The international spread of the Environmental Justice movement, particularly following the 1991 National People of Colour Environmental Leadership Summit, where 17 principles were adopted to guide public and collective action, and its reception across different countries and by various authors, have given rise to diverse interpretations of Environmental Justice. For example, in France and the United Kingdom, studies on environmental inequalities based on geographical area or household income began to emerge in the 2000s. Numerous studies have thus demonstrated that poor people cause less ecological damage but contribute relatively more to environmental policies, whilst benefiting less from their effects (Pye et al., 2008). Racial relations, on the other hand, have received little attention. It was only later that environmental racism was recognised in France, and more broadly across Europe, as evidenced in particular by the studies on the deterioration of living conditions among Roma and Traveller communities (Acker, 2021). Moreover, until recently – and in contrast to its origins in the United States – this field of research developed with little interaction with activist groups. Thus, it was not until the late 2010s that the term ‘environmental justice’ began to gain traction within French social movements (Coolsaet & Deldrève, 2024).
The 2000s also marked a turning point and a renewal of the scientific field of environmental justice worldwide, under the growing influence of decolonial approaches from South America, which re-examined the validity and scope of knowledge and concepts forged in the West (Rodríguez & Inturias, 2018). This renewal also reinforces certain less-explored dimensions of intersectionality, such as gender or disability, etc. (Di Chiro, 2020), as well as the importance of considering multi-species justice (Celermajer et al., 2022). More critical approaches to the role of the state in producing environmental inequalities complement this critical shift (Pellow, 2017), against a backdrop of climate change, environmental degradation and worsening economic and social inequalities, which tend to exacerbate situations of environmental injustice worldwide (Martin et al., 2020).
There are therefore different interpretations of environmental injustice, which is also subject to several long-standing controversies, concerning, for example, the concept of environmental racism (Pulido, 2015...), or relating to its national or international scope (Stevis and Felli, 2020...), or even whether or not it has potential synergies with sustainability movements (Agyeman et al., 2025), etc. Nevertheless, a kind of unified paradigm is emerging (Taylor, 2000): a novel proposal to reframe ecological and climate issues through the lens of systemic oppression and power asymmetries, within an environment defined as the place where we live, work, play, eat, pray, etc., in short, a place from which we cannot detach ourselves and of which we are an integral part. According to one of the associated hypotheses or postulates, the same economic and structural processes damage nature and create social and political vulnerabilities, or indeed harm non-human (or other than human) life as well as the communities thus rendered vulnerable. Colonialism, capitalism and patriarchy are therefore difficult to separate. Another postulate, arising from the origins of the Environmental Justice movement in the United States as well as in the Global South, assigns these communities of ‘those most directly affected’ an important role to play in the fight against environmental ills or in seeking redress for them, by virtue of their experience of these issues and their capacity for mobilisation – although this capacity may be uneven and hindered. Thus, demands for distributive, procedural and recognition justice are closely intertwined (Schlosberg, 2007).
Why a website?
Launched in 2017, this website was initially intended to serve as a communication platform for information relating to the programme of seminars organised by the EJJE network. Subsequently, this original objective evolved as a result of interactions with researchers and other civil society actors, an ever-growing number of whom were joining the network. Consequently, we felt it would be appropriate to gradually develop it into a resource centre containing the findings of research carried out in our respective fields, a glossary covering a number of terms and concepts we refer to in our work, and a non-exhaustive bibliography relating to the field of environmental justice.
Bibliography
Acker, W. (2021). Où sont les « gens du voyage » ? Inventaire critique des aires d’accueil, Éditions du commun, Rennes.
Agyeman, J., Bullard, R. D., & Evans, B. (2025). Exploring the Nexus: Bringing Together Sustainability, Environmental Justice and Equity (From Space and Polity). In Social Theories for the Anthropocene (pp. 391-394). Routledge.
Bullard, R.D. 1990. Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class, and Environmental Quality. Westwiewpress Boulder, San Francisco.
Celermajer, D., Schlosberg, D., Rickards, L., Stewart-Harawira, M., Thaler, M., Tschakert, P., ... & Winter, C. 2022. Multispecies justice: theories, challenges, and a research agenda for environmental politics. Trajectories in environmental politics, 116-137.
Coolsaet, B., & Deldrève, V. 2024. Exploring environmental justice in France: evidence, movements, and ideas. Environmental politics, 33(5), 757-777.
Di Chiro G. 2020. Mobilizing "intersectionality" in environmentl research and action in a time of crisis. in Coolsaet ed, Environmental Justice. Key issues, Paris, Routledge, 317-332.
Martin, A., Armijos, M. T., Coolsaet, B., Dawson, N., AS Edwards, G., Few, R., ... & White, C. S. (2020). Environmental justice and transformations to sustainability. Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, 62(6), 19-30.
Martinez-Alier, J. 1991. Ecology and the poor: A neglected dimension of Latin American history. Journal of Latin American Studies, 23(3), 621-639Pellow, D. N. 2017. What is critical environmental justice? John Wiley & Sons.
Pellow, D. N. 2017. What is critical environmental justice? John Wiley & Sons.
Pulido, L. 2015. Geographies of race and ethnicity 1: White supremacy vs white privilege in environmental racism research. Progress in human geography, 39(6), 809-817.
Pye S., Skinner I., Meyer-Ohlendorf et al. 2008. Addressing the social dimensions of environmental policy - A study on the linkages between environmental and social sustainability in Europe. Brussels, European Commission.
Rodríguez, Iokiñe, and Mirna Liz Inturias. 2018. Conflict Transformation in Indigenous Peoples' Territories: Doing Environmental Justice with a 'Decolonial Turn. Development Studies Research 5 (1): 90-105.
Schlosberg, D. 2007. Defining environmental justice. theories, Movements, and Nature. Oxford, University Press.
Stevis, D., & Felli, R. 2020. Planetary just transition? How inclusive and how just. Earth System Governance, 6(100065).
Taylor, D.E. 2000. The Rise of Environmental Justice Paradigm. Injustice framing and the Social Construction of Environmental Discourses. American Behavioral Scientist, vol. 43 (4), 508-580.
