"Energy Justice": What It Is and Why Everyone Should Start Thinking About It

by B|E Strategy

In recent years, the just transition movement has increasingly focused on energy, in what some have referred to as “a new front-line in environmental justice research and activism” (Sze and London 2008). The concept of energy justice focuses separately on energy concerns among the broader issues addressed in the environmental justice movement (Bickerstaff et al. 2013; Jenkins et al. 2018) by integrating social equity principles into energy systems. An overlap of environmental justice and energy justice is the siting of energy infrastructure: an energy justice approach considers whether the location of energy infrastructure makes energy more affordable or accessible for historically disadvantaged households, whereas an environmental justice approach broadly considers whether the location of energy infrastructure unequally burdens a nearby community. Key to the energy justice movement is access to new energy system benefits and access to clean and affordable energy for everyone. With energy justice, energy systems can support economic growth in addition to energy security for individuals and communities.

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An energy transition can provide enormous opportunities for cleaner energy sources, new employment, and technological innovation (Cha 2020; Miller 2022, 2023). However, it also can exacerbate existing disparities afflicting communities of color and low-income neighborhoods or reduce access to opportunities that accompany energy transitions (Carley and Konisky 2020). Despite the shared manifestations of racial–ethnic and income-based disparities, research has shown that racial–ethnic factors have a larger effect on disparities than income-based factors. For example, a review of national exposure to air pollution from 1990 to 2010 found absolute exposure disparities were larger for racial and ethnic groups than for income categories. There is an absence of racial–ethnic indicators in the federal government’s definition of disadvantaged communities, so we’re focused on income-based disparities of the U.S. energy system. However, it is important to acknowledge and understand the distinction between racial–ethnic and income-based factors to develop appropriate solutions.