Environmental Justice
The concept of "Environmental Justice" featured in a speech delivered by the previous First Minister in February 2002 under the wider heading of "Sustainable Development". In December 2005 the Scottish Government published "Choosing our Future", the Government's Sustainable Development Strategy. Section 8 of the document highlighted the following intended actions and desired outcomes where pursuing the wider Strategy would help deliver environmental justice, particularly to those communities in greatest need:
- Waste - moving away from over-dependence on landfill which can have a significant negative impact upon some communities
- Transport - pursuing improvements in transport to tackle growth in road traffic, reduce congestion and improve air quality
- Housing improvements - tackling fuel poverty and building safety and security into new housing at the design stage
- Quality of life improvements - tackling problems on the ground leading to improvements in the local environment, personal well-being and safer communities
- Regeneration - building environmental objectives in regeneration and simplifying access to funding in this area
- Greenspace - providing parks and greenspaces, making neighbourhoods healthier and more attractive places to live and work
- Flooding - protecting communities from flooding, which may have a disproportionate impact on low income families
- Health - directing a new focus on the connections between environmental conditions and health outcomes
- Decision-making - supporting greater public participation, modernising the planning system and providing more accessible, useful information on the environment
- Learning - developing a new programme to support learning through doing with a focus on deprived neighbourhoods.
Delivery of all of these various aspects of environmental justice should stem from successful pursuit of the Government's 5 strategic objectives.
Environmental Justice Fund
Specific action on the Environmental Justice agenda primarily focused on establishing the Environmental Justice Fund. Environmental justice is about improving the quality of local environments in communities that suffer the effects of negative environmental impacts such as past or present industry, pollution or other damaging activities. In many cases these communities are also affected by other social and economic disadvantage and so environmental justice is also about building capacity to allow communities to take a more active role in their environment. This can lead, in turn, to an improved quality of life and to greater community empowerment generally.
Provision of £2 million was made available for the Fund to operate in the financial year 2007-08. Further information on the Fund and grants awarded ranging from £100,000 to £500,000. This fund operated only in 2007-08.