Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/venv20 Environmental Justice and Transformations to Sustainability Adrian Martin , M. Teresa Armijos , Brendan Coolsaet , Neil Dawson , Gareth A. S. Edwards , Roger Few , Nicole Gross-Camp , Iokiñe Rodriguez , Heike Schroeder , Mark G. L. Tebboth & Carole S. White To cite this article: Adrian Martin , M. Teresa Armijos , Brendan Coolsaet , Neil Dawson , Gareth A. S. Edwards , Roger Few , Nicole Gross-Camp , Iokiñe Rodriguez , Heike Schroeder , Mark G. L. Tebboth & Carole S. White (2020) Environmental Justice and Transformations to Sustainability, Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, 62:6, 19-30, DOI: 10.1080/00139157.2020.1820294 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00139157.2020.1820294 © 2020 The Authors. Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. Published online: 16 Nov 2020. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 835 View related articles View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=venv20 Roger Few by Adrian Martin, M. Teresa Armijos, Brendan Coolsaet, Neil Dawson, Gareth A. S. Edwards, Roger Few, Nicole Gross-Camp, Iokiñe Rodriguez, Heike Schroeder, Mark G. L. Tebboth, and Carole S. White An informal settlement on hazardous terrain in Colombia. XXXX/XXXXNOVEMBER 2020/DECEMBER 2020 WWW.TANDFONLINE.COM/VENV ENVIRONMENT 19 lobal carbon emissions to rebuild shattered economies is pres­ justice at the heart of transformative continue to rise,1 rates of suring leaders to fire up their economies change. We seek “just transformations” global biodiversity loss again. On March 26, 2020, for example, to sustainability. This will require giv­ continue to increase,2 and the U.S. Environmental Protection ing special attention to the treatment social and economic Agency (EPA) announced temporary of those most vulnerable to the impacts inequalities continue to widen.3 Signi­ deregulation of enforcement of air pol­ of the climate and ecological crises and Gficant global social movements such as lution standards,4 an action intended to to those who are vulnerable to the Fridays for Future are declaring this ease financial costs for businesses but at actions to address these crises. The situation an “emergency,” regarding it as the price of increasing health risks for consequences of failing to pursue just a crime against humanity in which vulnerable populations. On the other transformations are increasingly clear. political and business leaders stand hand, this time of systemic breakdown There is a moral consequence, because accused of ignoring the plight of current provides an opportunity to rebuild soci­ it would be unfair to allow dispropor­ and future vulnerable people. eties in new ways, mobilizing new under­ tionate burdens to continue to fall on This association between environ­ standings of vulnerability and resilience, already marginalized groups (current mental crises and social injustice is now and exploring ways to build and connect or future), or to suppress their voices widely accepted. Many feel that time is the potentially transformative networks and values. This principle is enshrined running out for incremental approaches of compassion and resistance emerging in the central, stated commitment of to prove effective and that there is an in neighborhoods and communities the Sustainable Development Goals inescapable need for a radical, transfor­ around the world. We must ensure that (SDGs): “leaving no one behind.”5 mative change that combines sustainabil­ vigorous efforts to resolve environmental There are also practical consequences. ity and justice. crises are connected to our resolve to First, efforts to bring about sustainability The COVID­19 pandemic provides a tackle social crises such as racism. will only succeed—and will only them­ potentially crucial setting for how such a Our primary purpose here is to selves be sustained—if they are widely change might play out. The urgency underline the importance of placing seen to be both fair and legitimate. We Nicole Gross-Camp A Tanzanian villager shares local forest knowledge passed down from her mother and grandmother. 20 ENVIRONMENT WWW.TANDFONLINE.COM/VENV VOLUME 62 NUMBER 6 and nature based on continuous growth in material consumption.8,9 This distinction can be illustrated through two ways of responding to con­ Adrian MartinAdrian cerns about global food security. A reformist approach might conclude that the basic arrangements underlying the current food system are satisfactory. What is needed is to adapt this system to increasing demand for food crops and to ecological constraints through technical interventions that promote sustainable intensification of food production along­ side reductions in food waste. A trans­ formative approach is likely to examine underlying drivers of the problem. It might point to the way in which the global economy (as currently arranged) is predicted to double the demand for food crops between 2005 and 2050,10 including use for biofuels. And it might Dwellings and forest coalesce in a sacred location in northern Laos. also argue that if you really want to tackle food insecurity you need to also address often see justice barriers to environmen­ important insights from environmental the reasons why 500 million Sub­Saharan tal policy where perceived unfairness justice scholarship to help us better Africans continue to live in extreme 11 leads to insufficient acceptance. For understand how to make progress on just poverty. example, green taxes on fuel were met transformations to sustainability. Even before the COVID­19 pan­ with intense resistance in France, partly demic, the need for transformative rather because of very specific fairness concerns than reformist change increasingly was related to the disproportionate costs fall­ accepted in global environmental policy ing on rural, working­class people, and Transformations to bodies such as the Intergovernmental partly because of larger frustrations with Sustainability: Why and How? Science Policy Platform on Biodiversity a political system that was seen to disem­ and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate power these groups. If we are to build a One of the persistent debates within Change (IPCC), the United Nations shared vision and constituency for trans­ modern environmentalism is between Environment Programme (UNEP), and formative change, it must have justice at the reformist and transformative app­ the UN SDGs. For example, the IPBES its heart. Second, if we fail to provide roaches. The reformist approach aims to Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity justice for marginalized groups, we will maintain existing political and economic and Ecosystem Services calls for transfor­ lose capacity to resolve the environmen­ arrangements of societies while adapting them to ecological constraints. By con­ mative change that enables “visions of a tal crisis. For example, indigenous peo­ good quality of life that do not entail trast, the transformative approach is pre­ ples make a huge contribution to ever­increasing material consumption,” mised on the need to change societal protecting global biodiversity, yet this that lowers “total consumption and arrangements profoundly, transforming vital role is threatened by failure to rec­ waste,” and that addresses “inequalities, 6 relationships between humans as a nec­ ognize and appreciate their territories. especially regarding income and gen­ We begin by briefly addressing the essary condition for required changes in der.”2 Such changes to the everyday goals mean ing of transformations to susta­ relationships between humans and of society, to the indicators of societal 7 ina bility. Coming at this from a justice nature. For many political ecologists, progress, and to what we all owe to each angle, we emphasize the challenge of the primary societal arrangement that other, are the kinds of things we consider addressing not only the unequal out­ needs transforming is global capita lism, as transformative changes to society. comes of environmental change, but also because it structures relationships bet­ While agreement is growing that the underlying distributions of power ween humans in a way that perpetuates change will need to be transformative, that produce these inequalities. Hence, uneven accumulation of wealth and there is less agreement about how this can we combine transformations with envi­ deepening inequalities and because it be directed. Researchers are studying ronmental justice. We then review four requires a relationship between humans how transformative change has happened NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020 WWW.TANDFONLINE.COM/VENV ENVIRONMENT 21 Iokiñe Rodriguez Pemon indigenous peoples protesting the building of a high voltage power line through their ancestral lands (Canaima National Park, Venezuela) in June 1997. historically, in order to find clues about com petitive energy technology required little Davids is very much a transfor­ how it can be governed in the future.12 nurturing and protection by states, mative action, but it won’t produce One important school of thought holds assisted by a political landscape that transformation unless there are parallel that we should focus our attention on included growing public demand to act efforts to curb Goliath’s power. trying to understand the conditions on the climate crisis,