海角视频

EJNYC: Environmental Justice Report and Mapping Tool

New York City, USA

The release of EJNYC: A Study of Environmental Justice Issues in New York City marks an important milestone for the environmental justice movement. Our team supported the city to deliver the landmark report, drawing on its broad experience of designing thoughtful research methodologies to assess complex urban issues.

This is the first time in the nation鈥檚 history that a city has published an environmental justice-focused report and mapping tool that are as in-depth and broad in scope. This achievement builds on decades of work by environmental justice advocates of all ages and backgrounds who have been tirelessly advocating for their communities in New York City and beyond.

The EJNYC Report and Mapping Tool are crucial resources for policymakers, advocates, and other stakeholders who aim to advance environmental justice in New York City.

The report provides a diagnostic assessment of EJ issues in NYC today and historically and identifies a series of opportunities that the City will explore further in the forthcoming EJNYC Plan to advance environmental justice for New Yorkers.

The study evaluates the distribution and impacts of environmental burdens and benefits citywide, with a focus on NYC鈥檚 low-income communities and communities of color, and across dozens of environmental, health, and quality of life indicators. The study also evaluates the City鈥檚 practices for engaging the public on environmental decision-making.

The EJNYC Mapping Tool makes the information in the study more accessible via an online and interactive platform that consolidates over one hundred EJ-related data layers.

Environmental justice is the principle that all people, regardless of race, disability, age, or socioeconomic background, have a right to live, work, and play in safe and healthy communities, free of harmful environmental conditions.

The EJNYC Report and Mapping Tool are first-of-their-kind. NYC is the first city in the country to publish environmental justice resources that are as in-depth and broad in scope.

The EJNYC Plan will establish priorities, initiatives, policies, and recommendations to address environmental injustices in communities of color and low-income communities.

The Plan will include recommendations to further embed equity and environmental justice into the City鈥檚 decision-making processes.

Challenge

Environmental Justice (EJ) is 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, policies and activities and with respect to the distribution of environmental benefits.

Prevalent and persistent environmental inequities in New York City create profound economic, social, and health disparities among affected communities. Low-income communities and communities of color are disproportionately impacted by these environmental inequities, due to legacies of discriminatory actions by public and private entities.

Achieving environmental justice will require that all New Yorkers have the same degree of protection from environmental and health hazards and equal access to the decision-making to have a healthy environment to live, learn, and work.

Working with the New York City Mayor鈥檚 Office of Climate and Environmental Justice (MOCEJ), the NYC Environmental Justice Advisory Board (EJAB), the NYC Environmental Justice Interagency Working Group (IWG), and a team of specialist consulting firms and practitioners, 海角视频 developed the EJNYC Report and Mapping Tool to provide stakeholders with the information and resources they need to advance and advocate for environmental justice across the five boroughs.

The report and mapping tool, which are publicly available, will inform the City鈥檚 development of the EJNYC Plan, a comprehensive environmental justice plan, in a subsequent phase of work.

One of the initial key initial challenges in developing these resources was creating an analytical framework to quantitatively and spatially assess environmental justice across the city. Building on the guidance in a public report scope that was developed by MOCEJ, the IWG, and EJAB, our team conducted an extensive literature and data review to determine, in collaboration with project stakeholders, the appropriate definitions, issue areas, and indicators to use.

Another challenge was determining how to thoughtfully garner stakeholder input from communities that are affected by environmental injustices, and often experience 鈥減lanning fatigue鈥� from participating in past public engagement processes, in some cases with limited tangible outcomes for their communities.

Since the EJNYC Plan process will involve extensive community engagement, the team developed a stakeholder outreach process for this initial phase of the work that focused on 鈥済rass-tops鈥� engagement with community leaders and representatives who could speak to a variety of issues and lived experiences from their work on-the-ground in EJ communities.

In addition to frequent engagement with the EJAB, the team conducted focus groups and interviews with community leaders and representatives across the five boroughs. Similarly, a wide range of city agencies were also key stakeholders in this process.

This all amounted to a highly complex and extensive engagement process of both government and advocacy stakeholders, who have some overlapping but often diverging goals and mandates.

Solution

A multidisciplinary 海角视频 team, including sustainability advisors, equity experts and researchers, was assembled to support MOCEJ, the IWG, and EJAB to develop the in-depth report and mapping tool. To develop these first-of-their-kind resources, 海角视频 collaborated with community-focused urban design nonprofit Hester Street, as well as Rhie Planning, HOUSEOFCAKES, WXY, Creative Urban Alchemy, Ki Strategies, Lion Advisors, UHope Consulting, and New Deal Strategies.

In launching the EJNYC Report and Mapping Tool in April 2024, New York City leaders have made a significant step to embed environmental justice into the City鈥檚 decision-making.

The EJNYC Report was informed by thousands of comments from New Yorkers as well as the input of the EJAB and IWG. Our team began by conducting an extensive literature and data review, as well as focus groups and interviews with community leaders and representatives. We then engaged in extensive quantitative and spatial analysis, and a case study evaluation of existing programs, policies, and processes and their EJ implications. This included evaluating the current avenues for resident participation in environmental decision-making and identifying opportunities to include residents鈥� voices more equitably.

The EJNYC Report ultimately analyzes environmental burdens and benefits across six themes: access to resources, exposure to polluted air, exposure to hazardous materials, access to safe and healthy housing, exposure to polluted water, and exposure to climate change. The report found that EJ Areas have more stationary sources of pollution, more observed health disparities and greater exposure to emissions and potential flooding.

Connecting historical housing discrimination with present-day environmental inequities, it also found 67% of the total New York City population of historically redlined areas live in EJ Areas today.

Based on these findings and many others, the EJNYC Report outlines five main opportunity areas to build on. The EJNYC Report is accompanied by an interactive online mapping tool that allows policymakers, community leaders, and everyday New Yorkers to identify the environmental hazards in their own neighborhoods. The EJNYC Mapping Tool makes the information in the report more accessible and consolidates over one hundred EJ-related data layers.

Our team developed the tool to reflect New York City leaders鈥� priority of democratizing data access. This tool can support ongoing grassroots environmental justice work in addition to helping inform City decision-making.

Value

The Environmental Justice New York City (EJNYC) initiative represents the Mayor鈥檚 Office of Climate and Environmental Justice鈥檚 (MOCEJ) implementation of the city鈥檚 landmark environmental justice legislation, Local Laws 60 and 64 of 2017. These laws establish foundational requirements to guide the City鈥檚 efforts to advance environmental justice in NYC, including the development of the EJNYC Report and EJNYC Mapping Tool, and the forthcoming development of the EJNYC Plan.

In launching the report and mapping tool, New York City is delivering on this legislative mandate and leading the way nationally in advancing environmental justice at the local level.

Our team was able to draw on its broad experience of designing thoughtful research methodologies to assess complex urban issues; of conducting rigorous quantitative, qualitative, and spatial analyses; and our experts鈥� subject matter expertise in climate and environmental justice to deliver an insightful report and mapping tool.

Together, these resources advance two objectives: first, to provide New Yorkers with an understanding of present-day systemic environmental inequities in the city, and second, to develop and inform the forthcoming plan that effectively advances environmental justice and embeds equity and environmental justice considerations into the City鈥檚 decision-making processes.

There is substantial work to be done to successfully implement and support citywide environmental justice priorities. The City will use the findings from the EJNYC Report and collaborate with the EJAB and EJ communities to identify and establish environmental justice priorities, initiatives, policies, and recommendations through the development of the forthcoming EJNYC Plan.