The Geographical Journal, Vol. 170, No. 2, June 2004, pp.

155164
Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Just sustainability: the emerging discourse of environmental justice in Britain?

JULIAN AGYEMAN* AND BOB EVANS
*Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning, Tufts University, 97 Talbot Avenue, Medford, MA 02155, USA E-mail: julian.agyeman@tufts.edu Sustainable Cities Research Institute, Northumbria University, 6 North Street East, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 8ST E-mail: bob2.evans@northumbria.ac.uk This paper was accepted for publication in March 2004
Environmental justice is both a vocabulary for political opportunity, mobilization and action, and a policy principle to guide public decision making. It emerged initially in the US, and more recently in the UK, as a new vocabulary underpinning action by community organizations campaigning against environmental injustices. However, as the environmental justice discourse has matured, it has become increasingly evident that it should play a role in the wider agendas for sustainable development and social inclusion. The links between sustainability and environmental justice are becoming clearer and more widely understood in the UK by NGOs and government alike, and it is the potential synergy between these two discourses which is the focus of this paper. This paper argues that the concept of just sustainability provides a discourse for policymakers and activists, which brings together the key dimensions of both environmental justice and sustainable development.
KEY WORDS: environment, justice, sustainability

Introduction

uring the last five years, the concept of environmental justice has attracted increasing attention in the UK. The academic community, largely stimulated by the work of social scientists Bullard, Wright and Bryant, geographers such as Pulido and Cutter, and others in the United States, has begun to be interested in the inter-relationships between geographical space and conceptions of equity and justice, and how these might be examined in the UK. At the same time, UK pressure groups and NGOs, most notably Friends of the Earth Scotland (FoES), have adopted environmental justice as a framework within which to place their entire campaigning agenda. Finally, there is some evidence to suggest that the UK government is beginning to recognize that environmental justice can play a role in the wider agenda for sustainable development and

social exclusion. It is this emerging discourse by NGOs and government alike, based around the linked notions of environmental justice and sustainability, that we call just sustainability. In this review paper, we highlight and assess the significance of the emerging discourse of just sustainability in Britain. We briefly examine the influence of the US environmental justice movement upon emerging UK debates, and the role of the many and various home grown initiatives; we reflect upon the contrasting top-down and bottomup experiences of the UK and the US, respectively, and we finally examine the linkages which may be made between the environmental justice and sustainability discourses. However, before moving to definitions of environmental justice and sustainability, we wish to make three prefactory comments. Firstly, environmental justice may be viewed as having two distinct but inter-related dimensions. It is, predominantly at the
2004 The Royal Geographical Society

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local and activist level, a vocabulary for political opportunity, mobilization and action. At the same time, at the government level, it is a policy principle, that no public action will disproportionately disadvantage any particular social group. We expand on this below, but it is important to emphasize that a fruitful discussion of environmental justice is crucially dependent upon recognizing this distinction. Secondly, as the title of this paper indicates and as we have argued elsewhere (Agyeman et al. 2002 2003; Agyeman and Evans 2003), in terms of politics, policy and academic analysis, it is necessary to place the discourse of environmental justice firmly within the framework of sustainability. Thirdly, we recognize the integral connections between justice and equity, and wider questions of governance, and we return to this towards the end of our paper. What is environmental justice? Environmental justice, like sustainability, is a contested and problematized concept. Therefore, defining it is not an easy task. Like sustainability, there are many possible definitions. In the US, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts uses the following definition in its Environmental Justice Policy:
Environmental justice is based on the principle that all people have a right to be protected from environmental pollution and to live in and enjoy a clean and healthful environment. Environmental justice is the equal protection and meaningful involvement of all people with respect to the development, implementation and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations and policies and the equitable distribution of environmental benefits. Commonwealth of Massachusetts 2002, 2

This definition has both procedural (meaningful involvement of all people) and substantive (right to live in and enjoy a clean and healthful environment) aspects. Unlike most definitions, it makes the case that environmental justice policy should not only be reactive to environmental bads, but should also be proactive in the distribution and achievement of environmental goods (a higher quality of life, a sustainable community). Where has the concept of, and movement for, environmental justice come from? Environmental injustices, it is said, started around the time of Columbus in 1492. However, the landmark 1987 United Church of Christ study Toxic wastes and race in the United States showed that certain, predominantly communities of color are at disproportionate risk from commercial toxic waste. This finding was confirmed by later research (Adeola

1994; Bryant and Mohai 1992; Bullard 1990a 1990b; Mohai and Bryant 1992). It also led to the coining of a term by Benjamin Chavis, which became the rallying cry of many: environmental racism. This, combined with the conclusion of Lavelle and Coyle (1992) in the National Law Journal that there is unequal protection and enforcement of environmental law by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), has ensured that there is now a fully fledged environmental justice movement made up of tenants associations, religious groups, civil rights groups, farm workers, professional notfor-profits, university centers and academics, and labor unions amongst others. It occurs from Alaska to Alabama and from California to Connecticut, driven by the grassroots activism of African-American, Latino, Asian and Pacific American, Native American and poor white communities. As such, according to Pulido (1996), it is a multiracial movement which is organizing around LULUs (locally unwanted land uses), such as waste facility siting, transfer storage and disposal facilities, and other issues such as lead contamination, pesticides, water and air pollution, workplace safety, and transportation. More recently, issues such as sprawl and smart growth (Bullard et al. 2000), sustainability (Agyeman et al. 2003) and climate justice (International Climate Justice Network 2002) have become targets for the environmental justice critique. Gaining inspiration from and linking with the Civil Rights movement (Agyeman 2000), the environmental justice movement appropriated . . . the preexisting salient frames of racism and civil rights (Taylor 2000, 62). This, Taylor argues, has led to the development of the Environmental Justice Paradigm (2000, 537) which is most clearly articulated through the Principles1 and is the first paradigm to link environment and race, class, gender, and social justice concerns in an explicit framework (2000, 542). What is sustainability? Around the same time as environmental justice was developing as a public policy issue, the ideas of sustainability and sustainable development were achieving prominence among local, national and international policymakers and politicians, together with policy entrepreneurs in NGOs. Since the 1980s, there has been a massive increase in published and online material dealing with sustainability and sustainable development. This has led to competing and conflicting views over what the terms mean, what is to be sustained, by whom, for whom, and what is the most desirable means of achieving this goal. However, like Campbell, we agree that in the battle of big public ideas, sustain-

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ability has won: the task of the coming years is simply to work out the details and to narrow the gap between its theory and practice (1996, 301). A caveat to Campbells statement is in order: working out the details of sustainability is anything but simple! Elsewhere, we have argued that
sustainability . . . cannot be simply a green, or environmental concern, important though environmental aspects of sustainability are. A truly sustainable society is one where wider questions of social needs and welfare, and economic opportunity are integrally related to environmental limits imposed by supporting ecosystems. Agyeman et al. 2002, 78

However, what is happening is very different. Over the past 15 years, during which the Black Environment Network (BEN), a British proto-environmental justice organization, has been in existence, but especially in the last 5 years, environmental injustice has been shown to be happening in many different ways, from disproportionate pollution loadings to fuel poverty, from transportation inequities to lack of countryside access because of rural racism (Agyeman 2002). The response, calls for greater environmental justice, has become louder such that it is now a growing concern for many NGOs and some politicians, such as Michael Meacher MP, former Minister for the Environment. Here, while not exhaustive, we briefly review just some current initiatives in the UK in chronological order. In 1998, Gordon Walkers paper on Environmental justice and the politics of risk is the first of many from what is now Staffordshire Universitys Institute of Environmental and Sustainability Research (IESR). In 2003, Walker, along with Gordon Mitchell (University of Leeds), and IESR colleagues Jon Fairburn and Graham Smith published draft research on environmental quality and social deprivation in England and Wales. The project for the Environmental Agencys Social Policy Unit is the most substantial research in the UK to date examining patterns of environmental justice. FoES constructed a campaign for environmental justice using an adaptation of Carley and Spapens (1997) notion of equal distribution of resource consumption between countries on a per capita basis. The campaigns launch with the slogan no less than our right to a decent environment; no more than our fair share of the Earths resources, coincided with the creation in 1999 of the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh. It has the legislative power and the capacity to set an agenda through guidance to local authorities, develop voluntary agreements, and provide direction to quangos. The then FoES Director, Kevin Dunion, said I shall be calling for the new Scottish Parliament to show that it is serious about making real change. We want targets for improving energy efficiency in industry; an energy rating for all homes within 10 years; a Warm Homes Act to eradicate fuel poverty; national and local targets under the Road Traffic Reduction Act; and changes to Scottish building regulations to improve energy performance (FoES 1999). These targets, amongst others, now form a part of FoESs Environmental justice action plan (FoES 2000). The campaign highlights two major injustices which link the local to the global. First, that Scottish communities who are in the worst environments

Sustainability is interpreted in this paper as meaning the need to ensure a better quality of life for all, now and into the future, in a just and equitable manner, whilst living within the limits of supporting ecosystems (Agyeman et al. 2003, 5). It represents an attempt to look holistically at the human condition, at human ecology, and to foster joined up or connected, rather than piecemeal policy solutions to humanitys greatest problems. As Agyeman (forthcoming) argues, unlike the dominant 1987 Brundtland and 1991 International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) definitions, in which justice and equity are at best implicit, our definition focuses on four main areas of concern: on quality of life, on present and future generations, on justice and equity in resource allocation, and on living within ecological limits. These areas of concern move away from the dominant orientation of environmental sustainability to represent just sustainability, a balanced approach including an explicit focus on justice, equity and environment together. Jacobs (1999) calls this the egalitarian conception of sustainability. The emergence of environmental justice in Britain There is an environmental justice paradox in Britain. This is the gap between peoples perception, and what is happening. Agyeman has argued that
to many people in the UK, environmental justice is quite simply someone elses problem. To them, the words environmental and justice do not sit easily together. At best, their combination evokes a memory of some distant news report or documentary of how communities of colour and poor communities in the US face a disproportionate toxic risk when compared with white middle class communities, and at worst the combination fails to register a signal. Agyeman 2000, 7

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tend to be those with least power, because of their poverty, unemployment, isolation or a combination of these. Second, that consumption of dwindling resources by the North is much higher than would be our fair share in terms of environmental space (the share of the planet and its resources that the human race can sustainably take; McLaren et al. 1998, 6). This is inequitable both intra- and intergenerationally, in that it is detrimental to communities in the South and to future communities. In 1999, the report Equity and the environment: guidelines for socially just government (Boardman et al. 1999, 5) was released. The report, which according to its cover notes could be the future of radical politics in Britain, goes on to acknowledge that environmental problems are a component of social exclusion and an issue of social justice and outlines a set of ten proposed principles of environmental justice. The report focuses on key areas where inequality is most stark, such as transport, housing and pollution, and develops a coherent critique with obvious, yet politically sensitive solutions. The overall message from the report is loud and it is clear. If we are serious about tackling environmental injustice, revenue needs to be raised or redirected for capital investment, pricing structures need to give incentives and be progressive, the market needs to be transformed to deliver change more quickly and any remaining inequality problems offset through compensation (Boardman et al. 1999, 24). The recognition of human environmental rights has led to an overlap of international environmental and human rights law, as can be seen especially in the 1999 Aarhus Convention on Access to information, public participation in decision-making and access to justice in environmental matters (see below). It recalls Principle l of the 1972 Stockholm Declaration on the Human Environment and Principle 10 of the 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development. The Convention, which came into effect on 30 October 2001, is therefore unique in being the first to ensure citizens rights in the field of the environment. It implies substantive rights (right to a cleaner environment) and guarantees procedural rights (right to participate) to European citizens. It states, as the objective of Article 1, that in order to contribute to the protection of the right of every person of present and future generations to live in an environment adequate to his or her health and well-being, each party shall guarantee the rights of access to information, public participation in decision making and access to justice in environmental matters in accordance with the provisions of this Convention (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe 1999).

The Town and Country Planning Association report Environmental justice: from the margins to the mainstream (Agyeman 2000, 7) sets out to firmly link the two words environmental and justice in the planners lexicon. It argues that environmental justice and its sister concepts of social justice and equity should be at the heart of emerging policies for sustainability at the local, regional and national (and international) level and that more research and growing calls for environmental justice are likely to move it rapidly, from the margins to the mainstream of UK policy (Agyeman 2000, 7). In Friends of the Earth England, Wales and Northern Irelands (FoE) Pollution and poverty breaking the link (FoE 2001), FoE took pollution data from the Environment Agency, which covered a host of chemicals emitted to the air, water and landscape by large factories. They compared the factory locations and their emissions with the Governments Index of Multiple Deprivation. This index ranks all 8414 local authority wards in England into several categories such as health, education, income, employment, housing and access to services. Their research reveals that poor communities are disproportionately burdened by factory pollution. In 1999, 11 400 tonnes of carcinogenic chemicals were released into the air in England, of which: o 66% of carcinogen emissions are in the most deprived 10% of wards; o 82% of carcinogen emissions are in the most deprived 20% of wards; o only 8% of carcinogen emissions are in the least deprived 50% of wards. An indication that environmental justice issues are reaching the policy mainstream is the Economic and Social Research Councils (ESRC) Global Environmental Change Programmes report Environmental justice: rights and means to a healthy environment (ESRC 2001). In a plea for joined up thinking, the report argues that by seeing social justice issues through the environmental lens, and vice versa by analysing environmental issues more clearly in terms of social justice, new and more effective ways for dealing with each can be developed than if, as is usually the case at present, each is dealt with separately (ESRC 2001, 1). FoEs report Environmental justice: mapping transport and social exclusion in Bradford (FoE 2001b, 4) shows that negative traffic impacts are concentrated in more deprived areas and that it is possible to pinpoint areas with multiple problems in access to services, by matching data sets such as on car ownership, poor public transport services, deprivation and traffic volumes. It concludes that local authorities should map and tackle social exclusion issues in their Local Transport Plans (LTPs) (FoE 2001, 4).

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In the Rowntree Foundation report, Rainforests are a long way from here: the environmental concerns of disadvantaged groups (Burningham and Thrush 2001), focus groups were held in Glasgow, London, North Wales and the Peak District, and interviews were held with key people nationally to discover the environmental concerns of the disadvantaged. A conclusion, with a caveat, was that placing local environmental issues within a broader justice and equality agenda has helped mobilise disadvantaged communities in the US. Whilst the UK situation differs in important respects, the extent of residents local pride may provide a fertile basis for campaigns to protect and improve the quality of neglected localities. There is a danger, however, that the language of environmental justice, which links poor people and poor environments, might not only reinforce a negative image in some localities but may ignore the distinctive problems faced by poor people living in good/desirable/beautiful rural environments (Burningham and Thrush 2001, 4). The Sustainable Development Commission (SDC), the national body set up by the government to review UK sustainable development strategy, to identify policy gaps and to make recommendations to the Prime Minister and the First Ministers for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, has a position on environmental justice. In Vision for sustainable regeneration: environment and poverty the missing link (SDC 2000), the SDC notes that Environmental justice adds the final piece in the jigsaw of sustainable regeneration and is growing in importance through political recognition and commitment (2002, 4). In the Rowntree-funded report Environmental justice links and lessons (Adebowale 2003), the aim is first, to provide a review of research done to date on environmental justice and their [sic] link to social inclusion and environmental concerns. Second, to examine the role of, environmental justice in improving the inclusion of disadvantaged groups in the delivery of environmental decision making (2003, 3). Following the 2003 report Modernizing environmental justice: regulation and the role of an environmental tribunal by the Centre for Law and the Environment (McRory 2003), UCL Laws was developed as a result of a recommendation by the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution. The report argued that a specialist system for environmental tribunals should be set up to both consolidate and rationalize the current range of environmental appeal mechanisms as these are currently distributed amongst many different courts and other bodies. The need for this is all the more urgent given the changing nature of the role of environmental regulatory appeals. Importantly, the Aarhus Convention ele-

vates the concept of more active environmental citizenship, and introduces environmental justice law to a European audience. This includes the right of members of the public and NGOs to legal review mechanisms that are, at the same time, fair, equitable, timely and not prohibitively expensive. The proposed Environmental Tribunal is likely to be a better basis for meeting the visions of Aarhus than are current procedures. Capacity, a new NGO, works as a catalyst for social justice and sustainable development. Its mission is to build alliances and networks to empower marginalized people who suffer the indignities of social, environmental and economic deprivation. Most significantly, however, Capacity is the Founder of the UK Environmental Justice Network. It supports the Network by running seminars and workshops on environmental justice with Network members. Membership of the network comprises community groups, NGOs, business and public bodies. Clearly, as these initiatives show, environmental justice is moving from the margins to the mainstream in British NGO and policy circles. Given its relative recency as a public policy issue in the UK, its reach into governmental policy, law (national and European), foundations such as Rowntree, funding bodies such as the ESRC and the world of NGOs, we can predict that its influence will grow still further, especially if mediated by its links with sustainability. This was predicted by US geographer Cutter, who stated that the issue of environmental justice in other regions will intensify in the years to come as nations implement international accords for sustainable development (1995, 111). Just sustainability In this section of the paper, we reflect on the linkages which may be made between environmental justice and sustainability. We call this nexus just sustainability and in doing so we draw extensively upon our recently published work in this field (Agyeman et al. 2003; Agyeman forthcoming). As Faber has pointed out, the struggle for environmental justice is not just about distributing risks equally but about preventing them from being produced in the first place (1998, 14). Fabers point raises two issues. Firstly, it is a refutation of Dobsons (1998 2003) idea that the environmental justice movement is not about sustainability because it wants to share risk equally, not get rid of the risk altogether. Secondly, it is also a reflection upon environmental justice as political opportunity, mobilisation and action, but it is equally valid in the context of environmental justice as a policy principle.

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nexus where proponents of each movement are engaging in cooperative endeavors (Schlosberg 1999) around common issues such as toxics use reduction. This was the case in 2001, when the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice and University of Massachusetts Lowells Center for Sustainable Production held a two day training workshop to explore common issues. Agyeman forthcoming

Looking more broadly, there are two key elements here. Firstly, environmental problems are vested disproportionately upon the poor. FoEs Pollution and poverty breaking the link (FoE 2001a) shows how end of pipe industrial pollution in the UK bears down predominantly upon low-income communities, compounding the environmental exclusion which can emerge as those same people may be excluded from good transportation links or shops selling fresh produce, whilst their children may be subjected to more atmospheric pollution from motor vehicles than other children. All this is compounded by the fact that, globally and nationally, the poor are not the major polluters. On the contrary, most environmental pollution and degradation is caused by the actions of the more affluent. The emergence of the environmental justice movement in the United States over the last two decades was in large part a response to these distributional inequities. Although environmental justice in the US was initially a form of community outrage a backlash against LULUs such as toxic waste dumping or the construction of a polluting industrial facility increasingly in the UK, this has been mediated by an awareness of its wider sustainability implications amongst NGOs, and as such is not so much the direct focus of community anger (yet?), but is an emergent policy principle. For example, in the UK, Boardman et al. (1999), FoE, FoES and, to a lesser extent, the SDC have clearly and explicitly placed environmental justice within the framework of sustainability. This is not so in the US, where both movements eye each other cautiously. In a study of sustainability projects in the largest US cities, Warner (2002) found that few cities even acknowledged environmental justice as an aspect of sustainability. Forty web sites were identified dealing with 33 cities. Of these, only five sites presented environmental justice as a substantive concern (San Francisco, Seattle, Cleveland, Albuquerque and Austin), and there was significant variation in the way that environmental justice was built into sustainability in these cases. Similarly, the Environmental Law Institute (1999) analyzed 579 applications to the EPAs 1996 Sustainable Development Challenge Grant Program. Less than 5% of applications had equity as a goal. However, as Agyeman argues:
despite the historically and geographically different origins of these two concepts, with their attendant paradigms, namely the Environmental Justice Paradigm (EJP) of Taylor (2000), and the New Environmental Paradigm (NEP) of Catton and Dunlap (1978) and their supporting social movements, there exists an area of theoretical, conceptual and practical compatibility between them. This area represents a rich and critical

Increasingly, environmental justice campaigns globally are being reformulated to encompass sustainability (Earth Council 2000), and vice versa (Heinrich Boll Foundation 2002), recognizing that it is insufficient to simply reject environmental bads. Instead, such campaigns, following Faber, increasingly argue not here, not anywhere. From an initial perspective of injustice, proponents of environmental justice as a vocabulary for political opportunity, mobilisation and action in the UK, are increasingly adopting the perspective of just sustainability. This in part recognizes the different historical experience of injustice in Britain, but also recognizes the proactivity of organizations such as FoE and FoES in developing a discourse to fit British contemporary political realities. The second element concerns sustainability. Goldman, in a visionary statement regarding the US context, suggested that sustainable development may well be seen as the next phase of the environmental justice movement (1993, 27). Interestingly, whereas the environmental justice movements (we use the term movements cautiously) outside the US have begun to move towards sustainability, the sustainability discourse itself is increasingly moving away from its roots in environmental sustainability, or what Jacobs (1999) calls the non-egalitarian conception, towards a just sustainability: an equal concern with equity, justice and, ultimately, governance on the one hand, and environment on the other (Agyeman forthcoming). Supporting this shift, we fully endorse four key points on this matter. First, Polese and Stren argue simply that, to be environmentally sustainable, cities must also be socially sustainable (2000, 15). Second, Middleton and OKeefe state that unless analyses of development [local, national, or international] . . . begin not with the symptoms, environmental or economic instability, but with the cause, social injustice, then no development can be sustainable (2001, 16). Third, Hempel argues that the emerging sustainability ethic may be more interesting for what it implies about politics than for what it promises about ecology (1999, 43). Finally, Adger notes I would argue that inequality in its economic, environmental, and geographical manifestations is among the most significant

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barriers to sustainable development. It is a barrier because of its interaction with individuals lifestyles and because it prevents socially acceptable implementation of collective planning for sustainability (2002, 1716). This move from an environmentally focused sustainability to one equally embracing social (and economic) dimensions can be understood as resulting from both bottom-up and top-down pressures. In the UK, the Local Agenda 212 initiative has been instrumental in emphasizing the need to develop local citizen participation, the processes of community capacity building, more responsive governance, and greater empowerment of citizens. Whilst much of this may be regarded as rhetoric, there is evidence to suggest that Local Agenda 21 has engendered new ways of working at the local level in many parts of Britain and Europe (Evans and Theobald 2003a 2003b). This local, bottom-up influence has been complemented by a series of top-down initiatives from the European Union (EU), which together are creating a policy architecture supportive of just sustainability: both involve environmental sustainability and wider questions of justice, equity and governance. Just sustainability in the EU During the last decade, the EU has approved a range of initiatives that together constitute a policy framework which it wishes to see adopted by all member states. The EU has adopted a Strategy for Sustainable Development that seeks to embed the principle of sustainability into all areas of policy development and implementation.
All policies must have sustainable development as their core concern. In particular, forthcoming reviews of Common Policies must look at how they can contribute more positively to sustainable development. Commission of the European Commission 2002, 12

of the European Commission 2001). In this White Paper, the modernization of European governance is seen as a necessary precondition for European integration through a process of decentralization, combating the impact of globalization, and a restoration of faith in democracy through wider involvement in decision making. The White Paper identifies five principles which underpin good governance openness, participation, accountability, effectiveness and coherence which should apply to all levels of government from local to global. The White Paper recognizes that the creation of the EU and the challenges of policy in a globalized world necessitate new ways of working that are not possible within a traditional framework of top-down government. It remains to be seen how the proposals contained in the White Paper will develop and be implemented. By implication, the proposals demand a degree of power transference both between levels of government (through the principles of proportionality and subsidiarity), and from government to civil society interest organizations. Such transfers of power, responsibility and influence have historically met with opposition from the current holders. The emphasis on improving democratic mechanisms for decision making is linked to calls for human equity and environmental justice, more effective environmental governance, and greater environmental democracy. Although there is often a blurring of these concepts, the underpinning rationale is clear and may be briefly summarized as follows: Equity: moves towards greater sustainability imply a series of difficult decisions which will need to be faced, and the consequences of not taking these decisions (for example, about resource use, consumption and pollution) will seriously compromise the quality of life of both current and future generations. Those societies which exhibit a more equal income distribution, greater civil liberties and political rights, and higher literacy levels tend to have higher environmental quality (Torras and Boyce 1998). The sharing of common futures and fates (and the difficult decisions involved in this) is more likely when there is a higher level of social, economic and political equality. This principle applies both within and between nations. Justice: environmental problems bear down disproportionately upon the poor, although it is the rich nations and the prosperous within those nations who are the greatest consumers and consequently polluters. The Principles of Environmental Justice (National People of Color Environmental Leadership Conference 1991; Boardman et al. 1999) demand that environmental decision making does not

Sustainable development is clearly defined by the EU as being more than environmental sustainability, important though that is. The Presidency Conclusions of the Gothenburg Summit stated
The Unions Sustainable Development Strategy is based on the principle that the economic, social and environmental effects of all policies should be examined in a co-ordinated way and taken into account in decision making.

This commitment to a broadly based sustainable development is closely linked to an emerging European policy on governance as presented in European governance a White Paper (Commission

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disproportionately disadvantage any particular social group, society or nation. Governance: the changes implied in a move towards more sustainable societies are so immense that they cannot be imposed by governments alone. This central fact was a major impetus behind the agreement to Local Agenda 21 at the 1992 Earth Summit, which recognized that change of the magnitude envisaged by Agenda 21 can only be achieved by mobilizing the energy, creativity, knowledge and support of local communities, stakeholders, interest organizations and citizens worldwide. More open, deliberative processes, which facilitate the participation of civil society in taking decisions, will be required to secure this involvement. Democracy: the right to information, to freedom of speech, association and dissent, to meaningful participation in decision making these and other rights underpin most conceptions of modern liberal democracy. Democracy is vital for sustainability in that it facilitates involvement, but through this it also nurtures understanding and education. Moreover, to encourage the involvement of citizens is to develop ownership and to combat the alienation and civic disengagement which will undermine the drive toward more just and sustainable societies. In short, good governance is essential for just sustainability. The purposeful involvement of citizens and stakeholders must be nurtured and supported. However, it should also be recognized that governance cannot be accepted as an unquestioned good. If more governance simply means that those who are already well represented in the processes of public decision making have greater and more effective access, then the move towards better governance will have failed. The task is to ensure that all voices have a say, and specifically that the underrepresented women, the young, the elderly and members of black and ethnic minority groups, for instance are encouraged to develop a higher profile in the policy process. The final component of this emerging European policy architecture is related to environmental rights and citizen participation and is covered by the Aarhus Convention (detailed above). These three elements of European policy, relating to sustainable development, to governance and to environmental rights, collectively provide a Europewide policy framework for just sustainability which, it is anticipated, will eventually determine and condition the policies and practices of European national governments. As might be expected, the actual implementation of these policies across Europe is patchy, and until the European Commission constructs and applies Directives with which

national governments have to comply, progress is likely to be slow. However, some changes in national government policies are gradually occurring, for example in the UK. Just sustainability in Britain The governments Sustainable Development Unit located in the UK Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has established an Environmental Democracy Unit whose remit is to facilitate ratification of the Aarhus Convention. Although this might be interpreted as a governmental commitment to the principles of environmental justice and citizen participation in decision making, perhaps a more accurate assessment would be to see the Units remit as more procedural, concerned with civil and political procedures, than substantive, concerned with outcomes adherence to the letter rather than the intention and spirit of the Convention. The UK Sustainable Development Strategy (1999), which is currently under review, is based upon the guiding principle of putting people at the centre. Although the Strategy has an environmental focus, it also has the declared objective of combatting poverty and social exclusion. This objective specifically refers to the processes of public participation, access to justice and human rights, the latter reflecting the requirements of the UK Human Rights Act of 1998. The SDC has been more proactive in its promotion of questions of social inclusion and environmental justice (SDC 2002). However, the general picture in the UK with respect to questions of sustainable development, environmental justice and governance is one of strong policy guidance from Europe, declared support at the national level, but comparatively little activity at the regional and local levels. In the case of environmental justice, there is little evidence to suggest that there is the bottom-up community support, or a movement typical of the US (Agyeman 2000). Conclusions For some in the US environmental justice movement, the sustainability movement is merely a renaming of the old environmental movement, which did not hire minority staff, nor take up doorstep or environmental justice issues, preferring instead, wilderness, resource and green issues. And in many respects it is. Other than organizations such as Redefining Progress3, it has an environmental sustainability orientation, which as Taylor argues has a social justice component that is very weak or non-existent (2000, 542). So, in the US, the two

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discourses and traditions of environmental justice and sustainability have developed in parallel, and although they have touched, there has been insufficient interpenetration of values, framings, ideas and understandings. There are encouraging signs, however, in the US, the UK and globally that a constructive dialogue or what Schlosberg (1999) calls cooperative endeavors is emerging between the environmental justice and sustainability movements, and it is our contention that this is both essential and long overdue. In the main, this dialogue is restricted to progressive NGOs, academics and local community organizations worldwide who espouse the just sustainability as opposed to environmental sustainability orientation. Their focus on justice and equity (although, perhaps not the direct experience of racial/low-income and environmental injustices) allows them to develop common ground with environmental justice organizations. What is now needed is for governments at the local, regional, national and international levels to learn from these environmental justice and progressive, or just sustainability-based organizations and to seek to embed the central principles and practical approaches of just sustainability into sustainable development policy. Whilst many, if not most, governments at all levels have adopted some kind of commitment to sustainable development, few, if any, recognize the importance of placing this within a context of social justice, equity and human rights. The need to ensure that public policy environmental or otherwise does not disproportionately disadvantage any particular social group, and affords opportunity for all, must be a precondition for the move toward just and sustainable societies.
Notes
1 The Principles of Environmental Justice as developed by the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Conference in October 1991. 2 Local Agenda 21 was renamed Local Action 21 at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in September 2002. 3 Currently headed by Michael Gelobter, a prominent environmental justice leader.

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