Having been grappling with the question of sustainability for most of my career, i have long advocated the three-legged stool of sustainable development -- environment, economy, society.  Only when all three aspects of a project are 'sustainable' can it really be seen to be Sustainable Development. My work in Asset-based Rural Community Development is one example how this was expressed. Given this orientation it was inevitable that the issue of Environmental Justice was raised.

I was commissioned by Communities Scotland to perform an evaluation of the Environmental Justice Component in the Regeneration Outcomes Agreements submitted by each Community Planning Partnership in Scotland.  As the ROAs(now superceded by Single Outcome Agreements) were targeted at communities suffering multiple deprivation, the focus was inevitably urban.  And yet the issues were not dissimilar to those i was working on for rural communities.  I found that Environmental justice has two fundamental components.  The first is that local people should have access to local decision making about their environment.  Thus, in Scotland, the rise of Community Woodlands, the Community Voices councils which supported the Community Planning Partnerships, and the general process of completing Devolution in Scotland.  The second component is that poor people shouldn't have to live in the most degraded environments. Here Greenspace Scotland is a shining example of how modest green and open spaces, especially when community owned and run, offer opportunities for communities to take charge of their own local environments, to access partnership funds for cleaning those environments up, and to build safe and healthier communities in Scotland.

In doing this research, i came across this quote from Jack McConnell, at that time First Minister of Scotland.  I still think it hits the challenge of Enviornmental Justice exactly on the head.

"In the late 20 th century the big political challenge - and the greatest success I believe - for democrats on the left of centre was to develop combined objectives of economic prosperity and social justice. I believe the biggest challenge for the early 21 st century is to combine economic progress with social and environmental justice"  2002.