UfU Information | Issue 8 – March 2023 | Alina Beigang
Making the environment fairer
The concept of environmental justice
Environmental issues are always distribution issues, and distribution issues are always justice issues.” according to the book “Rethinking our world” by Maja Göpel (2020). The transformation researcher thus emphasizes that social inequalities and social power relations based on gender, social milieu or age influence the distribution of environmental burdens and resources. For example, people with low incomes and low educational opportunities who live in high-density inner-city areas are often exposed to higher health risks from traffic noise and air pollutants. For this reason, it is imperative to consider social dimensions when dealing with ecological problems.
Environmental justice (EJ) is an interdisciplinary and integrative approach to reducing social inequalities in the areas of environment and health, which is becoming increasingly important. The aim is to create healthy environmental and living conditions for all. In German-speaking discourse, the concept basically focuses on aspects from the areas of social situation, environment and health in specific social spaces and relates these to each other.
In order to further advance the topic and the exchange of ideas, UfU and BUND Berlin are organizing the congress “Environmental justice in the neighbourhood – shaping the future in a networked and participatory way” in May 2023. The event will focus specifically on the city of Berlin and its neighborhoods. Highlights of the event are the professional exchange between the participants, the presentation and discussion of the updated Berlin Environmental Justice Report and impulses for initiating projects and measures in neighborhoods with multiple burdens. In addition, the draft of the practical guidelines for Berlin neighborhood managers prepared by UfU will be discussed.
The congress builds on preliminary work by various stakeholders and the Environmental Justice Atlas.
Berlin also has a certain pioneering role politically in the area of environmental justice. The coalition agreements for the 2016 – 2021 legislative period already formulated the goal of significantly reducing the number of multiply polluted areas and the impact on Berliners.
Incidentally, environmental justice has historical origins in the black civil rights movement, which fought racist conditions in environmentally relevant decisions such as the siting of toxic waste disposal sites.