Environmental Justice and Transformations to Sustainability

Martin, Adrian Armijos, M. Teresa Coolsaet, Brendan [UCL] Dawson, Neil A. S. Edwards, Gareth Few, Roger Gross-Camp, Nicole Rodriguez, Iokiñe Schroeder, Heike G. L. Tebboth, Mark White, Carole S. et al.[show all]

This association between environmental crises and social injustice is now widely accepted. Many feel that time is running out for incremental approaches to prove effective and that there is an inescapable need for a radical, transformative change that combines sustainability and justice. The primary purpose of this paper is to underline the importance of placing justice at the heart of transformative change. We begin by briefly addressing the meaning of transformations to sustainability. Coming at this from a justice angle, we emphasize the challenge of addressing not only the unequal outcomes of environmental change, but also the underlying distributions of power that produce these inequalities. Hence, we combine transformations with environmental justice. We then review four important insights from environmental justice scholarship (multidimensional environmental justice, environmental justice as conflict transformation, plural and decolonized environmental justice, the capabilities approach to environmental justice) to help us better understand how to make progress on just transformations to sustainability.