Urban Sustainability and Justice

Urban Sustainability and Justice presents an innovative yet practical approach to incorporate equity and social justice into sustainable development in urban areas, in line with the commitments of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and the New Urban Agenda. This open access work proposes a feminist reading of just sustainabilities' principles to reclaim sustainability as a progressive discourse which informs action on the ground. This work will help the committed activist (whether they are on the ground, working in a community, in a non-governmental organization (NGO), in a business, at a university, in any sphere in government) to connect their work to international efforts to deliver environmental justice in cities around the world. Drawing on a comparative, international analysis of sustainability initiatives in over 200 cities, Castán Broto and Westman find limited evidence of the implementation of just sustainabilities principles in practice, but they argue that there is considerable potential to develop a justice-oriented sustainability agenda. Highlighting current successes while also assessing prospects for the future, the authors show that just sustainabilities is not merely an aspirational discourse, but a frame of reference to support radical action on the ground. The eBook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by The University of Sheffield

Just sustainabilities and local action: evidence from 400 flagship initiatives

Just sustainabilities has emerged as a powerful discourse to guide local action towards sustainability. As an overarching discourse, it prescribes four policy principles: (1) addressing well-being and quality of life; (2) meeting the needs of present and future generations; (3) enabling justice and equity in terms of recognition, process, procedure, and outcome; and (4) living within ecosystem limits. Following previous calls for engaging public and private actors in just sustainabilities, this paper inquiries about the extent to which these principles can be realistically integrated in local environmental governance. A database of 400 sustainability initiatives in more than 200 cities in all world regions is analysed to examine whether just sustainabilities principles are already enshrined, explicitly or implicitly, in local sustainability initiatives. This analysis suggests that, in this sample, there is a significant deficit in terms of addressing the principles of justice and equity, and ecosystem limits. However, the data also suggest that local action may already be delivering some aspects of just sustainabilities, even if this is not always explicit. The paper concludes with a call for a coordinated effort to translate a just sustainabilities discourse to local actors leading action on the ground

Urban Sustainability and Justice

Urban Sustainability and Justice presents an innovative yet practical approach to incorporate equity and social justice into sustainable development in urban areas, in line with the commitments of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and the New Urban Agenda. This open access work proposes a feminist reading of just sustainabilities' principles to reclaim sustainability as a progressive discourse which informs action on the ground. This work will help the committed activist (whether they are on the ground, working in a community, in a non-governmental organization (NGO), in a business, at a university, in any sphere in government) to connect their work to international efforts to deliver environmental justice in cities around the world. Drawing on a comparative, international analysis of sustainability initiatives in over 200 cities, Castán Broto and Westman find limited evidence of the implementation of just sustainabilities principles in practice, but they argue that there is considerable potential to develop a justice-oriented sustainability agenda. Highlighting current successes while also assessing prospects for the future, the authors show that just sustainabilities is not merely an aspirational discourse, but a frame of reference to support radical action on the ground. The eBook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by The University of Sheffield

Green City Promises and “Just Sustainabilities”

Nation states all around the world adopted a New Urban Agenda (NUA) at the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III) in Quito, Ecuador, in October 2016. The NUA brings to the fore the importance of human settlements and urbanization in international development, following the agreements in previous conferences in Vancouver (1976) and Istanbul (1996). One key innovation of the NUA is the recognition of the transformative power of urbanization to deliver jobs, facilitate the spread of technology, and harness sustainability (UN-Habitat 2016). The NUA calls for cities that “leave no one behind”. This emphasis on addressing inequality also underpins other international development policy, such as the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals. The NUA calls for Green Cities as engines of sustainable economic growth, offering green investment opportunities such as environmentally friendly construction, sustainable transport, and waste management solutions. According to this international policy agenda, Green Cities should deliver all of the above while responding to changing societal demands. Urban inequality, however, is not foregrounded in Green Cities’ agendas. There is no clear insight about the integration of these two separate aspects of the NUA. I contend that visions of Green Cities as engines of sustainable economic growth are misplaced. Instead, Green Cities should advance urban futures that engage with the needs of citizens, address questions of social and environmental justice, and work with the existing city rather than imposing on it any models of development. My argument focuses on four themes: 1) the promises advanced in Green City discourses; 2) the efforts to integrate social justice agendas in environmental sustainability; 3) the need to revision the variety of natures that integrate the city; and, to conclude, 4) the focus on contradiction as a means to look for new ideas about the city

“Just” ecopreneurs: re-conceptualising green transitions and entrepreneurship

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Economic, environmental, and social limits of the current capitalist mode of production have led to a rethinking and reconceptualisation of economic processes and models including the role of businesses in sustainable development. While green economies and more specifically green entrepreneurs have been identified as agents of change that can challenge the mainstream and seek to induce environmental, social, and ethical transformation of society, much research has stayed within existing models of thinking predominantly rooted in technocratic approaches (e.g. ecological modernisation and more recently transition studies). This paper seeks to offer an alternative understanding of green entrepreneurship that breaks open these discussions using an environmental justice frame that focuses on the role of extra-economic discourses in shaping the social relations of economic systems. By drawing on an exemplary case study of “just” entrepreneurship from Boston, Massachusetts, USA, the paper seeks to start a conversation around the ideas of green entrepreneurship and environmental justice as vehicles to deliver potentially broader system changes and explores both conceptual and practical aspects of green development. As such, it offers (1) evidence of a just green economy that can be realised within existing capitalist structures as well as (2) a different conceptual entry point to understanding green entrepreneurship

The Verge: Networks of Intersubjective Responding for Just Sustainability Arts Educational Research

Two sustainability arts scholars describe a method of data interpretation they developed for making sense of complex environmental and sustainability education research data. They “played” images and recorded a conversation in a form of arts-based intersubjective knowing. The card game process was named the Verge because of how the process promises to surface unheard voices and re-center nondominant insights and ways of knowing. It leverages Casey’s glance method with systems networks to complicate sense making in arts-based educational research. The arts scholars intermixed research data from two just sustainability education research case studies: collages from participants of a climate justice social incubator as well as participant art from place-based ecojustice walking pedagogy research. The article engages in intersubjective responding and generated arts-based responses to the process itself. The Verge catalyzed insight in the researchers’ just sustainability arts educational research. They suggest that the Verge could be a useful research method for arts-based educators, particularly sensitive to the ecological and social justice dimensions of data and learning contexts. The researchers found the method helped them gain insight and perspective, sense bias, make subtle connections, sense patterns, decenter domination discourses, and enhance their capacity to engage creatively and critically with social and ecological intelligence in their research process. They posit that the Verge can nurture the unfinished and ongoing work of educational design for just sustainabilities

Participação como marco de apoio à inclusão cultural e à justiça ambiental

In 1989, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child lay the groundwork for children´s access to education, to play, to express themselves, and to have their views heard. This article explores participation as a supportive framework for democracy, environmental justice, and cultural inclusion. It presents methods that have fostered cultural inclusion and connection to nature, by analyzing three projects in Boulder, Colorado and Salinas, California. Participatory methods included nicho boxes, photovoice, and garden art. These cases demonstrate how children’s rights to participation, through nature and the arts, help create just sustainabilities through the creation of culturally relevant practices that bridge social and environmental justiceEn 1989, la Convención de las Naciones Unidas sobre los Derechos del Niño establece una base para que los niños tengan acceso a la educación, a jugar, a expresarse y tener sus opiniones oír. Este artículo explora la participación como un marco de apoyo para la democracia, la justicia ambiental y la inclusión cultural. Presenta métodos que han fomentado la inclusión cultural y la conexión con la naturaleza, analizando tres proyectos en Boulder, Colorado y Salinas, California. Los métodos participativos incluyeron cajas nicho, photovoice, y arte del jardín. Estos casos demuestran cómo los derechos de los niños a la participación, a través de la naturaleza y las artes, ayudan a crear sostenibilidad justicia, a través de la creación de prácticas culturalmente relevantes que contribuyen a la justicia social y ambientalEm 1989, a Convenção das Nações Unidas sobre os Direitos da Criança proporcionou uma base para que as crianças tivessem acesso à educação, para jogar, para se expressar e para que as suas opiniões fossem ouvidas. Este artigo explora a participação como um quadro de apoio para a democracia, a justiça ambiental e inclusão cultural. São apresentados métodos que promoveram a inclusão cultural e a conexão com a natureza, analisando três projetos em Boulder, Colorado e Salinas, Califórnia. Os métodos participativos incluídos nicho, photovoice e jardinagem. Estes casos mostram como os direitos das crianças à participação, através da natureza e das artes, ajuda a criar sustentabilidade através da criação de práticas culturalmente relevantes que contribuem para uma justiça social e ambienta

Teaching Sustainability : From Monism and Pluralism to Citizenship

Peer reviewe

Gendered geographies of environmental injustice

This is the accepted version of the following article: Buckingham, S. and Kulcur, R. (2009), Gendered Geographies of Environmental Injustice. Antipode, 41: 659–683. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8330.2009.00693.x, which has been published in final form at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8330.2009.00693.x/abstract. Copyright @ 2009 The Authors.As environmental justice concerns become more widely embedded in environmental organizations and policy making, and increasingly the focus of academic study, the gender dimension dissolves into an exclusive focus on race/ethnicity and class/income. While grass roots campaigning activities were often dominated by women, in the more institutionalized activities of organizations dominated by salaried professionals, gender inequality is neglected as a vector of environmental injustice, and addressing this inequality is not considered a strategy for redress. This paper explores some of the reasons why this may be so, which include a lack of visibility of gendered environmental injustice; professional campaigning organizations which are themselves gender blind; institutions at a range of scales which are still structured by gender (as well as class and race) inequalities; and an intellectual academy which continues to marginalize the study of gender – and women’s – inequality. The authors draw on experience of environmental activism, participant observation, and other qualitative research into the gendering of environmental activity, to first explore the constructions of scale to see how this might limit a gender-fair approach to environmental justice. Following this, the practice of ‘gender mainstreaming’ in environmental organizations and institutions will be examined, demonstrating how this is limited in scope and fails to impact on the gendering of environmental injustice