Embodying Justice in the Built Environment
2024 - Ongoing
Embodying Justice in the Built Environment is a multi-phase research project to produce resources for governmental agencies and community organizations seeking to center justice and equity in their work toward building carbon-neutral futures to address climate change. This research is funded through a gift from the Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance (CNCA). Our research process involves CNCA leadership and member cities. Phase I produced a guide and workbook offering the Embodying Justice framework applied to circularity and waste. Phase II is focused on development of a guide for just and equitable land use transitions.
Embodying Justice in the Built Environment: Circularity in Practice (Phase I)
Phase I of the project produced a guide and workbook for local governments and community organizations seeking to center justice and equity in their work toward building carbon neutral futures to address climate change. Unjust practices have shaped the built environment, from land dispossession to discriminatory planning, to harmful material extraction and toxic production processes, to wasteful construction and consumption practices. Current building processes have exacerbated injustices embedded in the built environment. This guide and workbook offers the Embodying Justice framework to support justice-oriented practices in the built environment and was developed with the belief that redressing injustices is integral to transitioning cities toward carbon neutrality.
This workbook was collaboratively authored by researchers in the Just Places Lab, the Reparative Praxis Lab, the Circular Construction Lab, and the Susan Christopherson Center for Community Planning. The creation of this guide and workbook was supported by the Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance (CNCA) and completed in partnership with the Circularity, Reuse, and Zero Waste Development (CR0WD) network.
The Embodying Justice framework establishes justice principles as its foundation. The framework identifies five domains of justice, where city government and community organizations can focus their efforts as they develop policies, practices, and processes to address circularity and waste.
Justice principles
- Justice is reparative
- Justice is fair.
- Justice is community-driven.
- Justice is placed.
- Justice is not a singular endpoint.
Domains of justice
- J1 Community Impacts
- J2 Economic Impacts
- J3 Labor and Workforce
- J4 Historical Context
- J5 Community Engagement and Involvement
Strategies for addressing Justice in Circularity and Waste in the following areas:
- Alternatives to Demolition
- Resource Management
- New Construction
For each group of strategies, a series of questions is provided, with corresponding considerations when developing carbon neutrality policies.
The questions are meant to raise awareness to justice issues and prompt users to pursue solutions appropriate for their communities.
This is a workbook; make notes, draw lines, and connect ideas.
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Just Land Use Transitions and Embodied Carbon (Phase II)
In the second phase of Embodying Justice, the research team is developing a guide on just and equitable urban land use and zoning transitions for cities striving toward carbon neutrality. The team is incorporating a discussion of case studies or practice stories in which local governments partner with tribal governments, community land trusts, land banks, and other community-based organizations to further the aims of justice and equity while working toward land use policies that address embodied carbon.
This project will provide cities with an interactive resource that can be used in addressing justice and equity in the context of adapting cities for carbon neutrality and climate adaptation. What will continue to set this effort apart is the “workbook” format of the deliverable as a means of engaging with principles of justice. While Phase I focused on questions that local governments and community organizations can ask of themselves with regard to Waste and Circularity, this second phase will present suggested means of dialogue on carbon neutrality and justice in the context of land use practices and policies.
Dr, Dylan Stevenson from the University of Washington has joined the research team for Phase II. Other researchers who are continuing with this project include: Jocelyn Poe, Director of the Reparative Praxis Lab; Jennifer Minner, Director of the Just Places Lab; Felix Heisel, Director of the Circular Construction Lab; Ash Kopetzky, Just Places Lab Researcher; Gretchen Worth, Program Director of the Susan Christopherson Center for Community Planning.