With environmental justice (EJ) emerging as a regulatory compliance issue, companies are increasingly looking for ways to ensure that their ESG strategies include their impacts on vulnerable communities.

Recent legislative developments and changes in agency procedures as well as stakeholder scrutiny are compelling organizations to pay closer attention to potential EJ exposure. Some companies have taken proactive steps to incorporate EJ considerations into their operations and supply chains, while others are rethinking the role of EJ in demonstrating their commitment to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives.

EJ is defined by the EPA and other agencies as the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income, with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies. True environmental justice requires that everyone have the same degree of protection from environmental and health hazards and equal access to the decision-making process to have a healthy environment in which to live, learn, and work.

Those goals aren’t being met today. Black Americans are exposed to 38% more polluted air than white Americans and are 75% more likely to live near facilities that produce hazardous waste, according to a joint study by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Clean Air Task Force, and the National Medical Association. Louisiana’s so-called “Cancer Alley” is just one example: In an 85-mile stretch along the banks of the Mississippi River where 40% of residents are Black (compared to 12% of resident nationwide), cancer and cardiovascular disorders have spiked due to toxic pollution from 150 petrochemical facilities. It’s no coincidence that these areas with high concentrations of polluting facilities also have higher percentages of Black and economically disadvantaged residents—the location of these facilities is the result of decades of racism and flawed environmental policy.

The Origins of EJ

The EJ movement grew out of the civil rights movement in reaction to discriminatory environmental practices, including toxic dumping and the targeting of communities of color and impoverished areas for landfills, dirty industrial plants, and other facilities with negative environmental impacts. Momentum grew in the 1980s and early 1990s with the publication of multiple studies, including one by the United States General Accounting Office (GAO), that provided empirical support for claims of environmental racism.

More recently, EJ has become a federal priority. EJ has been a focus of the Biden administration since President Joe Biden’s first week in office, when he launched an EJ agenda considered by many to be the most ambitious of any U.S. president to date. He built on that agenda in April 2023 with the signing of an executive order further embedding environmental justice into the work of federal agencies and establishing a new Office of Environmental Justice in the White House that is charged with coordinating all federal EJ efforts.

Considerations for Incorporating EJ Into Your Climate Strategy

Businesses that want to mitigate their EJ exposure are typically focused on two key areas: protecting the environment and vulnerable people in the communities they operate in from environmental harm while enabling commercial and industrial economic growth. A few key considerations can help you ensure that your overall sustainability strategy takes EJ issues into account.

• • Take a proactive approach to EJ. Understand what your EJ risks are by looking at your facilities and the communities they operate in. Performing modeling and risk assessment in advance can help you anticipate future challenges and also inform your decision-making about where to pursue a capital project.

For example, you may want to expand the capacity of your fleet. If your risk assessment uncovers that half of your sites are in vulnerable communities, you may determine that those are not the best candidates for expansion projects due to the additional approval processes (and the accompanying delays) you’ll have to navigate.

• • Think beyond your own organization, recognizing that you are not operating in an environmental vacuum. Depending on the type and scope of the initiative you’re looking to kick off, you may need to perform a cumulative impacts analysis to understand and calculate the impacts of your organization’s activities as well as any other environmental projects happening within a community. Even if the impact of your proposed operations is minimal, if you’re targeting an area that is already overburdened with environmental impacts, permitting agencies may be more likely to deny your project.

• • Realize that any environmental permitting activity has the potential to have an EJ component to it. The Biden administration has in effect given a blank check to any federal agency to include an EJ review when approving or denying any project, and local agencies are following in their footsteps. We’re seeing an increase in project delays and even rejections due to EJ concerns that range from a community’s vulnerability to severe storms or drought or even due to its geographic location.

• • Understand that EJ is a developing area—one that is inherently local. There’s a lot of wiggle room for state and federal agencies to decide whether EJ concerns have been adequately addressed in any project proposal, and some agencies are using that as leverage to stall projects in hopes that companies will abandon them because the approval process is too cumbersome or time-consuming. We’re seeing this currently in New York, where anti-natural-gas sentiment is leading to delays in the approval and permitting process for many projects.

The evolving, local nature of EJ makes it imperative to be able to build relationships at the local level and understand the nuances in each jurisdiction. You may want to leverage an external partner, such as an environmental consultant, to help you stay on top of policy changes and ensure that your applications are meeting the expectations of the relevant permitting agencies to avoid any unnecessary delays.

EJ is increasingly in the spotlight, and companies that fail to act now to integrate it into their overall sustainability strategy run the risk of falling behind. By mitigating environmental exposure and developing process safety and risk management plans to protect the communities your organization operates within and serves, you can not only avoid project delays (or even permit denials) but also position your company to be a leader in EJ.

For more in-depth discussion on decarbonization strategies, join our complimentary on-demand webinar, From Ambition to Action: Overcoming Decarbonization Hurdles in Construction Materials, as our panel of experts provides a deep dive perspective on Trinity’s latest commissioned research on sustainable decarbonization outcomes and challenges when implementing decarbonization strategies.