Every year on 5 June, the world marks World Environment Day, the United Nations’ largest international day dedicated to environmental awareness and action. Established by United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) following the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment, the day has been celebrated annually since 1973 and aims to raise awareness of environmental challenges and promote collective action.
Across the world, World Environment Day is marked through public campaigns, educational activities, clean-up initiatives, policy discussions, and community events focusing on issues such as climate change, pollution, biodiversity, sustainable urban development, and more.
For cities, World Environment Day can be about even more than environmental protection. It can be an important reminder that environmental challenges are closely linked to questions of equality, participation, and justice.
Why do Environment and Anti-Racism Need to be Connected?
Environmental challenges and climate change do not affect everyone equally. Across many cities, structural inequalities influence who is most exposed to environmental risks, who has access to green spaces and healthy housing, and who benefits from climate investments and urban development.
People affected by racism and discrimination are often disproportionately impacted by environmental burdens because racism frequently intersects with socio-economic inequalities and spatial segregation. In many urban contexts, racialised communities are more likely to live in areas with higher levels of air pollution, less green space, poorer housing conditions, inadequate infrastructure, or increased exposure to climate-related risks such as flooding and heat stress.
These inequalities are often linked to long-standing structural dynamics, including discrimination in housing markets, unequal access to resources and public services, economic marginalisation, and exclusion from political decision-making processes. As a result, environmental inequalities cannot be understood separately from broader questions of racism, class, and social exclusion.
At the same time, communities most affected by these issues are frequently underrepresented in environmental governance and climate planning, despite holding important knowledge and expertise about local realities and needs, while environmental perspectives also remain insufficiently integrated into the work of integration offices, anti-discrimination departments, and broader social inclusion policies.
Environment and anti-racism should not be treated as entirely separate policy areas.
What Can Cities Do?
World Environment Day offers cities a reminder to strengthen collaboration between departments working on climate, environment, social inclusion, and anti-discrimination.
Examples of local practices can include:
- involving racialised and marginalised communities more directly in environmental planning and climate adaptation processes,
- assessing how environmental policies impact different groups within the city,
- improving access to green spaces and public infrastructure in underserved neighbourhoods,
- supporting community-led environmental initiatives and local knowledge,
- creating spaces for dialogue between environmental and anti-racism actors,
- integrating equity considerations into climate and sustainability strategies,
and many more. Such approaches can help ensure that environmental policies contribute not only to sustainability goals, but also to more inclusive and resilient urban societies.
Strengthening the Connection Between Environmental Justice and Anti-Racism
In light of World Environment Day and the growing recognition that environmental and social justice are closely interconnected, we would also like to highlight our new collaboration with the Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance (CNCA) once again.
Together, both networks are launching the Environmental Justice City Lab, a project exploring how cities can better connect anti-racism, social inclusion, and environmental and climate policy at the local level. Contact us for more information.
In addition, CNCA recently published the report Climate Justice and the Built Environment in Europe, which provides valuable insights into how historical and ongoing inequalities shape housing, infrastructure, and access to opportunities at the local level. Through several case studies, the report highlights practical approaches for connecting environmental and social inclusion work in cities.
