At the Environmental Law Foundation (ELF), we see many environmental community and individual enquiries annually, covering a vast range of environmental subject matter from across the UK. Through our advice and referral service, our network of environmental professionals and ELF university clinics, we can target free legal advice to address the environmental community concern. One of our central aims is to support grassroots communities to participate effectively in environmental decisions, often concerning the development of land. The disparity in resource and information, and access to legal advice, between communities and planning applicants is well documented. ELF’s object is to address that disparity.

There is a perception that environmental concerns stand alone and are a white, middle-class preoccupation. This is not the grassroots experience to which ELF is witness. Environmental issues are increasingly a concern for a wider demographic. They do not stand alone but are inextricably linked to social justice and equality issues, and, increasingly, cases concerning human rights.

Environmental and social justice issues share a common thread of inequality. As demonstrated by a call from environmental campaigners in late February for a right to access to nature,1Helena Horton, ‘UK wildlife campaigners call for legal right to access nature for all’, Guardian, 21 February 2022. it is poorer communities that are particularly affected by a lack of access to green space. This marries with ELF’s experience from the enquiries received from grassroots communities, increasingly as local green space in deprived areas is developed.

Local green space, its preservation and addressing threats to it have been a particular theme for ELF communities seeking help over many years, but now the heat is on. A recent example is from Carlisle, where a community had enjoyed access to a green site for decades, had missed the allocation of the site in the local plan, and was suddenly confronted with a planning application for affordable housing in an area of high deprivation. Such is the pressure on councils to meet local housing targets and, indeed, to provide affordable housing, green space is increasingly vulnerable, and despite massive local protest, the application was approved. While ELF was able to assist with a free legal opinion on the possibility of a challenge, it was not found to have merit. The decision was lawful, but left a community bereft. In any event, whether the community would have been placed to raise funds for a challenge was unclear.

We need more housing, and certainly social housing, but we see the public benefit of housing pitted against that of green space. There are many examples of communities in poorer areas, which already have below-target access to green space, losing what they do have to development, which impacts on public health. Many communities, with a paucity of time and resources, are simply not aware of the local development plan process and the opportunities to participate until it is too late. Access to green space, or the lack thereof, becomes a social justice issue when we know that areas of higher deprivation have less. Given the huge amounts of research now published on the well-being benefits of access to nature and green spaces, ELF maintains that it becomes a social and equality issue. The health advantages of access to green space are played out from cradle to grave. It is about equal access to opportunity.

Other areas where ELF sees interlinkage between social justice and environmental issues that stem from poverty relate to industrial facilities being sited in poorer areas, for example, and all the environmental consequences that ensue. These can include poor-quality housing, domestic noise pollution, and poor air quality made worse by intensification of development, with the resulting impacts on public health and life chances being well documented. While these are environmental concerns, they are also social justice issues. Certainly, it is ELF’s experience that many social justice issues go hand in hand with a poorer environment.

Another area where we see social justice issues developing alongside environmental law is human rights and the environment. While the UK courts are conservative in their interpretations, we see that they are increasingly isolated when compared with international courts. The linkages between human rights and climate change are a particular case in point. A case we are all watching closely is the Portuguese minors versus the EU, the first climate change case of its kind at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, where young people are demanding the 33 EU countries go further with their emissions cuts in order to safeguard their future physical and mental well-being. A children-led case, they speak for a generation of young people confronting their own uncertain futures. Another case, brought by AllRise last October in the International Criminal Court, is the complaint against Jair Bolsonaro for crimes against humanity, which again demonstrates the links between environmental destruction, environmental and social justice, and human rights.

If we care for each other, and want to see a better world, then we must care for the environment. Social and environmental justice are one.