Environmental Justice
Environmental justice and stakeholder engagement are important facets of ensuring that decisions made about nuclear technologies, including management of spent nuclear fuel, are fair and equitable. The federal definition of Environmental Justice from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is
[t]he 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, and policies. Fair treatment means that no population bears a disproportionate share of negative environmental consequences resulting from industrial, municipal, and commercial operations or from the execution of federal, state, and local laws; regulations; and policies.
The concept of equity focuses on ensuring each community receives support that is tailored to their needs, considering that some communities have been left behind. Justice focuses on identifying and seeking to resolve the systemic reasons that have led to some communities being underserved.
Featured Content
This spreadsheet provides a list of documents that national laboratory staff found through a search of the literature on social and behavioral science and environmental justice issues related to spent nuclear fuel...
Stakeholder Engagement
Stakeholder engagement refers to the process of incorporating groups or individuals who are affected by, or who can affect, a decision. Developing a process that is inclusive of the range of affected stakeholders can lead to more equitable outcomes.
Including stakeholders can improve decision-making because they have specialized knowledge about the challenges their community is facing and the values they may seek to uphold. Inclusive processes can lead to better outcomes, more durable solutions, and more robust processes for negotiating differences in perspective and for sharing different kinds of knowledge.
Key tenets of environmental justice and energy justice
- Environmental justice focuses on fair outcomes, meaning the fair allocation of the benefits and drawbacks of a policy action, decision, or system.
- Environmental justice prioritizes developing a fair process for decision making, including prioritizing inclusivity in who is involved and the ability of public engagement to influence the process’ outcome.
- Environmental justice can include restorative justice, which is a process to repair harm to an individual or community that has been caused by a specific offense rather than only punishing the perpetrator of the offense.
Disclaimer
The views and opinions of document authors do not necessarily state or reflect those of the U.S. Government or any agency thereof.
