Environmental Justice Projects

Identifying Strategies for Corporate Environmental Justice

Through robust corporate sustainability standards and environmental management programs, corporations are playing an increasingly significant role in environmental governance. Ensuring that environmental justice is considered throughout corporate decision-making is crucial to protecting the environmental health of communities affected by corporate operations. This project researches innovative strategies for responsible and effective corporate actions for environmental justice.

View our blog on Companies and Communities.

View our work on energy siting practices, including Environmental Justice and Renewable Energy and Storage (2022).

See some of our other work on Private Governance.

Identifying Strategies for Municipal Environmental Justice

Local land use decisions and environmental policies have an unparalleled influence on the quality of life. Municipal zoning decisions, transportation planning, and infrastructure planning all significantly impact community environmental health. This project interrogates strategies for including and considering vulnerable communities in municipal environmental planning.

View our blog on Municipal Environmental Justice.

ELI's work with the Nashville Food Waste Initiative on climate action and food waste reduction underscores the need to fully integrate environmental justice into municipal climate planning. To support Nashville and other municipalities in this effort, ELI has highlighted environmental justice issues and solutions in our work and has plans to delve deeper in future projects. Our resources include:

Convenings related to ELI's work on environmental justice in Nashville include:

"Turning Participation Into Power: A Water Justice Case Study" (Hosted by the Environmental Law and Policy Annual Review).
A Talk on Environmental Justice with Elizabeth Yeampierre, Executive Director of UPROSE (Co-sponsored by Mayor Cooper's Sustainability Advisory Committee and Vanderbilt University Law School).
"A Game Changer in the Making? Lessons from States Advancing Environmental Justice Through Mapping and Cumulative Impact Strategies" (Hosted by the Environmental Law and Policy Annual Review).

The BRIGHT Guide

ELI’s Blight Revitalization Initiative for Green, Healthy Towns (BRIGHT) identifies corridors of blighted, vacant, and environmentally-impaired properties in overburdened communities and supports the community and municipality in developing a revitalization plan.

To facilitate the sharing of best practices in corridor redevelopment, ELI is currently developing The BRIGHT Guide. Based on a survey of EPA’s Area-Wide Planning Grants and other corridor redevelopment projects, this document:

Articulates the rationale for targeting brownfield redevelopment as an engine of environmental justice and sustainable development;
Analyzes projects that have successfully brought environmental justice and economic opportunity to overburdened communities;
Identifies barriers and challenges that have kept other projects from accomplishing these objectives;
Suggests an array of end-uses that can bring numerous and lasting benefits, while providing criteria to help communities select the best use for their own area-wide plan;
Highlights the unique challenges faced by community, government, and private developers, in order to lay the groundwork for lasting cooperation;
Integrates these insights into a step-by-step manual for community groups and municipalities to coordinate and execute corridor redevelopment projects.

To support communities in their redevelopment efforts, ELI provides:

Technical and legal expertise
Best practices and information sharing
A framework for planning & cooperation
Cross-sector connections through ELI’s network

BRIGHT has also supported the development of additional area-wide plans in Whitesburg, Kentucky, Washington, D.C., as well as St. Louis, Detroit and New Orleans.

If you are a community group or municipality interested in area-wide plans and resilient corridors, or have experience with organizing or executing area-wide plans, please contact us.

Meet Scott Badenoch, Director of the BRIGHT Program.