Part 2: Corporate Best Practices for Operationalizing Environmental Justice
Phoebe Fu, Analyst & Kajsa Hendrickson, Director at Future 500.
Published September, 2023
Part 2: Corporate Best Practices for Operationalizing Environmental Justice (EJ)
Why should companies operationalize environmental justice (EJ)? We address this in part 1 of this series. Now we move from the “why” to the “how”. How do you operationalize EJ? What is the guidebook? The resounding answer to this question— from NGOs, EJ groups, companies, and investors — was “there isn’t one” or “we’re building it as we go”. When asking stakeholders about corporate EJ success stories in the U.S., one interviewee said “I can’t think of any. You [companies] should use that as fuel to be the first.” Other interviewees mentioned successes from Microsoft.
“Justice brings in the lens of the whole person, the ecological footprint, the industry footprint, how they interact with their environment, it brings a whole systems perspective.” Stakeholder interviewee.
Operationalizing EJ
Integrating EJ is new territory for most companies, even NGOs, and there aren’t a lot of successes on the subject yet. While there isn’t one definitive guide to operationalizing EJ, there are good starting points. Here we have compiled six of the best practices drawn from stakeholder interviews:
Acknowledge EJ. Interviewees from companies, NGOs, and EJ groups emphasized the need for companies to make public EJ commitments, as well as plans to meet those commitments. Examples from Valero, American Electric Power and Pacific Gas and Electric outline their specific company approaches. Companies run the risk of greenwashing or equity-washing if they make surface-level commitments.
Community and NGO interviewees emphasized the importance of companies acknowledging any historical harm (direct or indirect) they have done to EJ communities. This is no small request for any company, but interviewees emphasized that this acknowledgement is a critical step in trust building.
Hire an EJ role. Interviewees from all stakeholder categories agreed that companies need a central role or roles driving EJ knowledge or infrastructure integration - as long as those roles have authority, influence, and experience (professional and/or lived experience) with environmental justice. They need to be cross functional and have executive support. We will outline best practices for EJ positions in part 3 of this series.
Train EJ awareness and integration across the enterprise. People throughout the company interact with communities, implement policies, or apply for permits - all of which have EJ implications. Staff should be trained on how to think about their decisions and actions, and how to engage communities, with an EJ-informed lens. This includes training executive leadership and upskilling departments.
Assess EJ impact and risks. Interviewees recommended companies conduct a third-party EJ assessment. This assessment can evaluate the company’s historical and current policies as well as practices to understand their impact on EJ communities, EJ-related risks (factories, pipelines, pollution, supply chains, etc.), and EJ-related data available. This is valuable in setting measurable EJ targets and metrics.
Develop an EJ advisory group or oversight committee composed of EJ community members, NGOs, internal staff, and staff to oversee it. This group can review EJ issues, provide an EJ lens for planning, strategy, or policy. Consider compensating participants for the expertise they provide. An EJ advisory group does not replace community engagement.
Share lessons learned. One company interviewee stated “We’ve actually been doing EJ work for decades, we just didn’t call it EJ, and we definitely haven’t made that work public.” Because such successes aren’t shared broadly enough, that might explain why people think there aren’t corporate EJ successes. Another company interviewee stated “EJ isn’t a competition”. With these two perspectives in mind, there is a clear opportunity for companies to share their EJ efforts with one another, with communities, and with NGOs. Creating mutually-beneficial communities of practice and learning can make this daunting topic more approachable.
Effective EJ operationalizing requires effective community engagement
This series is focused on what companies can do internally to integrate EJ into their organizational fabric. Yet how companies engage communities is part of operationalizing EJ and was brought up by every interviewee. Corporate community engagement best practices aren’t new, but some of the interviewee takeaways are worth sharing here, even if they are already being practiced. Below are three high-level takeaways from interviewees about effective EJ community engagement:
Redefine “Engage”: Companies need to ensure that how they engage with communities is informed by those communities, not by what is easiest or most efficient for the company. Companies should familiarize themselves with the Spectrum of Community Engagement to Ownership, Free Prior, and Informed Consent.
Be Proactive: Engage EJ communities proactively. Practice active listening and giving communities a voice in decision making. In other words, enable agency.
Acknowledge Expertise: Communities are experts in what they want and need and should be treated as such. EJ communities need to be part of the conversation, solution, and future planning. EJ communities expect companies to engage with them in addressing EJ and don’t want solutions forced on them.
These practices sound simple and easy, and yet it is so often where companies and governments misstep as it can require a shift in mindset and practices. As one interviewee put it “There’s not one solution to address EJ, it’s about relationship building and thinking through unintended consequences, staying open to differing perspectives people are bringing - and that makes it difficult to rise to the challenge in a fast moving corporate culture.”
An additional note…
From our research and throughout this blog, we indicate how operationalizing EJ into corporate practices can be effective when done correctly, and ineffective to disastrous when done incorrectly. Intent, engagement, openness, authenticity, and accountability factors into the success of your EJ practices. Stakeholder interviews reveal a diversity of opinions on the EJ lens, with some resolute in the stance that race and ethnicity must be incorporated into EJ, while others state that classism is the most important factor in communities.
At the end of the day, EJ is as much about risk mitigation as it is about ensuring healthy company operations. This is an area that will continue to see investor attention, community organization, and NGO campaigns, which can quickly impact companies materially if they are operating in communities facing EJ issues. Being proactive to help you be in front of issues, if possible, can go a long way towards gaining trust and opportunity, rather than hostility and resistance.
As one interviewee so succinctly put it "This [environmental justice] isn't just about the permit you already have. It is about the permit or renewal you want tomorrow. What got you here won't get you a permit in the future."
Future 500 is a non-profit consultancy that builds trust between companies, advocates, investors, and philanthropists to advance business as a force for good. We specialize in stakeholder engagement, sustainability strategy, and responsible communication. From stakeholder mapping to materiality assessments, partnership development to activist engagement, target setting to CSR reporting strategy, we empower our partners with the skills and relationships needed to systemically tackle today's most pressing environmental, social, and governance (ESG) challenges.
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