Environmental Justice

Environmental justice is at the heart of what a City of Nature would look like. Generally environmental justice is defined as: “The fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, colour, national origin, or income, with respect to the development, implementation and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies.“

Together with opportunities to be involved at a strategic level Birmingham City Council (BCC) also want to make sure every citizen has access to green spaces that are maintained to a fair standard wherever they live and that there is fair access to volunteering, training and green jobs and that our workforce reflects our diverse communities.

Measuring Environmental Justice in Birmingham

BCC looked at how other cities around the UK and wider world have responded to the issue of unequal access to green space; and became the first UK local authority to develop a measurement tool for Environmental Justice; based on the existing Indices of Multiple Deprivation, access to green space and considering possible negative environmental impacts that will become worse through effects of climate change.

The Environmental Justice score measures:

• Access to a green space (2 hectares or larger) within 1,000m
• Flood Risk
• Urban Heat Island
• Health Inequalities (through Excess Years of Life Lost) effect
• Indices of Multiple Deprivation

The Map

During the Future Parks Accelerator project BCC worked with partners developed a new map of Birmingham that shows where in the city all these compound issues are being most acutely felt. This then provides a very useful baseline from which to develop an evidence-based approach to levelling-up.

You can download a pdf of the environmental justice map by clicking the download button below:

On the map document there is a list of all of Birmingham’s 69 wards showing their environmental justice (EJ) combined score. The map shows the city with wards colour coded relative to their EJ score. The higher the EJ score the less “just” the ward is. The most just wards with a score under 0.22 are dark green and the least just wards with a score above .38 are red.
In between are light green 0.24 – 0.28 yellow 0.29 – 0.33 and orange 0.34 – 0.38 wards

Whole City

We want to make the changes that will help to turn the whole city’s environmental justice map green. The plan to do this is the City of Nature 25 Year Plan. You can read more here: https://naturallybirmingham.org/birmingham-city-of-nature-delivery-framework/

Priority Areas

We have prioritised action in the red wards where there is least environmental justice for citizens living there. Access to green space is lowest, the areas are urban heat islands, at risk of flooding, have high levels of deprivation and people have worse health and wellbeing. We also look at at risks from the impacts of climate change and the amount of tree canopy cover.

We are starting to achieve environmental justice for the city by applying a process called the Future Park Standard to our parks and green spaces. Knowing what we consider to be a fair standard for every green space makes sure that each site is in a fair condition to provide simple benefits and opportunities for capacity building to increase the benefits it provides to the community and wildlife (biodiversity) in the ward.

First five years: 2022 to 2027
We will use the findings from the Bordesley and Highgate pilot to bring together council departments and community organisations to focus upon the green spaces in another 5 wards:

• Balsall Heath West.
• Nechells.
• Gravelly Hill.
• Pype Hayes.
• Castle Vale.
  

3 of these wards – Balsall Heath West, Nechells and Castle Vale are in the top 5 areas of most
need of environmental justice; the other two are geographical neighbours making a central north/south spine of nature recovery for the city.

Years 6 to 10: 2028 – 2032
This will be followed by 8 more red wards:

• Alum Rock.
• Aston.
• Birchfield.
• Bordesley Green.
• Heartlands.
• Lozells.
• Newtown.
• Sparkbrook and Balsall Heath East.

Within the 25 years of the plan: by 2047 all our parks and green spaces will meet the
Future Parks Standard, with the 35 highest scoring wards forming a vital part of the
city’s nature recovery network and therefore it’s response and resilience to climate change;
ensuring our whole parks network moves from red to green.

But the City of Nature outcomes don’t stop with the Future Parks Standard Audit process.
The City of Nature plan supports all green spaces throughout the 25 years to reach their full potential through the full involvement of the local community to access resources that Birmingham City Council alone can no longer provide.