Environmental justice

Part of a series on
Environmental justice
Key topics Climate change effects poverty litigation Climate crisis debt justice reparations resilience Corporate accountability Corporate crime Corporate environmental responsibility Energy democracy Environmental conflict crime inequality in the UK injustice in Europe justice racism racism in the USA racism in Western Europe Rights Amendments List of environmental conflicts Urban forest inequity
Academia Decolonization of knowledge Human geography Ecological economics Environmental Justice Atlas Environmental sociology Political ecology Social ecology Scholars: Robert Bullard Dina Gilio-Whitaker Joan Martinez Alier Kyle Powys Whyte Dorceta Taylor
By region Africa Europe Western Europe Central and Eastern Europe Russia United Kingdom United States US-Mexico border
Related topics Blockadia Climate finance Corporate accountability for human rights violations Corporate social responsibility Decolonization Desertification Electronic waste Environmental defender Water protector Land defender Environmentalism of the poor Environmentalism Environmental law Extractivism Global waste trade Green imperialism Human rights and climate change Impact investing List of environmental killings Locally unwanted land use Rights of nature Sacrifice zone Stewardship Sumak Kawsay Toxic colonialism Water conflict Zapatismo
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Environmental justice is a social movement that addresses injustice that occurs when poor or marginalized communities are harmed by hazardous waste, resource extraction, and other land uses from which they do not benefit.^[1][2] The movement has generated hundreds of studies showing that exposure to environmental harm is inequitably distributed.^[3]

The movement began in the United States in the 1980s. It was heavily influenced by the American civil rights movement and focused on environmental racism within rich countries. The movement was later expanded to consider gender, international environmental injustice, and inequalities within marginalized groups. As the movement achieved some success in rich countries, environmental burdens were shifted to the Global South (as for example through extractivism or the global waste trade). The movement for environmental justice has thus become more global, with some of its aims now being articulated by the United Nations. The movement overlaps with movements for Indigenous land rights and for the human right to a healthy environment.^[4]

The goal of the environmental justice movement is to achieve agency for marginalized communities in making environmental decisions that affect their lives. The global environmental justice movement arises from local environmental conflicts in which environmental defenders frequently confront multi-national corporations in resource extraction or other industries. Local outcomes of these conflicts are increasingly influenced by trans-national environmental justice networks.^[5][6]

Environmental justice scholars have produced a large interdisciplinary body of social science literature that includes contributions to political ecology, environmental law, and theories on justice and sustainability.^[2][7][8]