From 2021-2023, a partnership including Center for Whole Communities, Rights and Democracy Institute and Vermont Law School EJ Clinic worked with the Vermont Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) to design and implement a pilot EJ community
engagement project. The intention was to provide guidance and recommendations for best practices on equitable community engagement to the DEC and to share widely with organizations doing environmental work in Vermont. Read more in the published report:
Connecting People to Power.
From 2018 to 2023, the REJOICE Project (Rural Environmental Justice Informed by Community Expertise) worked to center the needs and desires of most-impacted communities in Vermont’s environmental decision-making. Our goal was to encourage the state to create a formal, Vermont-specific environmental justice policy.
Learn more about the preliminary findings and recommendations through the powerpoint and video presentation below.
Dig into the detailed findings – by topic and by community – from our EJ-framed engagements with key frontline communities during the height of the pandemic here.
Other resources
“No community should be saddled with more environmental burdens and less environmental benefits than any other.” – Environmental justice as defined by Majora Carter, an activist and environmental consultant from the South Bronx. To learn more about her work, you can watch her TED talk, Greening the Ghetto.
For more information about environmental justice, what it is, how it affects communities, and what to do about it, check out some of these great resources:
What is Environmental Justice? A video from the National Resources Defense Council.
‘Hit First and Worst’: Region’s Communities of Color Brace for Climate Change Impacts. A podcast from NPR Boston’s WBUR News.
‘Toxic Burden’, an episode on the Reveal podcast, from the Center for Investigative Reporting
“In a pandemic, we need green spaces more than ever”
an article by Cate Mingoya
Environmental and Climate Justice
Definitions and news updates from the NAACP
“Racism dictates who gets dumped on”
from Unequal Earth, The Guardian’s year-long series on environmental justice
Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class, and Environmental Quality
by Robert D Bullard
From the Ground Up: Environmental Racism and the Rise of the Environmental Justice Movement
by Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster
Vermont Environmental Justice Network 