Embracing Environmental Justice: A New Chapter
At Alternatives, we've reached a significant milestone: making environmental justice a core value of our organization. This shift reflects our dedication to nurturing a sustainable future, in our city and on our planet. ?
Our commitment to safeguarding Earth's resources for present and future generations feels important to intentionally set in stone. We recognize the disproportionate burden of environmental hazards on communities of color, and we want to amplify this injustice. The “Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States” report found that race was the most important predictor of proximity to hazardous waste facilities in America.?In Chicago,?when it comes to health, a person's ZIP code carries more weight than their genetic code! While life expectancy has improved across the city in recent decades, the gap persists between neighborhoods like West Garfield Park and richer areas like the Loop. ?
Environmental justice, when examined through an intersectional lens, reveals how race, socioeconomic status, and education intersect to shape environmental outcomes. Communities of color and those with lower incomes often bear a disproportionate burden of environmental hazards, exacerbating existing inequalities. The most loudly publicized example of this being the water crisis in Flint, Michigan. Stories like these highlight the complex web of inequities that shape environmental outcomes. ?
What many don’t realize is how people with positional power and authority are not immune to the impacts of environmental harm. Heather McGhee's exploration of the hidden costs of racism, particularly within the realm of environmental justice, sheds light on the “zero-sum game” in The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together. “Racism has a cost for everyone. And with the environment and climate change, many white people's skeptical worldview, combined with their outsized political power, has life or death consequences for us all.”?
Robin Wall Kimmerer in Braiding Sweetgrass asks, “Can Americans as a nation of immigrants, learn to live here as if we were staying? With both feet on the shore? [...] to become naturalized is to live as if your children’s future matters, to take care of the land as if our lives and the lives of all our relatives depend on it. Because they do.” What if those with power and resources didn’t consider land and place as replaceable? How would we live our lives differently if we lived as though we were staying? If the future of our children depended on it? ?
The addition of environmental justice as a core value at Alternatives is based on the knowledge that climate change affects everybody - not only?marginalized communities. Alternatives was compelled to incorporate it into our core values in an effort to acknowledge the critical need to vigilantly consider the implications of our collective actions on our home. Similar to issues of liberation and equity, environmental justice should inform our decision-making and how we approach our work – from the individual level all the way to the systemic.?
"Even from a business perspective, we are exploring new ways of fostering community while upholding our commitment to sustainability and environmental justice. From being selective with the sale of our Uptown building (to not contribute to Uptown gentrification) to offering resources like iPads for interactive training sessions instead of printed worksheets, we prioritize accessibility for everyone,” said Bessie Alcantara, Executive Director of Alternatives. “From composting to downsizing the manufacturing of branded merchandise. No decision is made without considering how we can actively minimize waste and harm, aligning with our commitment to sustainability." This ethos extends to our avoidance of annual report printing, prioritizing digital solutions in alignment with our environmental value, and how we share space with other community-based organizations to be in right-relationship with our community.?
While small collective action is capable of healing our relationship to place and there is value in reimagining the relationships we have to ecologically unfriendly business practices, the true challenge lies in confronting the disproportionate harm inflicted by behemoth corporate entities capable of wielding extreme influence over legislation. We can make a meaningful difference by advocating for policies that promote environmental justice without disproportionately impacting specific communities. We must demand accountability from these corporations, whose unchecked practices ravage our planet and disproportionately affect vulnerable communities. Take action with us now to “live here as if we were staying.”?
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