In 2015, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development was adopted by state nations across the globe to eradicate poverty in all its forms, combat inequality, preserve the planet, create sustainable economic growth and foster social inclusion (United Nations, 2015:5). Social work is committed to contributing to sustainable development through the Global Agenda for Social Work and Social Development (2012). When social workers promote sustainable development, both social and environmental justice are equally important and also interrelated. The goal of the study was to explore and describe the role of social workers in promoting environmental justice to achieve sustainable communities from Non-governmental organisations’ perspective in Tshwane. The researcher used the qualitative research approach. The study was both explorative and descriptive. The study used an instrumental case study design and the type of research was both basic and applied. The research sample of 10 social workers from the Tshwane area was purposively selected, and data were collected by means of semi-structured interviews. The findings derived from the study showed that social workers in practice are aware of the interrelatedness between communities and the physical environment, but that the environment is not always consciously integrated in their interventions. Furthermore, social workers can identify the need for green social work. However, although they are unsure of how to practise green social work, some social workers are already promoting sustainability in their communities, albeit without always realising their involvement with environmental justice. The study concluded that there is a growing awareness amongst social workers of the interrelatedness between social justice and environmental justice and that, in promoting social justice, they should incorporate environmental justice. Furthermore, traditional social work roles could be employed to promote environmental justice and sustainable communities by adopting green social work as theoretical framework (Dominelli, 2012). The study recommends a raised awareness of green social work amongst social workers, interventions with a view to do community-building and present training opportunities for social workers to equip them with the skills to practice green social work through focused interventions. Further research on social work practice is required to shift existing social work practice to integrated social, economic and environmental development that promote sustainable communities. / Dissertation (MSW)--University of Pretoria, 2019. / Social Work and Criminology / MSW / Unrestricted

Suscitée par l’impact des activités humaines sur l’environnement et sans jamais être réellement une notion explicitement consacrée par le droit, l’éco-citoyenneté transparaît au travers de nombreuses normes juridiques. Ambivalente, cette notion suggère à la fois un ensemble de droits dont le public est créancier mais également une responsabilité de ce dernier à l’égard de l’environnement.Partant de cette dualité de valeurs complémentaires, le droit de l’homme à un environnement sain se concrétise par la reconnaissance d’un droit d’accès à l’information, à participation au processus décisionnel et d’accès à la justice. Ainsi le droit fait de plus en plus dépendre l’acceptation de décisions du concours actif des citoyens. Le développement de la démocratie participative dans le domaine de l’aménagement et du développement durables constitue l’indice d’une transformation paradigmatique. En effet, tout en préservant certaines modalités classiques de l’action publique, le droit développe de nouveaux concepts et schémas organisationnels accompagnant cette évolution non encore achevée.Qu’il soit influencé par des phénomènes sociaux ou qu’il se développe spontanément, le droit de l’environnement décline progressivement le rôle du citoyen sous la forme du recours au prétoire mais également par l’évolution de la procédure administrative non contentieuse. Basée centralement sur l’étude du droit français de l’environnement ainsi que sur plusieurs incursions comparatistes, cette thèse s’appuie également sur la sociologie, la philosophie ou encore les sciences politiques et administratives. Ces travaux se proposent d’aborder la manière dont le droit prend en compte l’impératif de la participation éco-citoyenne. / Generated by the impact of human activities on the environment and without ever really being a notion explicitly consecrated by the law, eco-citizenship appears in many legal norms. Ambivalent, this notion suggests both a set of rights of which the public is creditor and a responsibility of the latter with respect to the environment.Starting from this duality of complementary values, the human right to a healthy environment is materialized by the recognition of a right of access to information, of participation in decision-making and access to justice. Thus, the law increasingly provides that the acceptance of decisions depends on the active support of citizens. The development of participatory democracy in the field of planning and sustainable development is indicative of a paradigmatic transformation. In effect, while preserving certain classical modes of public action, the law develops new concepts and organizational schemes that accompany this evolution which has not yet been completed.Whether it is influenced by social phenomena or spontaneously developed, environmental law gradually reveals the role of the citizen in the form of recourse to the courtroom but also by the evolution of the non-contentious administrative procedure. Centrally founded on the study of French environmental law as well as on several comparative incursions, this thesis is also based on sociology, philosophy or political and administrative sciences. This academic work intends to address the way in which the law takes into account the imperative of eco-citizen participation.

There are a large number of chemical facilities that emit toxic chemicals in Michigan, and there is a concern regarding toxic chemical exposure to the residents of Michigan counties. However, it is uncertain whether chemical companies that emit toxic chemicals in Michigan are influenced by county demographic factors in deciding whether to engage in voluntary pollution prevention (P2) activities and whether this decision influences U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (U.S. EPA) Risk-Screening Environmental Indicators (RSEI) scores. Using Bullard's theory of environmental justice, the purpose of this quantitative study was to determine if there was a correlation between chemical-related industry's voluntary P2 participation, U.S. EPA's RSEI scores for chemical-related facilities, and demographic factors in Michigan counties between 2007 through 2011. A cross-sectional design using hierarchical multiple regression analysis was used to study potential environmental inequality in 20 Michigan counties. Publically available data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. EPA included demographic data, voluntary P2 participation data, and RSEI scores for 20 counties in Michigan. A statistically insignificant correlation was found between voluntary P2 participation and median annual RSEI scores of Michigan industry; while a statistically significant, inverse correlation was found between median annual RSEI scores and educational attainment. The results from this study can be used by policy makers to promote more effective voluntary P2 policy and to create county-specific public education programs promoting toxic chemical awareness that will lead to positive social change in Michigan.

Les conflits de distribution écologiques résultant du métabolisme social croissant du monde et l'expansion des frontières des marchandises qui en résulte, sont confrontés à des défis importants pour la gouvernance, en particulier lorsqu'il existe des interactions multiples, entre la nature et les individus qui possèdent de systèmes de valeurs différents, à travers différentes échelles (du local au global). L'interaction actuelle entre les échelles semble être définie par le pouvoir juridictionnel - une manière qui favorise les échelles internationales et / ou nationales, qui négligent les processus en cours qui se déroulent à d'autres échelles. Il existe une disparité entre les échelles où les décisions sont prises et les actions sont effectuées. Par conséquent, un mécanisme de gouvernance, avec non seulement des propriétés participatives prenant compte des différents systèmes de valeurs, mais avec des mécanismes de coordination entre plusieurs échelles, devient nécessaire. À cette arrière-plan, cette thèse maintient que les méthodes d'évaluation multicritères délibératives et participatives pourraient ouvrir de nouvelles voies pour les mécanismes de gouvernance environnementale pour les conflits avec des interactions transversales et vise à montrer l'importance d'une perspective multi-échelle dans un cadre multicritère. Dans une tentative d'opérationnaliser cet objectif, elle utilise le cas conflictuel de la production d'énergie nucléaire en Turquie et l'évalue aux échelles nationales et locales dans le contexte national et mondial des mouvements de justice environnementale. Elle démontre que l'élaboration d'un problème de décision conflictuel par une méthode multicritère / multi-échelle est utile pour i) identifier les défis résultant des interactions entre les parties prenantes et ii) les présenter de manière transparente et compréhensible. / The ecological distribution conflicts arising from the growing social metabolism of the world and the resulting expansion of the commodity frontiers pose important challenges for governance, especially when there are multiple interactions between the nature and people holding different value systems, across different scales (from local to global). The current interaction between scales seems to be defined by the jurisdictional power – a manner that is inclined to favour the international and/or national scales, which overlook the ongoing processes taking place in other scales. Such a discrepancy gives rise to a mismatch between the scales where the decisions are made and actions are undertaken, calling for a governance mechanism – one with participatory properties taking into account the different value systems and coordination mechanisms across multiple scales.At this background, this thesis argues that deliberative and participatory multi-criteria evaluation methods might open new avenues for environmental governance mechanisms for the conflicts with cross-scale interactions and aims to show the importance of a multi-scale perspective within multi-criteria framework. In an attempt to operationalize this aim, it uses the conflicted case of nuclear energy production in Turkey and assesses it at national and local scales within the context of national and global environmental justice movements. It is shown that framing a conflicted decision-making problem through multi-scale/multi-stakeholder method is helpful: i) in identifying the challenges resulting from the cross-scale interactions between stakeholders and ii) in presenting them in a transparent and comprehensible manner.

abstract: Environmental hazards and disaster researchers have demonstrated strong associations between sociodemographic indicators, such as age and socio-economic status (SES), and hazard exposures and health outcomes for individuals and in certain communities. At the same time, behavioral health and risk communications research has examined how individual psychology influences adaptive strategies and behaviors in the face of hazards. However, at present, we do not understand the explanatory mechanisms that explain relationships between larger scale social structure, individual psychology, and specific behaviors that may attenuate or amplify risk. Extreme heat presents growing risks in a rapidly warming and urbanizing world. This dissertation examines the social and behavioral mechanisms that may explain inequitable health outcomes from exposure to concurrent extreme heat and electrical power failure in Phoenix, AZ and extreme heat in Detroit, MI. Exploratory analysis of 163 surveys in Phoenix, AZ showed that age, gender, and respondent’s racialized group identity did not relate to thermal discomfort and self-reported heat illness, which were only predicted by SES (StdB = -0.52, p < 0.01). Of the explanatory mechanisms tested in the study, only relative air conditioning intensity and thermal discomfort explained self-reported heat illness. Thermal discomfort was tested as both a mechanism and outcome measure. Content analysis of 40 semi-structured interviews in Phoenix, AZ revealed that social vulnerability was associated with an increase in perceived hazard severity (StdB = 0.44, p < 0.01), a decrease in perceived adaptation efficacy (StdB = -0.38, p = 0.02), and an indirect increase (through adaptive efficacy) in maladaptive intentions (StdB = 0.18, p = 0.01). Structural equation modeling of 244 surveys in Phoenix, AZ and Detroit, MI revealed that relationships between previous heat illness experience, perceived heat risk, and adaptive intentions were significantly moderated by adaptive capacity: high adaptive capacity households were more likely to undertake adaptive behaviors, and those decisions were more heavily influenced by risk perceptions and previous experiences. However, high adaptive capacity households had lower risk perceptions and fewer heat illness experiences than low adaptive capacity households. A better understanding of the mechanisms that produce social vulnerability can facilitate more salient risk messaging and more targeted public health interventions. For example, public health risk messaging that provides information on the efficacy of specific adaptations may be more likely to motivate self-protective action, and ultimately protect populations. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Environmental Social Science 2019

Indigenous environmental justice and rights to land are often compromised in favour of state and corporate land control. Narratives that oppose indigenous peoples to development and conservation, and portray communities as either “backwards” or “environmentally destructive”, have been used since the colonial period to justify dispossession of indigenous lands and displacements of indigenous peoples. In parallel, an indigenous justice movementhas been growing, that has absorbed a “counter-narrative” that depicts indigenous peoples as environmental stewards, and stresses the importance of indigenous rights to land as part ofeffective climate change mitigation. This thesis investigates how narratives in the scientific literature and practice frame indigenous peoples’ rights to land in Southeast Asia. A review of 60 scientific articles was conducted and complemented with a small sample of in-depthinterviews with practitioners working with development, conservation and indigenous rights in Southeast Asia. Through the creation of a novel framework that combines environmental justice and stewardship, this study uncovers how modern narratives continue to perpetuate entrenched colonial and business-as-usual pathways. / FairFrontiers Research Project at the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, Kyoto

An energy transition can be defined as the adoption of a new primary energy system. As such, it is a structural change that implies a broad shift in technologies and behaviors in order to replace one source of energy with another. Energy transitions motivated by economic, climate, and/or health goals are taking place everywhere in the world. Air pollution, a consequence of fossil fuel-based and solid fuel-based energy use among other sources, is the largest environmental health risk accounting for 6.4 million premature deaths annually. Given the health implications of our energy systems and the social drivers of energy use, access, and burden, energy transitions have the potential to impact health outcomes and associated disparities in a context-dependent manner. The research presented in this dissertation has two objectives: 1) to evaluate the distribution of benefits from energy transitions in the United States (US) and in Ghana; 2) to identify and characterize health outcomes that are relevant to these transitions but are currently understudied. Chapters 2 and 3 are anchored in the US energy policy context. Chapter 2 focuses on the transition away from coal as the primary source of energy in the US and its implications for particulate matter pollution and preterm births. Leveraging a novel dispersion model, I assessed the association between coal PM2.5 and preterm birth rates along with effect modification by race/ethnicity. We observed a positive non-linear relationship between coal PM2.5 and preterm birth rate, which plateaued at higher levels of pollution. The findings of this study suggest that the transition away from coal may have reduced preterm birth rates in the US, but that the association was stronger among non-Hispanic White women compared to non-Hispanic Black women. In Chapter 3, I use a mixed-methods framework to evaluate the first pilot of gas-to-electric stove transition in low-income housing in the US. Through a collaboration with a community-based environmental justice group in New York City, we monitored indoor air quality in participants homes pre- and post-intervention, conducted controlled cooking tests, and carried out focus groups to characterize their experience. Post-intervention, daily NO2 concentrations were 46.3% (95% CI: -67.8%, -10.3%) lower in the intervention arm compared to the control arm. Participants were unanimously pleased with the transition, which had simultaneously improved their cooking experience and partially addressed energy insecurity concerns that plagued their building. Chapters 4 and 5 contribute to the characterization of the health implications associated with Ghana’s commitment to increase access to liquified petroleum gas (LPG) nationally. In Chapter 4, we aimed to describe the country-level incidence of severe cooking-related burns by fuel type in use and to identify effect modifiers. We conducted a nationally representative (n = 7,389) household energy use survey in all 16 regions of Ghana. The incidence rate (95% CI) of cooking-related burns per 1000 person-years among working age females was 8.3 (7.2; 12.0) per 1000 person-years, which was 8 times higher than that of working age males. Among adults, the odds of experiencing a cooking-related burn were doubled among solid fuel users compared to primary LPG users. In Chapter 5, we aimed to understand the effect of an LPG intervention on personal exposure to household air pollution in a peri-urban setting of Ghana and to characterize the distribution of benefits between male and female household members quantitatively and qualitatively. The difference-in-differences results suggested a reduction in exposure to carbon monoxide due to the intervention (-14.2%, 95% CI: -44.1%, 31.6%), which might have benefited male and female participants to the same extent. Importantly, focus group discussions suggested that the ability that LPG affords to cook “on demand” could negatively impact intra-household dynamics and expectations in a way that has not been previously documented. Taken together, our findings from two distinct socioeconomic contexts, highlight the non-uniform distribution of benefits from energy transitions, especially when benefits that are not mediated by air pollution are considered. These results contribute to the understanding that social drivers of inequities should be integrated in the design of energy policies and interventions aimed at generating equitable outcomes. Future directions include a detailed characterization of the context-dependent relative contributions of indoor and outdoor air pollution sources as well as a more systematic integration of quantitative and qualitative methods in policy evaluation.

Since the mid-century proliferation of public housing, policy makers and environmental justice advocates have exposed the fact that geographically and economically isolated public housing sites are ultimately detrimental to residents and communities. In recent years, more progressive housing policies have emphasized the importance of site location in the success of housing programs. This study explores the intersection of affordable housing policy and “food desert” research, by assessing the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program in California, with specific attention to the grocery store category within the Site Amenities section. Since the inception of the LIHTC program in 1986, the California Tax Credit Allocation Committee (CTCAC) has made multiple revisions to its application process. The study evaluates the current accessibility of grocery stores from LIHTC sites in Alameda and Santa Clara Counties in Northern California. It also critiques the changes in application scoring, criteria, and the indicators of food facility proximity and quality, identifying weaknesses, recommendations, and areas for further research. It finds that despite CTCAC’s efforts to improve the effectiveness of the application, there does not seem to improvement in grocery store access over time. Further research is needed to determine whether this condition is a result of a failure on the part of the application process, or of high land costs and limited availability of developable land.

Recent decades have marked growing academic and scientific attention to the role of indigenous knowledge in climate change adaptation, mitigation, and detection strategies. However, how indigenous knowledge is incorporated is a point of contention between self-identifying indigenous groups and existing institutions which combat climate change. In this thesis, I argue that the full inclusion of indigenous knowledge is deterred by certain aspects of modernity. In order to overcome the problems of modernity, I argue that a recognition theory of justice is needed as it regards to indigenous knowledge. Recognition justice calls for indigenous groups to retain meaningful control over how and when their indigenous knowledge is shared. To supplement this, I use the Marshall Islands as a case study. The Marshall Islands afford a nice particular case because of their longstanding colonial relationship with the United States and the impending danger they face of rising sea levels. Despite this danger, the Republic of the Marshall Islands calls for increased recognition as leaders in addressing climate change.

This qualitative study explores how eco-social organizations in Colombia work with the communities to protect the páramos, and the issues affecting the páramos. Workers, volunteers, and advisors of the organizations were interviewed to examine the issues affecting the páramos and how they work with the communities to protect this ecosystem. Results of this study were analyzed through the environmental justice framework and the eco-social approach and by applying thematic analysis. The findings identified that issues such as climate change, agriculture, and mining are affecting the ecosystem of páramos. The study results also reflected that the community-based conservation approach, community prior knowledge, educating and raising awareness, and the role of eco-social non-governmental organizations play a fundamental role when working alongside the communities to protect the páramos.