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

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.

Understanding the governance of sustainability pathways: Hydraulic megaprojects, social-ecological traps, and politicized networks of action situations

To enable robust and just sustainability pathways, we need to understand how social-ecological systems (SES) respond to different governance configurations, considering their historical, institutional, political and power conditions. We advance a robust methodological tool for the integrated analysis of those conditions, focusing on SES traps and building on an existing case study: the Doñana region (Guadalquivir estuary, SW Spain), an estuary-delta SES. Doñana is characterized by institutional rigidity for water resources and wetland conservation governance and, more generally, by a SES rigidity trap. Here, we focus on a relatively recent hydraulic megaproject involving deep dredging in the Guadalquivir estuary, finally canceled due to its broad negative socioeconomic and environmental repercussions. Our methodological development consists of a novel combination of the politicized version of the Institutional Analysis and Development (pIAD) framework and the Networks of Action Situations (NAS) approach. Our analysis reveals a governance configuration characterized by strategic interactions among key actors posing no new large socioeconomic or environmental risks in the short term. This pattern is however vulnerable due to an underlying coordination failure and sub-optimal equilibrium situation, which emerge from a pattern of uncooperative behavior that cannot be explained without considering discourse inertia and power dynamics. Deep dredging could have led to a sudden fall of governance into a below sub-optimal equilibrium and regime shift toward a lock-in trap posing high sunk and trajectory-shifting costs. Currently, the game is on for achieving a shift to a high ‘blue equilibrium’ and launching a robust sustainability pathway through collective action.

Strengthening Gender Justice in a Just Transition: A Research Agenda Based on a Systematic Map of Gender in Coal Transitions

For climate change mitigation, a rapid phase-out of fossil fuels such as coal is necessary. This has far-reaching gender-specific consequences. This paper presents a systematic map of the literature that examines the impact of historical coal phase-out processes on women and their role in these processes. The search process consisted of screening over 3100 abstracts and reading 247 full-text studies. The analysis of the 73 publications ultimately included in the systematic map shows that past coal phase-outs meant both opportunities (e.g., increased labour market participation) as well as burdens for women (e.g., double burden of job and household). It becomes clear that agency within coal transitions was also gendered. For example, it was difficult for women to gain access to union structures, which led them to organise themselves into grassroots movements. Our research shows that policies aiming for a just sustainability transition should always be explicitly gender-responsive. However, the impact of sustainability transitions on women’s lives remains largely under-researched. Therefore, we propose a research agenda based on our findings containing six key issues that need to be addressed scientifically.

Resilience Gentrification: Environmental Privilege in an Age of Coastal Climate Disasters

Climate change is exacerbating storms at the same time that humans are increasingly settling in areas most affected by such storms. In theory, post-disaster recovery offers opportunities to rebuild for sustainable development. However, in reality, responses to climate events often result in greater inequality through a process we term resilience gentrification. Three possible resolutions to the coastal resilience dialectic are managed retreat, denial, and structural mitigation. Structural mitigation has become the most popular response in the Anthropocene. This response raises the cost of coastal redevelopment, giving capital greater access and control over development decisions. These changes make coastal areas more expensive and more exclusive. We illustrate this process in the post-disaster recovery of two very different communities: Gowanus, Brooklyn and the Caribbean island of Barbuda. In both cases, attempts to build it back “green”—using selective aspects of “sustainable development” as a guide—come at the cost of exacerbating existing housing inequality. In this way, “resilience” gets equated with wealth, thus reinforcing a cycle of climate injustice. To achieve a “just sustainability,” government responses must consider and address the equity impacts of climate change resilience policies. Managed retreat and degrowth strategies for climate resilience offer greater potential for a just sustainability in the Anthropocene.

EU Rural Policy’s Capacity to Facilitate a Just Sustainability Transition of the Rural Areas

The sustainability transition of rural areas is a must due to rapid climate changes and biodiversity loss. Given the limited resources of rural communities, policy should facilitate a just sustainability transition of the EU rural areas. The analysis of EU development policies, past performance and the envisaged scope of reform, presented in this study point to a serious inconsistency between the declaration and implementation of relevant policies. Namely, the marginal role rural areas perform in common agricultural policy and cohesion policy; a result of the lack of a complex approach to rural development. The analysis was based on the concept of good governance and took a multi-level perspective. It advocates territorial justice as an approach that should be at the core of creating a comprehensive policy for rural areas in the EU, including their diversity and empowering local communities to choose the transition pathway that is most in line with their current situation and development capacity. This analysis fills a gap in research on the evolution of the rural development policy in the EU. This research can inform the reprioritization and intensification of efforts to create equitable policies for EU rural development.

Discarded Identities/Inspiring Just Sustainability with Reuse Persona Dolls

The author identifies as a mixed-race Chicana teacher/educator, bridging ecology, culture, and learning situated within an early learning center on a university campus. This inquiry integrates Gloria Anzaldúa’s autohistoria teoría/autobiographical theory and documents (1) the social construction of a gender-fluid persona doll named “Logan” during a focus group with REMIDA Reggio-inspired educators, (2) a (dis)rupture that took place after engaging the persona doll to introduce the term “transgender” during a preschool circle time, and (3) lessons learned to move early childhood education for social sustainability forward. During this disrupture in our learning community, the question of whether or not to discard Logan’s (gender non-binary) identity emerged. Logan’s story is one of curricular innovation in the examination of topics and concepts of ecological sustainability, equity-based pedagogy, and creative reuse through the construction and use of persona dolls. The dolls themselves are created from reuse materials, and they adopt personas and social backgrounds reflecting awareness of ecological and social injustice while co-developing ideas of actions for equity with the input of children.

Adaptive Design of Formworks for Building Renovation Considering the Sustainability of Construction in BIM Environment—Case Study

Progressive technologies and practices are shifting the possibilities of building design and improving work efficiency. Constantly changing site conditions require different procedures and designs that take into account these changing conditions, whether it is a design solution, a change in environmental conditions, or just sustainability factors. Adaptive building design offers opportunities to cope with changing factors to achieve the ähighest possible level of building quality. This case study deals with the topic of adaptive formwork design for building renovation, taking into account sustainability. The aim of the article is an investigation and demonstration of the building information modeling (BIM) environment used for the adaptive design of formwork elements for the building renovation in the context of sustainability. The object of the case study is a building in the center of Kosice, Slovakia. The BIM environment allows prompt and correct adaptation of the formwork design to changing lighting conditions, ventilation, heating and temperature during the design of the building.

Adaptive Design of Formworks for Building Renovation Considering the Sustainability of Construction in Bim Environment – Case Study

Progressive technologies and practices are shifting the possibilities of building design and improving work efficiency. Constantly changing site conditions require different procedures and designs that take into account these changing conditions, whether it is a design solution, a change in environmental conditions, or just sustainability factors. Adaptive building design offers opportunities to cope with changing factors to achieve the highest possible level of building quality. This case study deals with the topic of adaptive formwork design for building renovation, taking into account sustainability. Aim of the article is an investigation and demonstration of the building information modelling (BIM) environment used for the adaptive design of formwork elements for the building renovation in the context of sustainability. The object of the case study is a building in the center of Kosice, Slovakia. BIM environment allows prompt and correct adaptation of the formwork design to changing conditions of lighting, ventilation, heating and temperature during the design of the building.