducing relevant terminology, this article draws upon a collaborative autoethnography which integrates autobiographies of authors' experiences of circularity in projects with "nobodied" CE actors, and ethnographic notes on the Flemish context in which the CE discourse developed. The reflections unearth how a lack of an intersectional environmentalist lens in the CE rhetoric "nobodies" informal CE actors and practices. We show how they do not matter in a circular economy in a deterritorialised approach, but how they matter in a circular landscape view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The crucial role of the informal economy in urban environmental management is yet to be acknowledged in policy-making. This paper explores the sustainability discourses that shape urban environmental policies, and how they relate to different conceptualisations of the informal economy. Focusing on Mexico City, this paper analyses the discourses of policy-makers and their reflection in the city's waste management plan. Results show reformist and radical discourses of sustainability are correlated with preferences as to the integration or exclusion of the informal economy in environmental policy. In addressing Mexico City's environmental challenges, policy-makers have embraced a reformist sustainability discourse that focuses on technological fixes to environmental degradation and promotes a techno-managerial mode of governing. This discourse is correlated with a view of the informal economy as a barrier to the sustainability transition, which leads to the exclusion of informal workers from the policy arena and renders invisible their working conditions and their contribution to urban life. The paper concludes that the reformist sustainability discourse obscures and reproduces environmental injustices – repoliticization of the sustainability discourses shaping urban environmental policies is necessary to achieve sustainability transitions that are also socially just. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article introduces papers which examined how much progress the concept of environmental justice has made in Great Britain. From being outside mainstream environmental agendas, concepts of environmental equity and justice now occupy a central position in government policy and have been the subject to growing research scrutiny. Drawing on papers first presented in a dedicated session on environmental justice organized by the Planning and Environment Research Group of the Royal Geographical Society/Institute of British Geographers at the International Geographical Congress, held in Glasgow in August 2004, the issue provides an opportunity to explore and reflect upon the recent development of environmental justice concerns in the country. The concept of environmental justice was first popularized and politicized by the emergence of the environmental justice movement, and the increasing space for political and legal contestation of claimed environmental injustices, in the U.S. In Great Britain, the concept has taken a different path, increasingly seen as a means of reconciling the sustainable development agenda with that of social justice.

By drawing on Mikhail Bakhtin's notion of polyphony, this paper theorises polyphonic environmental planning processes. It argues that Bakhtin's vision of polyphony reveals new insights about the nature of inclusive and transformative environmental planning processes that align and contrast with existing traditions of participatory planning. The polyphonic environmental planning processes are theorised as having two criteria: difference and relationship. The conditions needed to satisfy these criteria are explained through procedural and recognition justice accounts. The paper intervenes in the ongoing scholarly discussion about the ethical base of contemporary planning theories by suggesting that the polyphonic construction of environmental planning processes will have implications on the form and content of these processes. In terms of the form, the polyphonic environmental planning processes imply the creation of an inclusive, dialogical space. In terms of the content, recognising the intrinsic value of otherness will alter the self–other relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Climate adaptation is a complex policy domain, spanning multiple sectors, scales and actors, and wherein those most at risk have the least power. The influence of linear positivist models of science uptake are proving ineffective in a world with increasingly concentrated wealth and power, institutional barriers, and rapidly growing risks facing the many. A plurality of approaches is needed to better examine those dynamics of climate adaptation which are often invisible in models of science uptake – equity, the value of contestation, path dependency – and to consider how to empower communities to find solutions. In this conceptual paper, we argue that bridging existing positivist and interpretivist methods with insights from post-foundational theory so as to underpin pluralism and re-orient ethical principles of justice, strengthens the capacity of social research to support transformative climate adaptation. Principles are proposed to facilitate such bridging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper employs qualitative content analysis to assess 28 brownfield redevelopment plans produced as part of a US Environmental Protection Agency programme. The analysis framework followed the economic, ecological, and social equity dimensions of sustainable development. The findings illustrate that, in terms of economic dimensions, most plans discussed financing the overall project, but few mentioned site values or the pivotal cost of remediating brownfield sites or addressed questions related to liability, the transfer of ownership of sites, or the end use of remediated sites. In terms of ecological dimensions, while many plans suggested "green" uses of existing brownfields, few discussed the impacts of the plans on urban ecological issues or offered technical feasibility of remediating the sites. In terms of social equity dimensions, half of the plans described potential local jobs stemming from the proposed redevelopment, but many did not discuss the human impacts of remediating contaminated sites or the costs of doing nothing. Most plans mentioned community engagement methods but not their outcomes, making the degree to which the lessons gleaned from such engagement influenced the plans totally unclear. Despite the programme's explicit focus on the nexus of environmental justice and local environments, many plans struggled to address the topic in favour of tackling broader economic, environmental, and equity issues. Overall, this paper contributes to the understanding of brownfield redevelopment planning by not only summarising and synthesising the tendencies of existing plans but also suggesting strategies to address areas in which current planning efforts fall short. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ecosystem services from urban trees and other green amenities form the basis for sweeping urban greening initiatives that can paradoxically worsen socio-ecological inequalities in cities. Previous research demonstrating distributive injustices like gentrification arising from urban greening have led to new efforts to integrate an environmental justice lens into urban ecosystem service planning and management. However, data-driven practices of technocratic expertise, like those that draw on ecosystem service quantification and valuation, may themselves become sites where procedural injustice emerges. This paper examines procedural justice in urban tree canopy assessments, a genre of technical document prepared for expert audiences that typically describes the urban tree canopy through the lens of ecosystem service valuation. Drawing on 30 assessments from U.S. cities, our analysis highlights how assessments deploy a scalar politics of tree value that evades questions of greenspace equity and helps forge an expert consensus around market-oriented sustainability before a management plan is written. We show how forestry principles of "right tree, right place" combine with boundary work around tree risk to empower expert-led management and deprioritize civic involvement. While injustice can emerge through the practices of technocratic expertise that undergird management for ecosystem services, we caution against wholesale rejection of data-driven decision-making and point towards ways to selectively embrace data to enable new forms of civic involvement. We conclude by calling for urban forest assessments that shift the focus towards the relationships between trees and people along with a broader integration of procedural justice into processes of urban ecosystem service management. Highlights UTC assessments tend to prioritise the monetary value of trees and oversimplify tree risks and costs in ways that narrow management options to those that maximise total market value. Assessments rarely include environmental justice considerations and discuss tree risk in a manner that excludes communities from decision-making. Trade-offs between different ecosystem (dis)services could require a survey of resident preferences to ensure that ecosystem services are received as benefits and to ensure fairness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exploring cases of gas and coal extraction in Australia and the U.S.A., this paper considers instances in which legal and political frameworks have been used to prioritise development interests and minimise opportunities for community objection. Two case studies illustrate the role of law and the influence of politics on environmental conflict, conflict resolution, and participation in decision-making associated with resource extraction. A range of barriers to meaningful community participation in land-use decision-making are exposed by combining legal and non-legal concepts of equity and justice with ideologies of democracy and representation. These include asymmetry in information and resources available to parties; instances of misrecognition of weaker participants; and examples of malrecognition, where community attempts to engage democratic rights of public participation were thwarted by the strategic and deliberate actions of both industry and government. This paper illustrates the limits of current legal approaches to addressing land-use conflict and contributes to the developing scholarship of environmental justice as an analytic framework for addressing complex environmental and social justice issues. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This viewpoint paper discusses the rise of blockadia as a global anti-extractivism movement over recent decades. It elucidates blockadia's distinct characters and implications for future grassroots environmentalism. Collective actions constituting the blockadia movement differ from conventional environmental campaigns in terms of its (1) embrace of confrontational tactics, (2) integration of environmental and social justice concerns, and (3) reliance of grassroots coalitions whose members often have diversified backgrounds. By elaborating these characters, I argue that the rise of blockadia reveals diminishing public trust in capitalism's capacity to avert the worst consequences of climate change. Blockadia thus presents a helpful concept to understand why climate justice activism increasingly bypasses traditional public deliberation mechanisms to intervene in energy policymaking at both state and regional levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After decades of fighting for clean air and green space in the face of environmental racism and urban disinvestment, Chicago's Latinx Little Village neighbourhood has begun to see environmental improvements take place. Activists are wary of the potential for gentrification in the wake of clean up, and are advocating for the right to stay put in the community they have worked so hard to improve. These ongoing contestations have recently intersected with accelerating racialized state violence as renewed anti-immigrant and white supremacist rhetoric, policies, and actions have targeted Latinx communities. In this paper we ask, how do struggles against environmental racism, gentrification, and xenophobia interlock, and how does the framework of environmental justice serve to enable activism across all three sites? For racialized minority communities, repeated experiences of forced migration and displacement often mean that an anti-displacement ethos is particularly well-articulated and grounded in collective historical memory. Drawing on an extensive analysis of media materials complemented by archival research, fieldwork, and interviews with community organisers, this paper argues that tight linkages between environmental justice and anti-displacement principles inform community responses to multiple forms of structural racialized violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates social and environmental injustices in solid waste management in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The urban poor in most parts of Kinshasa bear a huge encumbrance of the solid waste burden and face multiple challenges associated with poor management of solid waste. This situation has resulted in poor and unhealthy living conditions for the majority of the urban residents. The problem of solid waste management in Kinshasa has further been compounded by rapid urbanisation which has occurred in the face of poor urban governance, civil conflict and weak institutional set-up. The combination of these challenges has resulted in increased overcrowding, poor sanitary conditions, lack of water and an unprecedented accumulation of solid waste which have triggered a myriad of urban problems. The worst affected are the poor urban who reside in locations that receive little or no socio-economic services from the Kinshasa Municipal authority. Using secondary data collected through a desk study, this paper argues that the poor solid waste situation in Kinshasa is not only a health risk, but also presents issues of both social and environmental injustices. These issues are analysed within the context of evolving arguments that focus on the need to develop a pro-poor approach in solid waste management that may present an opportunity for achieving both social and environmental justice for the urban poor in Kinshasa. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper provides a re-signification of industrial risk as a slow-burning issue (Mah [2017] "Environmental justice in the age of big data: challenging toxic blind spots of voice, speed, and expertise." Environmental Sociology 3 (2): 122–133.), invisibly and violently diffusing across time and space and affecting relational entanglements between human and non-human components of risk landscapes. As an alternative to a planning approach based on quantitative and objective data, the authors propose to build strategic planning of riskscapes upon what they call small data, that is, the ensemble of qualitative and embodied data that can be gathered through street science (Corburn [2005]. Street Science: Community Knowledge and Environmental Health Justice. Cambridge: MIT Press.) and toxic autobiographies (Armiero et al. [2019]. "Toxic Bios: Toxic Autobiographies – A Public Environmental Humanities Project." Environmental Justice, 1–5.). In order to discuss the potential role of both small data and toxic autobiographies in the planning field, the authors present the results of an ongoing empirical case study in Gela, a Sicilian town converted into one of the main Italian petrochemical poles in the 1960s by a multinational oil company. The authors analyse Gela's risk landscapes through the perceptions of citizens and their initiatives to tackle environmental injustices. Finally, the authors argue that small data can provide a better understanding of the landscape of risk through four lenses that allow seeing the slow and diffused change brought by industrial risk: memories of injustice, memories of smell, trans-corporeal stories, and relational stories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the development and application of two cumulative impact scores – a neighbourhood deficit and an asset score – in Phoenix, Arizona. The deficit score was designed and used as a tool for identifying environmental, energy, and health vulnerabilities while the asset score was used to identify possible relief from these neighbourhood deficits. The design and use of these scores were the result of a collaboration between a community group, Chispa Arizona, and re-Engineered, a research laboratory at Arizona State University. The neighbourhood deficit score (NDS) aggregates a number of phenomena inclusive of: environmental burdens (such as criteria air pollutants and incidence of asthma), socio-economic variables (that may exacerbate the impacts of environmental burdens), and energy poverty. In contrast, the neighbourhood asset score (NAS) assembles a range of community assets (like churches, schools, parks, and grocery stores) which residents might leverage to ameliorate intersectional deficits. We geospatially and statistically examine the NDS, NAS, and demographic data at the census tract level. We find that census tracts with higher proportions of poverty and minority populations are significantly correlated with a higher NDS, and that higher NAS values are more centrally located and offset from the high NDS areas. We believe the NDS and NAS provide a heuristic and useful tool for identifying community vulnerabilities and issues of environmental justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides additional empirical knowledge of injustice embedded in the urban governance of informal-sector electronic waste (e-waste) recycling in Ghana. It uses Urban Political Ecology and Environmental Justice perspectives to explain how divergent interest and power among diverse actors in the e-waste sector engender social and environmental (in)justice in Accra. Using the case study approach, this paper reveals that the persistent struggles over interest and power which characterise the governance and management of informal e-waste recycling generate inequity, false accusations, misrecognition, disrespect, devaluation, neglect, exclusion, and abuse of freedom and rights. Inclusive of the finding is the development of local resistance and social movement in defence of interests and against state aggression, oppression, domination and neglect. The study concludes to suggest that the governance of urban socio-economic and ecological space of Accra should involve coordination, participation, holistic inclusion of diverse interest, so as to minimise trade-offs and reap synergies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past few decades, there has been an increasing interest in the active involvement of local stakeholders in the management of floods in Europe. Such involvement is seen as necessary as the management of floods becomes more complex. Management approaches now seek to include a range of potential measures to reduce risk (e.g. structural defence, spatial planning and property-level protection measures). Local stakeholder involvement is seen to be important because governments lack the capacities such as knowledge and funding required to deliver all these measures alone. This paper focuses on the implications that more participative approaches have on the fairness of European flood risk management (FRM). Studies of environmental justice are well placed to address this question because they are interested in who is included and excluded from decisions related to the distribution of environmental goods (resources) and bads (risks). Existing literature suggests that fair decision-making processes (procedural justice) can lead to fair distribution or resources and risks (distributive justice). This literature review of 30 peer-reviewed papers provides an analysis of justice and FRM by assessing practices of participation which are presented in the recent literature on local stakeholder involvement in FRM in England, Germany and the Netherlands. It was found that participation in practice generally focuses on transferring responsibility to the local level at the expense of power. This paper discusses the implications that this finding has for justice and synthesises potential ways forward based on recommendations of the reviewed literature. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper is based on a review of the methodological approaches associated with solid waste management (SWM) in the context of sub-Saharan African (SSA) cities. Using Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as a case study, the paper proposes a new way of looking at solid waste in the bid to come up with alternative methods to improve the plight of SWM. A combination of qualitative research methods and system analysis have been employed to evaluate the causal relationships observed in contemporary SWM systems in Kinshasa. This paper argues that there is an absence of coherent and broad-based approaches to SWM in Kinshasa as is common in other SSA countries. Empirical evidence suggests that contemporary SWM strategies and approaches developed on a global scale which have increasingly been adopted by the Congolese national and local government authorities have proven inadequate to address the SWM realities on a local level. Using system thinking and system dynamics, this paper attempts to develop a feasible methodological framework focusing on the formulation of an appropriate approach to improve SWM in Kinshasa. It is argued that new ways of approaching the complexity that exists in SWM will facilitate the adoption of technologies and innovative ways of thinking and managing solid waste in a more sustainable, socially, and environmentally accepted manner. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The global dimensions of climate change necessitate a response that takes national differences – social, economic, geographic, and cultural – into account. Action-oriented education has a key role to play in advancing citizen engagement in a culture of sustainability. This paper describes research conducted with one such education programme, Youth Leading Environmental Change (YLEC), which operates in six countries and engages university-aged youth in discussion and practice related to global sustainability, systems thinking, and environmental justice. YLEC aims to advance four key competencies; this paper focuses on the goal of action competence, which involves acquiring knowledge, reflecting on experience in the context of one’s values, envisioning alternative futures, and acting individually and collectively to advance those alternatives. The present article examines the impacts of YLEC on environmental action competence in two of the countries involved in this research: Uganda and Germany. In-depth interviews were conducted with participants in both countries to examine the development of action competence during and after the programme. Findings suggest that outcomes differed in each country, reflective of participants’ different lived experiences. YLEC effectively built on the conditions faced in each country to accompany youth to a higher level of awareness and action. These findings have implications for environmental education programmes striving to work with multiple nations and diverse participants. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As urban greening has become a prevalent tool in the context of global climate governance, this paper examines Lisbon's greening strategies in the context of its election as European Green Capital 2020. While applying an analytical framework based on environmental justice, we perform a cross-analysis of the city-wide greening strategies, together with a peculiar and unusual planning process for a new green space in the neighbourhood of Marvila. Based on qualitative research carried out in-situ, we argue that Lisbon's greening strategies are based on a discourse of ecological benefits, without aiming to ensure access to green space for different population groups. Procedural justice concerns are widely undervalued, resulting in limited space available for community involvement. We show how urban greening is essentially a multiscalar exercise, impacted by and affecting multiple scales simultaneously. Hence procedural justice deserves a much more prominent role in urban greening, as participation and recognition can give local communities the opportunity to adapt global urban agendas toward their particular needs and desires. Our findings lead us to conclude that environmental justice is ultimately an exercise of multiscalar governance, where local decision-making needs to attend to contextual challenges but also to a long-term sustainability vision at a larger scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Distributional injustices have been documented by many environmental justice scholars in recent years, while procedural justice issues remain less explored. For instance, immigrants and newcomers disproportionately experience substandard housing conditions and discrimination in the housing market, but few studies have examined how immigrant communities are seeking to improve their living conditions or engage in related governance and advocacy processes. Drawing upon interviews and focus groups with residents, community organisers and representatives from social service agencies in Rexdale, an inner suburb of Toronto, this paper examines how immigrants and newcomers are reacting or taking action to improve conditions in a high-rise neighbourhood at the scale of their housing units, high-rise buildings, and neighbourhood. Through a procedural justice lens, cumulative, multi-scale injustices experienced by immigrants and newcomers are revealed. Findings reveal obstacles and barriers that are preventing immigrants from engaging in advocacy and other means of improving their living conditions, in addition to opportunities for increasing newcomer participation in housing and neighbourhood improvement efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the concept of environmental justice (EJ) in solid waste management (SWM) in Kinshasa, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). It evaluates the extent to which EJ occurs in SWM and discusses the factors accounting for this state of affairs. The paper examines the relevant theoretical framework(s) and mechanisms that would facilitate the attainment of EJ in Kinshasa. It is argued that solid waste (SW) often ends up in the poorest and least powerful communities in the cities of the DRC. A qualitative research methodology, which includes exhaustive critical review of the literature, system analysis, reflections from best practices through case studies and discussion with stakeholders, was used for this study. Findings revealed that SWM in Kinshasa is a duty entrusted to publicly-funded municipal authorities. There are evidences of a clear divide between the rich and poor neighbourhoods in the manner SW is managed. This is an inequality that has only recently begun to be recognised as injustice practices in SWM. It is argued that a politico-cultural mechanism on remedying SWM inequities could enable changes that will address EJ in Kinshasa. Such a solution will go directly against the prevailing notion “some happy, others sad”. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Economic, environmental, and social limits of the current capitalist mode of production have led to a rethinking and reconceptualisation of economic processes and models including the role of businesses in sustainable development. While green economies and more specifically green entrepreneurs have been identified as agents of change that can challenge the mainstream and seek to induce environmental, social, and ethical transformation of society, much research has stayed within existing models of thinking predominantly rooted in technocratic approaches (e.g. ecological modernisation and more recently transition studies). This paper seeks to offer an alternative understanding of green entrepreneurship that breaks open these discussions using an environmental justice frame that focuses on the role of extra-economic discourses in shaping the social relations of economic systems. By drawing on an exemplary case study of “just” entrepreneurship from Boston, Massachusetts, USA, the paper seeks to start a conversation around the ideas of green entrepreneurship and environmental justice as vehicles to deliver potentially broader system changes and explores both conceptual and practical aspects of green development. As such, it offers (1) evidence of a just green economy that can be realised within existing capitalist structures as well as (2) a different conceptual entry point to understanding green entrepreneurship. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

While the redevelopment of brownfield sites has been the mainstay of public agencies and private developers, this paper argues that in order to promote just redevelopment that encourages participation and targets weak market sites, a community-based approach to brownfield redevelopment should be encouraged. Furthermore, this paper maintains that community development corporations (CDCs) could be the ideal agents to spur community development and address environmental justice concerns through their increased involvement in brownfield redevelopment projects. In order to promote these positions, we first describe this new approach, which focuses on building the capacity of CDCs to meaningfully participate in brownfield redevelopment. We then offer four proposals designed to increase this capacity. We conclude with a discussion of how community-based brownfield redevelopment connects to larger issues of democratic decision-making, environmental justice, and urban revitalisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the ability of civil society actors to champion environmental justice in an industrial risk society in South Africa by way of mobilisation and protest action. This paper presents viewpoints from key stakeholders at the Durban city level and three local case study sites to examine social capital relations to achieve environmental justice. It explores how civil society engages in social capital for mobilisation with itself and subsequent protest actions to engage with government and industry. The paper highlights that social actor response to engage in social capital for mobilisation and protests is best understood in relation to the socio-economic and political positioning of individuals or organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As local climate adaptation activity increases, so does the number of questions about costs, benefits, financing and the role that economic considerations play in adaptation-related decision-making and policy. Through five cases, covering a range of climate risks and types of adaptation measures, this paper critically examines Swedish project coordinators' perceptions of costs and benefits in already-implemented climate adaptation measures. Our study finds that project coordinators make use of different system boundaries – on temporal, geographical and administrative scales – in their cost/benefit evaluations, making the practice of determining adaptation costs arbitrary and hard to compare. We further demonstrate that the project coordinators interpret costs and benefits in a manner that downplays the intangible environmental and social costs and benefits arising from the adaptation measures, despite their own experience of how such measures negatively impact upon social value. The exclusion of social and environmental costs and benefits has severe implications for justice, as it can bias decisions against people and ecosystems that are affected negatively. Based on the findings, we propose three tentative social justice dilemmas in local climate adaptation planning and implementation: 1. Cost and benefit distribution across scales; 2. The identification and valuation of non-market effects; and 3. The equitable allocation of costs and benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that salmon aquaculture operations situated in First Nations' claimed territories on Canada's West Coast create issues of environmental injustice. Salmon farms are associated with various environmental problems including pollution of the aquatic environment, risks to wild salmon, and food safety issues. These environmental problems constitute issues of environmental injustice due to the disproportionate, and different, impacts they have on coastal First Nations in comparison with other Canadians. The paper draws on material from several reviews of British Columbian (BC) salmon aquaculture to analyse coastal BC First Nations' claims and concerns about salmon farming along three environmental justice dimensions: distribution, participation and recognition. Qualitative evidence is obtained suggesting that coastal First Nations face disproportionate health risks from salmon farms, are excluded from decision-making processes with respect to the farms, and feel that their worldviews, identities, and ways of life are both ignored and at risk from the farms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to discussions of procedural aspects of environmental justice, understood as having procedural and substantive dimensions. It argues that the struggle for environmental justice must recognize the oppression of disabled people as part of the essential broadening of the notion of citizenship, which continues to be the focus for struggle for the international disability movement. Its case study of an area of South Wales suggests that at present disabled people, and the struggles of the disability movement, do not really feature in the way environmental activists (inside and outside government) see the world. This huge omission must be addressed, but in a way that avoids interpreting disability as an administrative category, and must engage with disablement as a political and contested notion. The paper develops the significance of this contention by considering the case of Deafness, which is entirely different from hearing impairment. The paper's case study, presented as an illustration of its arguments, shows that to regard Deaf people in South Wales as part of some generic category of 'disabled people' would be to ignore their self-identification as a distinctive linguistic community. Moreover, there is some evidence that Deaf people have a distinctive view of, and set of concerns about, quality of life, reflecting their distinctive experience of social injustice and marginalization. This underlines the necessity for a serious engagement with disablement as a political category, and the disability movement as a struggle for social justice, within the promotion of environmental justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One major feature of recent global environmental changes is the increasing number of local environmental conflicts throughout the world. However, there remains a lack of a comprehensive and dynamic framework to capture the socio-political transformations that place-based environmental resistance movements produce. Indeed, these conflicts are most often considered by dominant actors as a manifestation of the NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) phenomenon. In order to advance a framework capable of capturing the complexity of the socio-political effects of local environmental resistance movements, the goal of this paper is to further pursue the development of the concept of "enlightened resistance", which analyzes place-based struggles through four types of capital - social, knowledge, patrimonial and political - each with societal implications. This goal is mainly achieved through new conceptual and methodological developments in the framework which evolves towards an "enlightening resistance" framework, and through its application to three case studies from a comparative perspective. The authors develop a set of criteria in order to compare their case studies according to the four types of societal transformations that characterise the enlightening resistance framework. They argue here that this dynamic framework may be useful to the environmental justice movement to strengthen its capacity to assess the socio-political impacts of local environmental resistance movements. Highlights: The new framework proposed goes beyond the NIMBY concept and provides a comparative analysis for case-studies. Criteria are developed for identifying the socio-political transformations produced by place-based conflicts. The criteria and the concept of enlightened resistance may help environmental justice actors to build reflexivity. The framework's methodological developments enhance its reproducibility and thus it can be applied to/tested on other case studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how Australia's Indigenous peoples understand and respond to climate change impacts on their traditional land and seas. Our results show that: (i) Indigenous peoples are observing modifications to their country due to climate change, and are doing so in both ancient and colonial time scales; (ii) the ways that climate change terminology is discursively understood and used is fundamental to achieving deep engagement and effective adaptive governance; (iii) Indigenous peoples in Australia exhibit a high level of agency via diverse approaches to climate adaptation; and (iv) humour is perceived as an important cultural component of engagement about climate change and adaptation. However, wider governance regimes consistently attempt to "upscale" Indigenous initiatives into their own culturally governed frameworks - or ignore them totally as they "don't fit" within neoliberal policy regimes. We argue that an opportunity exists to acknowledge the ways in which Indigenous peoples are agents of their own change, and to support the strategic localism of Indigenous adaptation approaches through tailored and place-based adaptation for traditional country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of fracking in the UK is at a crucial stage, with the industry seemingly on the brink of entering an operational phase. Despite this major development, analyses of its ethical dimensions have been limited. Concepts of environmental justice have been applied to the case of fracking to evaluate the ethicality of its development in the UK. However, these have tended to focus on a narrow range of environmental justice considerations. I argue that an expanded environmental justice frame can supplement existing contributions and provide a unified frame through which the ethicality of fracking in the UK can be further examined and evaluated. The paper applies an expanded environmental justice frame, which encompasses themes of distribution, procedure, recognition and capabilities. Considerations of justice as distribution highlight the unjust distribution of basic rights and the insufficiency of compensating benefits for the communities set to host fracking. An application of procedural justice questions whether community consent, even if present, would make fracking permissible when it is perceived as a solution to economic deprivation. I then argue that fracking in the UK constitutes an injustice as misrecognition, given its devaluation of communities through a neoliberal value system. An application of justice as capabilities frame outlines the risk of fracking being inconsistent with meeting basic needs for the functioning of individuals and communities, particularly in rural areas. Finally, climate and intergenerational justice are drawn upon to highlight the ability of the frame to incorporate these further justice considerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To date, research on mine remediation in North America has focused primarily on technical management; relatively less is known about the historical, political and social dimensions of remediation. Remediation, as a continuation of the mining process, alters local landscapes and economies and can be both dangerous and beneficial for surrounding communities. Because remediation projects tend to focus on the technical aspects of clean-up, such projects risk overlooking the environmental injustices associated with past development and obscuring blame or responsibility from industry and government for environmental degradation. Insofar as it is understood as cleaning up or repairing environmental damage, remediation is generally seen as "doing the good" and is less amenable to political or ethical challenges based on community concerns or values. This paper argues that greater attention needs to be paid to public participation and justice concerns associated with cleaning up mine sites. Drawing from the literatures on ecological restoration, environmental justice, reconciliation, discard studies, and matters of care, we highlight critical, yet overlooked issues in the remediation of post-mining landscapes. We argue that remediation projects present a unique opportunity for the negotiation and articulation of morals, values, histories, and physical experiences associated with mine sites and we seek to re-frame remediation as an ongoing, creative process of community healing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper applies a "justice" lens to the struggle of the people displaced by the Merowe Dam in northern Sudan. Application of distributive, procedural, and representational aspects of justice exposes the dissatisfaction of the affected people with the government's offer and execution of compensation. Consideration of social justice and the utility of norms in trans-national activism brings into sharp focus the difference in interests, and abilities of the many actors involved, and highlights the government's tactics to divide the communities, and the social divisions sown. As the struggle develops, justice claims are seen to change towards less material issues, suggesting that an expanded and dynamic conception of justice is more helpful than narrow or time-bound conceptions. The findings are of relevance to communities facing possible displacement from dams planned nearby, not least of all for the insight provided on the effectiveness of different tactics in the struggle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indigenous peoples are among the most affected by environmental injustices globally, however environmental justice theory has not yet meaningfully addressed decolonisation and the resistance of Indigenous communities against extractivism in the settler-colonial context. This paper suggests that informing environmental justice through decolonial analysis and decolonising practices can help transcend the Western ontological roots of environmental justice theories and inform a more radical and emancipatory environmental justice. The Unist'ot'en Resistance and Action Camp blocking pipelines in northwestern British Columbia, Canada, their "Reimagined Free Prior and Informed Consent protocol" and the Delgamuukw case are described to discuss limitations of the state and legal framework for accommodating a decolonial and transformative environmental justice. A decolonial analysis informed by these two moments of Wet'sewet'ten history suggests limits and adaptations to the trivalent EJ framework based on recognition, participation and distribution. It is argued that a decolonising and transformative approach to environmental justice must be based on self-governing authority, relational ontologies of nature and epistemic justice and the unsettling of power through the assertion of responsibility and care through direct action. This discussion is placed in the context of the expansion of the concept of ecological rights, for example through the enshrining of the "Rights of Nature" in the constitutions of countries such as Bolivia and Ecuador, to highlight the Inherent tensions in the translation of Indigenous cosmo-visions into legal systems based on universalist values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Excessive exploitation of and skewed access to dwindling water resources raise serious water justice concerns. Environmental justice movements and related literature have raised critical questions regarding the unequal distribution of the costs and benefits of a development paradigm that is founded on excessive exploitation and appropriation of natural resources. This paper explores the growing relevance of a water justice framework that addresses both the social and ecological aspects of water use and appropriation, with reference to a four-decade long water conflict over the Chaliyar River in Kerala, South India. It highlights how ecosystem degradation and denial of justice go hand in hand. The paper argues that the framing and articulation of the conflict in a partisan manner led to the glossing over of certain critical features, thus preventing a full view of water injustices. It also failed to inform subsequent policies and practices in this regard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While in many cases the benefits of ecosystem services (ES) can be enjoyed on different scales, the provision of ES requires engagement and commitment at the local scale. Therefore, the local level becomes important when thinking about compensation schemes or payments for ecosystem services (PES) as an approach to managing ES. The difficult task of bringing together different actors and institutions at different scales for specific conservation projects at the local level often remains in the hands of intermediaries. In this paper, we investigate the role of a civil society organisation (CSO) as an intermediary organisation in a PES scheme, the Community Blue Carbon Project (CBCP) in Costa Rica. To assess the role of intermediaries in a PES scheme, we rely on social network analysis and examine the position and role of the intermediary organisation. Based on Net-Map interviews, which is an interview-based mapping tool that helps people understand, visualise, discuss and improve situations in which many different actors influence outcomes, we find that the intermediary organisation in the CBCP is composed of several institutional and individual intermediaries who create both formal networks for connecting the international to the local level and informal networks for creating trusting relationships among the actors. Different spatial levels are reflected within the CSO’s organisational structure, and the CSO mitigates the distributional, procedural, recognition and contextual aspects of environmental justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban stormwater systems traditionally used “grey” infrastructure to manage runoff. Contemporary designs now incorporate “green” infrastructure, which offers additional potential benefits such as urban amenities and health. Understanding how green and grey infrastructure investments are distributed across urban areas is important for new goals of promoting environmental justice in planning. In California, for instance, public investments increasingly require a percentage of funds to be spent in disadvantaged communities. Recent advancements in the availability of high-detail geographic data in cities can support prioritising investments to fulfil these multiple benefits. This paper analyses the distribution of stormwater infrastructure in Los Angeles (LA) County in relation to design criteria, urban structure and sociodemographic information. It demonstrates an approach for identifying projects that simultaneously address engineering needs and promote equity. Statistical analysis of high-detail sewer locations reveals geographic correlations with key local design parameters, urban characteristics and sociodemographic indicators. Watershed areas in LA County were identified that support multi-benefit projects, meeting dual criteria for infrastructure improvements and disadvantaged community status. As stormwater systems are increasingly designed for multi-benefit outcomes, new design frameworks can emphasise both performance and social equity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how the state responds to persistent claims of environmental injustice in overburdened communities. Our analysis focuses on activities, objectives, and processes of state intervention to understand how state actors attempt to rescript the meaning of environmental justice. We develop our analysis through a case study of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (USEPA) Environmental Justice Showcase Communities (EJSC) Programme, and its project in Port Arthur, Texas, to understand how the state responds to communities of colour facing toxic pollution. We discover a misalignment between the aims of local activists and policy interventions. If interventions do not align with the goals of activists, then what political work is done through the programme? We identify two elements of this USEPA programme: (1) how the EJSC programme targets individuals living in environmental justice communities for remediation rather than facilitating environmental remediation; and (2) how state interventions align in multiple ways with interests of the private sector, effectively redefining environmental justice from a utilitarian view of compensation. Moreover, we describe how the EJSC programme also forges new pathways for private companies to participate in environmental compensation programmes while ignoring requests to enhance monitoring and regulatory compliance in industry. Thus, rather than responding and advancing activist environmental justice objectives, programme discourses and interventions sideline collective community claims and redirect state-level EJ interventions that embrace market-centric measures. Such market-based interventions on behalf and in the name of environmental justice signal a further entrenchment of what we refer to as the marketisation of environmental justice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Uses of science by environmental justice (EJ) activists reflect struggles to challenge professional scientific expertise, achieve fair outcomes, and effectively participate in decision-making processes. This qualitative research analyses the relationship betweencitizen scienceand EJ in a new waste facility siting conflict in urban Los Angeles, namely connections between citizen science and four dimensions of EJ:fair distribution,respect and recognition,participation in decision-making, andcommunity capabilities. Citizen science is one tactic in EJ, yet little research investigates its role in a new facility siting conflict, particularly in relation to multi-faceted EJ goals. The research reveals opportunities for individual empowerment and community capacity building using citizen science, and a small measure of improved respect and recognition for participants who brought their own knowledge, research, and voices to the table. At the same time, the work identifies limitations on citizen science to improve local participatory procedures and decision-making, which also constricted the achievement of outcomes most desired by the EJ group: to prevent approval and construction of the new waste facility. This paper argues that uses of citizen science contributed to partial achievement of EJ goals, while hindered by governance processes that call for public participation yet shield decision-makers from substantive engagement with the volume or content of that participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study seeks to understand the factors that influence the variability in distribution of public and private sector investments in green stormwater infrastructure (GSI) projects across the diversity of neighbourhoods in the City of Philadelphia, PA, U.S.A. using indicators of community context and capacity. For this study, context is defined as characteristics of disadvantaged communities and capacity as factors that facilitate individual and collective action. Community context and capacity are deemed integral to the success of the Philadelphia GSI programme as the Philadelphia Water Department is relying upon collaborative approaches to facilitate public investments in neighbourhoods and voluntary implementation of GSI practices on publically and privately owned lands. Private sector investments in GSI mandated by stormwater regulations for new construction and major rehabilitation also are assessed in relation to these two sets of indicators. The geographic information systems and statistical analyses reveal an inequitable distribution of GSI projects, which largely is driven by market forces. The paper concludes with a community capacity-based framework to prioritise public sector investment in disadvantaged communities to achieve more equitable distribution of GSI projects and associated benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]