Environmental justice : new fuel to the debate on planning for sustainable development

• This contribution takes its starting point from a Nordic study on planning for sustainable development, which highlights that the debatein this area seems to have settled around a uniform picture of thesustainable society, and that this is therefore something that needs to becritically examined. The mainstream way of planning for sustainabledevelopment does not adequately address the issue of dependency orrelationships with development in distant locations. In this chapter it isargued that an environmental justice perspective could add new depth tothe debate on planning for sustainable development. This is done throughhighlighting just how different social groups, mainly based on income,ethnicity or gender, are exposed to, generate and interpret environmental qualities and risks. In the Nordic debate on planning for sustainable development such social justice and power-related aspects have in general not been studied or taken into account. This contribution is thus acall for research in this field, particularly as the populations of the Nordic countries are becoming increasingly heterogeneous.

Nyckelord

environmental justice

planning

sustainable development

power

diversity

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