Environmental Justice: Screening Tools, EJ Indexes, and Justice40
Understanding the uses of EJ screening tools—and the strengths and weaknesses of alternative approaches—for Justice40 and similar programs
Event Details
Environmental justice (EJ) screening and mapping tools bring together environmental, socioeconomic, and demographic information to identify the communities that are most affected by pollution and where the most vulnerable groups are located. The US Environmental Protection Agency’s EJScreen is one example. California has its own screening and mapping tool, CalEnviroScreen; several other states also have developed, or are developing, screening tools. The White House recently released a beta version of a new Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool, which is designed to help federal agencies identify disadvantaged, marginalized and underserved communities for purposes of the Justice40 initiative outlined in the President’s Executive Order 14008, Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad.
On March 24, 2022, Resources for the Future (RFF) and the Urban Institute hosted the final event in Exposure, where a panel of experts discussed the uses of screening tools—including for Justice40 and similar programs—and the strengths and weaknesses of alternative approaches.
Speakers
- Ana Baptista, The New School
- Jamesa Johnson-Greer, Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition
- Paul Mohai, University of Michigan
- Sacoby Wilson, University of Maryland
- Anne Junod, Urban Institute (Moderator)
- Margaret Walls, Resources for the Future (Moderator)
Event Video
Additional Materials
Reading List
- "Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty: Why Race Still Matters After All These Years" by Robert Bullard, Paul Mohai, Robin Saha, and Beverly Wright
- "Another Game Changer in the Making? Lessons from States Advancing Environmental Justice Through Mapping and Cumulative Impact Strategies" by Charles Lee
- "Addressing Cumulative Impacts: Lessons from Environmental Justice Screening Tool Development and Resistance" by Arianna Zrzavy, Molly Blondell, Wakako Kobayashi, Bryan Redden, and Paul Mohai
- "Defining Environmental Justice Communities for Environmental Justice Policies" by Ana Isabel Baptista, Adrienne Perovich, Marisa Valdez, Anna Yulsman, and Thomas Ikeda
- The New School Tishman Environment and Design Center projects and publications on EJ, including definitions of EJ communities
- "MD EJScreen 2.0: A Tool for Mapping Environmental Justice in Maryland" Jan-Michael Archer and Sacoby Wilson
- "Utilization of the Maryland Environmental Justice Screening Tool: A Bladensburg, Maryland Case Study" by Aubree Driver, Crystal Mehdizadeh, Samuel Bara-Garcia, Coline Bodenreider, Jessica Lewis, and Sacoby Wilson
- "Development of a Cumulative Stressors and Resiliency Index to Examine Environmental Health Risk: A South Carolina Assessment" by Kristen Burwell-Naney, Sacoby M. Wilson, Xin He, Amir Sapkota, and Robin Puett
- Assessing the State of Environmental Justice in Michigan by Laura Grier, Delia Mayor, and Brett Zeuner
- Environmental Justice Tools for the 21st Century by Molly Blondell, Wakako Kobayashi, Bryan Redden, and Arianna Zrzavy
White House Council on Environmental Quality
- Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool (beta version)
- Federal Register notice for submitting public comments
Michigan
Exposure: An RFF–Urban Institute Series on Environmental Justice
Environmental justice (EJ) is an imperative that is finally getting its national policy due. For many low-income neighborhoods, households of color, tribal communities, and other marginalized groups, environmental injustice compounds a legacy of social, economic, and political disenfranchisement. Recent presidential executive orders, appointments, and proposed legislation acknowledge the disproportionate burdens of negative environmental conditions and exposures, and reduced access to environmental benefits and amenities, placed on these populations.
Since the groundbreaking Toxic Wastes and Race and Dumping in Dixie published in the late 1980s first brought EJ issues to the fore, scholars have supported activists and journalists by investigating the mechanisms that create and perpetuate environmental inequities and exclusion and quantifying the extent of the problems. This combined scholarship and advocacy has led to improved monitoring and outcome tracking and some progress in finding solutions to persistent pollution problems. But inequities persist—and as the United States begins to reckon with the climate crisis, designing climate policies that benefit all communities will be imperative.
RFF and the Urban Institute are hosting this webinar series on the current state of EJ research across disciplines, examining how research can inform policy and identifying remaining gaps in knowledge. With panels of experts from the research and EJ advocacy communities, we will take a deep dive into issues related to cumulative environmental impacts, EJ screening tools, energy equity and transitions, benefit-cost analysis and regulatory design, disaster and climate adaptation, and the design of climate policies. The series will also ask how research can inform better policy design and public investments to remedy inequities, past and present.
