Environmental justice: lessons on definition and delivery from Scotland

Abstract

This paper considers the concept of environmental justice in Scotland. It reviews the research and developments in law and policy in this area, starting with the Dynamic Earth speech in Edinburgh in 2002. It analyses the findings by grouping causes and solutions to environmental justice and identifies a particularly wide definition of the concept in Scotland. It concludes that the inclusion of social justice is a defining feature of environmental justice in Scotland; however, measures to mitigate environmental injustice are being implemented in an incremental way, with the most significant achievements being through the implementation of international obligations.

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to express their gratitude to the anonymous referees who reviewed an earlier version of this paper.

Notes

1. The Research project was funded by the Planning Exchange Foundation.

2. The 2007 elections to the Scottish Parliament resulted in a minority Scottish National Party administration, following eight years of coalition government consisting of Scottish Labour and Scottish Liberal Democrats.

3. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defines environmental justice as:The 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 group of people, including racial, ethnic, or socioeconomic group should bear a disproportionate share of the negative environmental consequences resulting from industrial, municipal, and commercial operations or the execution of federal, state, local, and tribal programs and policies (US EPA).

4. Reserved matters include: defence, foreign affairs, immigration, nationality, social security policy and central economic and fiscal responsibility, the constitution of the UK, common markets for UK goods and services, employment legislation, regulation of certain professions and transport safety and regulations.

5. The Scotland Act 1998 established the Scottish Parliament with 129 members elected by the additional member system of proportional representation. This combines the relative majority system (‘first past the post’) for individual single member constituencies with an additional element which tops up the political parties' representation from registered parties lists, by allocating regional seats on the basis of a second vote cast not for an individual, but for a political party.

6. However, following the most recent election in May 2007, the Green Party only holds two seats in the Parliament.

7. SEPA is a non-governmental public body accountable to the Scottish Ministers established by the Environment Act 1995.

8. Changes were also made to the regime of air quality through the Air Quality Limit Values (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2005 SSI/2005/300 as well as to the rules governing nitrate vulnerable zones through the Nitrate (Public Participation etc.) (Scotland) Regulations 2005 SSI/2005/305.

9. SEPA and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) in June 2006 published a protocol for dealing with cases referred from SEPA to the COPFS setting out each agency's responsibilities.

10. A Good Neighbour Agreement is an instrument, promoted in Scotland by FoES, which encourages agreements between local communities and developers or contractors. A Good Neighbour Agreement can, for example, hold provisions on handling of waste as a bi-product of the production; access to relevant information for the local community; access to the site/development for the local community; accident and end of production repairs and clean-ups; facilitating jobs for the local community and pollution prevention activities.