Massachusetts Climate Report Card - Environmental Justice

Massachusetts state agencies have made significant progress increasing their staffing capacity for environmental justice. This expanded capacity will enable the principles of environmental justice and equity to be implemented in a meaningful, coordinated way across all agencies.

Assessment

Low-income communities, racial and ethnic minorities, indigenous and tribal communities, English-isolated populations, and others have borne the brunt of environmental impacts, burdens, and negative public health outcomes. In addition, environmental justice populations have fewer jobs and contracting opportunities, experience higher energy burdens, and have historically been underinvested in and underserved. In recognition of systemic inequities, the Healey-Driscoll Administration has brought a new equity and justice-centered approach. To embed environmental justice and equity into the fabric of EEA and its agencies, EEA welcomed its inaugural Undersecretary dedicated to Environmental Justice and Equity and created the Office of Environmental Justice and Equity (EJ&E). EJ&E is building a dedicated team with the vision and expertise to implement a Secretariat-wide Environmental Justice Strategy that will advance an equitable clean energy transition, protect environmental justice populations from environmental harms, and ensure access to natural resources such as clean air, clean water and agricultural resources. EJ&E also has built out a network of stakeholders from across the Commonwealth to ensure the input and feedback from the most overburdened communities are shaping the policies and outcomes.  Some of the diverse engagement pathways include the Environmental Justice Council, Justice 40 Working Group, and joining external bodies such as the statewide Environmental Justice Table led by advocates from across the State. While capacity has been brought on board, translating it to full implementation will be necessary. Recognizing the importance of assessing progress, EJ&E is developing metrics, tracking systems and targets to inform future program development, implementation, and funding decisions. 

Metric	Value	Target
Number of Federal grants pursued and awarded relevant to environmental justice populations. Ensure grant proposals include meaningful input from the Justice40 Working Group to result in a robust and competitive grant scope, allocate grant budget equitably, and meet the Justice40 Initiative targets.	Tracking is under development. The EJ&E is working across secretariats to develop methods for tracking and ensuring equitable engagement with and distribution of federal funds to environmental justice communities.	There are no current targets for this metric at this time. They will be developed in the internal EJ&E strategic action planning process to commence shortly.
Number of existing and/or proposed programs that include clean energy workforce development to ensure the scope and allocated budget are equitable and have measurable impacts.	Tracking is under development. The EJ&E will coordinate with and track multi-sector clean energy workforce development programs to ensure that clean energy workforce development pipeline models are developed to effectively engage, attract, train, and retain diverse talent. The EJ&E will work with appropriate agencies to develop and implement clean energy workforce development marketing campaigns in environmental justice communities and help to oversee clean energy workforce development pipeline models to ensure the State builds the workforce necessary to meet its climate goals.	There are no current targets for this metric at this time. They will be developed in the internal EJ&E strategic action planning process to commence shortly.
% of annual spend for diverse suppliers.	Tracking is under development. The EJ&E will assess and strengthen EEA agencies’ procurement and contracting practices to improve EEA performance in diverse supplier spend.	Targets for diverse supplier spend include meeting  EEA’s current procurement goal of at least 8% in 2024, increasing to a goal of at least 15% in 2025 and advancing to a goal of at least 25% in 2026.
Number of public engagement and training for external community organizations and partners, and the number of internal trainings for EEA agencies.	Tracking is under development. The EJ&E will provide public training opportunities for environmental justice organizations (stakeholders), such as grant writing, the review process under the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act (MEPA), and the process for submitting comments to EEA agencies. In addition, The EJ&E will provide internal training to educate and inspire EEA agencies to understand and value environmental justice and equity, as well as to ensure environmental justice and equity remain priorities.	There are no current targets for this metric at this time.  They will be developed in the internal EJ&E strategic action planning process to commence shortly.
Creation, preservation and access to open spaces and healthy affordable foods in environmental justice communities.	Tracking is under development. The EJ&E will work to promote open spaces located in neighborhoods where environmental justice populations reside, including, but not limited to, supporting the implementation and expansion of the Urban Forestry and Greening the Gateway Cities programs to increase urban forest canopy. The EJ&E also will support efforts to address food justice barriers, promote locally-owned urban farming, rural farming efforts, small business owners working on food access, and community land trusts in environmental justice communities. The EJ&E will uplift and support Indigenous technical knowledge to ensure Tribes and indigenous communities can steward their land and have sovereignty over their natural resources.	There are no current targets for this metric at this time. They will be developed in the internal EJ&E strategic action planning process to commence shortly.
Energy burden and equitable siting of new energy infrastructure.	Tracking is under development. The EJ&E will work with appropriate agencies to address energy burden and promote equitable siting of new energy infrastructure that does not add a disproportionate burden in environmental justice communities.	There are no current targets for this metric at this time.  They will be developed in the internal EJ&E strategic action planning process to commence shortly

Challenges

• Balancing the need to meet the urgency of an equitable clean energy transition while also ensuring meaningful and equitable engagement.
• Redesigning processes that have historically excluded diverse voices and placed disproportionate burdens on environmental justice communities.
• Advancing environmental justice and equity in coordination among all EEA agencies in accordance with the Environmental Justice Policy. This is currently underway through the Environmental Justice Task Force, which brings together EEA agencies and the Environmental Justice Interagency Working Group, composed of designees from other Secretariats to address environmental justice through a whole of government approach.
• Addressing the geographical divide between the Greater Boston Area and Central and Western Massachusetts. This includes prioritizing the myriad of needs across communities and sectors across the Commonwealth.
• Ensuring unprecedented levels of federal funding and associated procurements are implemented and distributed in an equitable way.

How we are meeting this moment

• The new EJ&E Office is building a team with experience, expertise, and a vision to drive the next steps of the EEA Environmental Justice Strategy.  

• EJ&E will work in close coordination with the Office of Climate Innovation and Resilience, Executive Office of Administration and Finance, Federal Funding and Infrastructure Office, and other secretariats to ensure all Federal grant opportunities have meaningful input from the Justice40 Working Group and are distributed in an equitable manner.  

• EJ&E will support meaningful engagement with environmental justice communities for grant applications and serve as a liaison between EEA agencies, other Secretariats, and with community-based organizations across the Commonwealth. 

• EJ&E will work to meet and advance EEA’s diverse supplier program.  At this critical time, the most innovative solutions are necessary to ensure that the Commonwealth meets its climate goals.  

• The EEA Environmental Justice Strategy will be released soon. 

• EJ&E will develop an internal EJ&E environmental justice Action Plan to be used to plan, implement, and manage strategies. 

• EJ&E is reimagining and implementing new ways and tools to engage diverse communities. 

• EJ&E will coordinate and work with agencies, offices and multi-sector networks to implement an equitable and just clean energy workforce development pipeline. 

• EJ&E will develop metrics to quantify and measure the impact and progress of environmental justice policies, including the Justice 40 Working Group, access to open space, addressing food insecurity and energy burden among others.