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Steppingstones to build more environmental justice into environmental research
Citation:
Canfield, Katherine, K. Mulvaney, M. Cashman, M. Holmes, AND J. Cashdollar. Steppingstones to build more environmental justice into environmental research. Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry North America, 42nd Annual Meeting, NA, Virtual, November 14 - 18, 2021.
Impact/Purpose:
Environmental justice refers to equitable access for all people to a safe and healthy environment and works to correct injustices in which communities of color and other marginalized groups are disproportionately burdened with environmental harms. Addressing environmental injustices requires the collaboration of multiple approaches and agencies, diverse expertise, and community partnerships, all with unique skillsets and insights to contribute. This presentation provides recommendations for expanding scientists' efforts at environmental justice research, including building a team of interested researchers communicating results of past work with impacted communities, institutional support of environmental justice work, and working closely with communities to understand what their environmental justice concerns are.
Description:
This presentation seeks to explain the role scientists can play in moving towards environmental justice. Environmental justice (EJ) refers to achieving equitable access to environmental benefits and minimizing environmental burdens for all people, recognizing the past imbalance in environmental benefits and burdens experienced across identities, including race, gender, age, sexuality, immigration status, and socioeconomic status. Incorporating an EJ lens into environmental research is one way that researchers can actively support existing needs in EJ communities. This presentation will explain the relevance of an “environmental justice lens” to biophysical and social science researchers, and present some opportunities for researchers to incorporate this lens into practice. A review of environmental justice literature and early results of local efforts to increase relevance of environmental justice into research are used in defining an environmental justice lens and identifying applicable practices relevant to biophysical and social science researchers. The resulting recommended practices focus on actions researchers across academia, government, and other research organizations can operationalize, while also presenting the value of institutional change to tackle systemic environmental injustices. Discussed recommended practices include (1) defining a coalition of interested researchers, (2) building interdisciplinary and inter-organization collaborations, (3) learning from and listening to the needs of communities, (4) revisiting and recommunicating past work in ways that serve community needs, and (5) developing future-focused research plans that address the needs of communities facing environmental injustice. Using examples from our own practice we explain how adopting an EJ lens in research is an opportunity for biophysical and social science researchers to work together to utilize their diverse environmental scientific expertise to expand the production of and access to research to address environmental injustices.
