On 17 September, ECCAR and the Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance (CNCA) held the second overall, and first of three autumn sessions of the Environmental Justice City Lab, bringing together representatives from over 20 cities and organisations to build a shared understanding of environmental justice and learn from Copenhagen's practical approach to operationalising it.

From Kick-Off to Autumn Sessions

In June, ECCAR and CNCA brought representatives from Oslo, Helsinki, Amsterdam, Bordeaux, Glasgow, Nantes, and Helsingborg together for the Environmental Justice City Lab's kick-off. Cities compared notes on their current work, named the gaps they kept running into, and shared what kind of exchange would actually help. That input became the blueprint for three autumn sessions, on 17 September, 15 October, and 26 November.

Building a Shared Understanding

The September session focused on framing, definitions, and understanding. Together, participants worked to develop a shared understanding of environmental justice, explore how environmental and climate issues intersect with anti-racism, social inclusion, and other dimensions of equity, and learn what operationalising these concepts can look like in practice. ECCAR and CNCA opened the session with an introductory input before handing over to the session's City Spotlight.

City Spotlight: Copenhagen

Vedushan Ratnasingam from Copenhagen's Climate Unit walked us through a problem most cities recognise but few have actually tackled: understanding how climate action can protect some residents while quietly burdening others. 
The result is what the city calls an 'equity lens'. Drawing on guidance from CNCA and C40 Cities, the tool screens climate initiatives for strategies, indicators, a needs assessment, and a summary of results, flagging who benefits from a given measure and who carries its costs. The tool feeds directly into Copenhagen's Climate Plan 2035, which commits the city to a 50% cut in consumption-based emissions. 
What’s important is that both were shared, the tool's potential and its current limits. The city is still working out how to use the results to best inform cross-cutting city policies and  strengthen accountability. A tool, in other words, is a start, not a finish line.

Also check out their methodology paper here.

Peer Exchange: Key Takeaways

The discussion following Copenhagen's presentation covered different topics, such as accountability, data, representation, intersectionality, and cross-departmental collaboration. What stood out was:

• Data gaps limit intersectional analysis. As in many European cities, Copenhagen does not collect data on identities such as ethnicity, making it difficult to assess intersectionalities or confirm that participatory bodies, such as the city's Climate Citizens' Assembly, are representative. ECCAR pointed participants to its Working Group on Equality Data and its Toolkit for Equality: Equality Data Collection as a resource.
• Structures alone are not enough. Participants stressed that consistent collaboration between climate departments and teams working on anti-racism, equality, or human rights depends on climate colleagues building a substantive understanding of intersectionality, not just on the right governance structures.
• Uneven data across departments is a practical barrier. City representatives repeatedly named differences in the availability and quality of data between departments as a concrete obstacle to more intersectional approaches.
• Starting is more important than being ready. Cities do not need every structure, dataset, or methodology in place before beginning this work. Copenhagen's tool was received as a strong, practical example of how a first step can make inequalities more visible and create a shared basis for discussion across departments, even as the city continues to work to translate assessment results into implementation.

What This Means for Our Cities

Copenhagen's experience offers a few concrete starting points for cities not yet in this conversation, or for colleagues in participating cities working to bring others on board internally:

• Start before you feel ready. Waiting for complete data or a finished methodology is itself a barrier; a first, honest attempt at an equity lens does more than a perfect one that never ships.
• Audit what data you don't collect, not just what you do. The biggest gap in most cities is the absence of data on ethnicity and other identity markers. Knowing that gap exists is the first step toward closing it, and resources such as ECCAR's Toolkit on Equality: Equality Data Collection can be a practical place to begin.
• Put climate and equity colleagues in the same room, repeatedly. Governance structures alone don't build the shared understanding that cross-departmental work needs. Budget time for climate colleagues to genuinely learn the substance of anti-racism and equality work and vice versa, not just attend a joint meeting.
• Build accountability in from the start, not after. Set up steering committees to track progress against its own criteria. Cities starting this work can save themselves a step by building feedback mechanisms in from day one.

Looking Ahead

The series continues with two further sessions. On 15 October, From Collaboration to Implementation turns to the importance of governance, cross-departmental collaboration, and what it actually takes to implement, with Progress Reports from Helsingborg and Glasgow. On 26 November, Building Political Support & Looking Ahead asks how cities talk about environmental justice when the political wind shifts, with Partner Perspectives from Net Zero Cities (invited) and the European Environmental Bureau, and a conversation about what a future phase of the City Lab should look like.

Cities interested in joining the series are welcome to reach out to ECCAR at office@eccar.info.