Community-Based Initiatives Promote Justice and Sustainability in the Built Environment
Recognizing the importance of preserving affordable homes and building intergenerational wealth, the city of San Antonio, Texas, has launched the Rehabarama program. This initiative enlists the help of contractors and volunteers to assist low-income residents in repairing and maintaining their aging homes, addressing issues such as window replacements and gutter repairs.
Another community-based organization in the city is partnering with local university researchers to investigate potential racial bias in demolition orders. Simultaneously, they are actively involved in developing and supporting affordable housing options through historic preservation efforts.
These programs exemplify how communities can foster justice and equity while advancing sustainability objectives. The guidebook “” published by Cornell University researchers in collaboration with community partners, delves into these concepts, providing guidance for policymakers, practitioners, and communities to incorporate justice principles into their planning strategies related to materials resource management, new construction, and alternatives to demolition.
“It’s imperative that we adopt holistic and sustainable approaches to reduce carbon emissions and strive towards carbon-neutral futures,” said Samantha Minner, visiting assistant professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning and director of the Reparative Praxis Lab. “This can only be achieved if we prioritize justice and equity in our efforts.”
The San Antonio initiatives are among nine exemplary projects highlighted in the guidebook. Other notable examples include a Savannah, Georgia, nonprofit that promotes deconstruction, material salvage, and reuse while documenting building histories; a Portland, Oregon, program that assists people of color and individuals with disabilities in addressing code violations; and a Baltimore, Maryland, nonprofit led by Black women working to rehabilitate and acquire homes in a historically marginalized neighborhood.
Tracy Morgenstern, director of climate justice at the Climate Neutral Cities Alliance (CNCA), commends the guidebook as a groundbreaking resource that enhances our understanding of justice in the built environment and provides practical planning guidelines.
“The injustices embedded in the built environment’s form and function share common roots with the climate crisis,” Morgenstern said. “Therefore, integrated planning practices are essential to rectify past harm to our communities and environment, paving the way for a healthier, more equitable, and carbon-neutral future.”
According to the nonprofit Architecture 2030, the built environment is responsible for 39% of annual global CO2 emissions. The authors emphasize that it has been shaped by systems of social, economic, and political injustice, which manifest in unequal access to safe, healthy, and affordable housing; displacement of long-term residents and businesses; lack of proximity to essential services and quality education; exposure to toxins; and human rights and labor violations in the production of raw materials.
“Linear construction processes that entail building and then discarding the built environment are environmentally and socially unsustainable,” said André Corrêa do Lago, associate professor of city and regional planning and director of the Cornell Institute for Climate Smart Cities. “‘Embodying Justice’ advocates for systems-based, circular approaches that simultaneously pursue carbon neutrality and justice – for instance, promoting preservation, refurbishment, and adaptive reuse as alternatives to demolition, and advocating for more equitable maintenance and code enforcement policies.”
The authors identified five justice principles that should guide the built environment: reparative (addressing past injustices), fair (equitably distributing benefits and burdens), community-driven (centering historically marginalized communities), grounded in a specific community context, and ongoing.
Based on this foundation, the guidebook encourages a comprehensive analysis of the social, economic, and labor impacts of the built environment, complemented by opportunities informed by meaningful community engagement and rooted in local historical knowledge.
“Throughout the entire process, the guidebook prompts questions related to justice and equity,” said Elisa Iturbe, assistant professor in the Department of Architecture and director of the Cornell Circular Economy Initiative. “Examining reuse and circularity solely from a carbon neutrality perspective overlooks a multitude of other potential benefits. This is a pivotal moment to broaden our perspective and explore how circularity can contribute to building a more just society.”
The guidebook complements the Cornell Carbon Neutral Cities Framework, which aims to significantly reduce embodied carbon in construction. In addition to Poe, Minner, and Heisel, other Cornell co-authors include Ash Kopetzky and Maya Porath, doctoral students in city and regional planning, and Gretchen Worth, program director of the Ithaca, New York-based Green Building Alliance. Input and feedback were provided by additional partners within the network and CNCA members.
The project team will host a virtual event on May 22nd to further discuss the guidebook and its implications.
