Is There an Environmental Justice Bandwagon Effect? A Subpopulation Analysis of Self-Reported Accomplishments

The Study

An online survey of readily identified environmental justice groups was conducted in the summer of 2006. Using SurveyMonkey.com, each identified environmental justice group was contacted via e-mail. The survey asked questions about tactics, organizational structure, resources, perceptions of success, and self-reported accomplishments. The survey took about 20 minutes to complete. If there was no response from the organization after two weeks, a second attempt via e-mail was made.

The Findings

A crosstabulation analysis was conducted for the issue area variables by race, namely, Hispanic, black, and Anglo/multiple/other races. Since the cell counts in the crosstabulation tables were small (<5 count), inferential statistics could not be used. However, the frequencies described in Table 2 shed some light on the typology of the accomplishments reported by these organizations. Seventy percent of the Hispanic organizations reported success in political empowerment of its membership. This variable included building leadership skills, training for writing public policy, and education. For the black organizations, 40 percent reported success in toxic and hazardous waste activities, such as incinerators, power plants, and PCB cleanup. The Anglo/multiple/other organizations reported successful endeavors (27.6 percent) in more mainstream environmental issue areas, such as protecting the natural resources and habitats and sustainability. The Total column indicates that the variables for political empowerment (31.3 percent) and toxic and hazardous waste (21.9 percent) were dominant.

In order to evaluate the hypothesis that there is no relationship between issue areas reported and race, the data was collapsed and recoded to satisfy the assumptions of Chi-square analysis in Table 3. The issue areas of natural resources, habitats, environmental stewardship, and environmental sustainability were collapsed into the category Natural Resources. This category most likely represents mainstream environmentalism. The categories of toxic and hazardous waste and environmental health were collapsed into Toxic and Health. This variable measures the activities which are associated with environmental justice groups. The Political Empowerment variable remained unchanged. A new variable, Minority, was created by collapsing the Hispanic and Black categories.

According to the results of the Chi-square analysis, race does matter as reflected by the Chi-square value (14.628) and statistical significance (p=.001) indicating that the two variables are related. The contingency coefficient (.434, p=.001) measuring the strength of the relationship between the variables Issue Area and Race is 43.4 percent representing a more than moderate statistically significance relationship for these variables. The frequencies in the cells indicate that for Minority groups, the dominant variables were Political Empowerment (80 percent) and Toxic and Health (58 percent). For the Anglo/Multiple/Other variable, the dominant variable was Natural Resources (82.4 percent). The race effect was most evident in the Natural Resource variable (almost 65 percent) and the Political Empowerment category (60 percent). The Total column indicates that the Toxic and Health variable was the accomplishment reported by all environmental justice organizations.

Discussion

In evaluating the accomplishments of those organizations associated with environmental justice, it is imperative that they be assessed based on the original goals set forth by the Leadership Summit when these groups coalesced into what was then known as the environmental justice movement. The delegates at this summit ratified the goals based on three major categories:

Procedural Equity:

• To influence and redefine federal legislation and policymaking regarding hazardous waste production, disposal and clean-up, and waste facilities siting.

Geographic Equity:

• To work with academics of color to conduct research that supports local community struggles.

Social Equity:

• To represent themselves and speak for themselves at the table of power and authority and policymaking.5

The findings presented in Table 3 indicate that 82 percent of the organizations serving the Anglo/multiple/other population continue to focus on protection of natural resources, environmental stewardship and environmental sustainability. However, 42 percent of these Anglo/multiple/other-serving organizations also reported accomplishments in toxic and hazardous waste and environmental health which fall within the realm of procedural equity. This forty percent difference, in addition to statistical significance (p=.001) indicates that the mainstream goals are dominant.

The minority groups continue to strive for the goals of procedural equity primarily by the black organizations and geographic and social equity by the Hispanic organizations as evidenced by the results of the frequencies presented in Table 3. The black organizations reported accomplishments for the issue areas of toxic and hazardous waste (40 percent) and environmental health (26.7 percent). The eradication of toxic and hazardous waste was the original issue identified by academics of color and much of the effort of black environmental justice groups was to target the siting and clean-up of these toxic facilities.6 The issue of environment health is more recent although some environmental justice scholars begin this seminal work in the mid-1990s.7

While the dominant research in the environmental justice literature has focused on the black population, the Hispanic groups have not received much attention. In reviewing the surveys, the most common tactic used by these groups was education and training (27.1 percent). The content analysis undertaken in the study clarifies the purpose of using this strategy. The Hispanic organizations focused on political empowerment activities (70 percent) such as building leadership skills and capacity, training in policy and decision making, and education.

Many of the Hispanic groups appear to adhere to the strategies and tactics promoted by the Southwest Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) which advocates a bottom-up approach to community-building, leadership development, and political empowerment. This model emerged from a Saul Alinsky type umbrella whose mission is political empowerment and self-help assistance. Community-building is accomplished through networking and organizing local groups, often using church-based groups, to set their local agendas. Professional organizers identify potential leaders within the grass-roots groups and provide leadership training. Many of the groups responding to this study were predominantly from Texas. The Texas IAF has had some success with groups such as Communities Organized for Public Service in San Antonio, the Metropolitan Organization in Houston, and Valley Interfaith in Brownsville. The issue areas targeted by some of these groups include: environmental infrastructure, housing, education, and health care. The leadership-development strategies are based on a grass-roots effort of inclusion and active participation targeting local issues. The political empowerment strategy advocates the use of exerting public pressure on politicians, and most importantly, developing solutions to the identified problems by providing proposals and educating elected officials.8

One of the unexpected findings of this study was the large percentage of Anglo/multiple/other groups (45 percent) identifying with environmental justice. Many of these groups are categorized as mainstream environmental organizations, such as the Sierra Club. Early in the emergence of the environmental justice movement, these mainstream groups eschewed the goals of the movement.9 However, it appeared that one of the aspirations for environmental justice was for inclusiveness within the mainstream organizations.10 Based on the results of the study, this may be occurring depending on the activities, accomplishments, and issue areas undertaken by those groups serving Anglo/multiple/other races. However, the findings of this study indicate that organizations serving the Anglo/multiple populations tend to focus their efforts on mainstream environmental issues such as natural resources and sustainability while, concurrently identifying themselves as serving environmental justice populations and issues. One of the reasons for this finding may be tied to securing funding, grants, and resources. Procuring resources is a necessary condition for nonprofit organizations so that they may maintain their existence. With limited funding sources, the larger mainstream environmental organizations may be competing with the small environmental justice organizations for resources. Rios et al. (2010) found that many of the organizations in this study were more institutionalized securing resources ranging from $150,000 to $249,000 that were procured from government agencies, private foundations and membership dues.11 More specifically, these findings beg the question: have the mainstream environmental organizations jumped on the environmental justice bandwagon in order to compete for funding? Further research is warranted in the area of resource procurement by these mainstream organizations to evaluate the impact on environmental justice and its latent potential for capture.

Conclusion

This systematic study investigates the self-reported accomplishments of those environmental justice organizations responding to a survey conducted in 2006 using the 2000 People of Color Environmental Groups Directory and an extensive web-based search to stratify by population. The subpopulation responses reflected: 31.3 percent Hispanic, 23.4 percent black, and 45.3 percent Anglo/multiple/other races. A content analysis was conducted on the accomplishments reported by the organizations. The research questions included: Does race matter? What types of issues are being undertaken? Do these accomplishments follow the tenets of environmental justice? Has the movement been captured?

The typology used for assessment included the variables of procedural equity, geographic equity, and social equity. The issue areas identified were: natural resources, toxic and health, and political empowerment. The statistical analyses conducted are crosstabulations, chi-square, and contingency coefficients analyses. Statistical significance was found indicating that race does matter (p=.001; contingency coefficient=.434). The minority groups continued to focus on toxic waste sites and environmental health (57.7 percent) and political empowerment strategies (80 percent) relating to the goals of procedural equity and social equity, respectively. The Anglo/multiple/other groups focused on mainstream environmental issues such as natural resources, habitat protection and sustainability (82.4 percent). While it has been an aspiration of the environmental justice organizations to have their agenda included into the mainstream environmental movement, there is a latent potential for capture by the mainstream groups. These mainstream groups may have jumped on the environmental justice bandwagon perhaps to procure funding and resources for their organizations while continuing to eschew the environmental justice goals; however, this remains unclear.

The environmental justice movement has experienced a structural change and is currently at a crossroads. About 87 percent of these groups identified themselves as being nonprofit organizations with differential levels of organizational capacity while retaining an activist component through their organizing tactics.12 One advantage of incorporating as a nonprofit is to be able to compete for resources or grants since many government agencies and private foundations provide funds only to the 501c(3) organizations.13 However, this type of nonprofit status prohibits these organizations from lobbying politicians for fear of losing their 501c(3) status14 and, in effect, excludes them from the political process and their ability to influence legislation rending a conundrum for these organizations. The accomplishments reported in this study indicated many successes, mostly at the local level, and in line with the mission statement of that organization; however, it appears that the minority-serving groups remain excluded from both the political and policy processes.

In order to function as environmental justice nonprofits, some options have been identified in the literature. For instance, nonprofits might benefit by forming alliances to share information regarding the regulatory processes. These types of alliances would require coordination and compromise particularly adjusting the organization's mission statement.15 However, since the mainstream environmental organizations serve different populations and tout different mission statements, agendas, and goals, building alliances might serve to silence the environmental justice agenda. In order for the locus to remain within the tenets of environmental justice, academic researchers could collaborate using a participatory or bottom-up framework to engage the environmental justice activists.16

These options fall short of addressing the problems of political powerlessness and lack of representative democracy that is inherent to environmental justice equity. This can only be accomplished through inclusion in the political and policy processes.17 One policymaking model that could benefit the environmental justice organizations is the development of issue networks which are characterized as fluid networks of people that flow in and out of the network while lending their expertise and skills in a substantive area. The members of these networks include legislators, interest groups, bureaucrats, journalists, academicians, legislative staffers, bureaucrats from other agencies, policy specialists, and more recently, nonprofit groups through their education component. The members of these issue networks care deeply about an issue and their goal is to refine the issues, debate the evidence, and present possible solutions.18

In order to effectuate this model, the environmental justice organizations need to define the agenda item that is the most crucial to the movement. Based on this study, the issue area that is common to all subpopulations is environmental health. This policy area is somewhat nascent and the issue may need to be redefined as a public health problem while the solutions might target environmental justice concerns. The mainstream environmental organizations could be enlisted to engage their resources and expertise and thereby contributing to the solutions for the problems defined by the environmental justice organizations. The environmental justice organizations need to develop political, leadership, and policymaking skills in order to access the political and policy processes and begin to remedy the lack of environmental equity that has plagued the minority communities for decades.