Selective Attention to Environmental Justice by International Cooperative Initiatives for Biodiversity and Climate

The relevance of environmental justice in global biodiversity and climate governance has increased as stakeholders’ unequal affectedness by environmental action is becoming ever more obvious. International Cooperative Initiatives (ICIs) play an ever increasing role in addressing global environmental change and biodiversity loss. Yet, the consideration of demands of environmental justice by these non-state or hybrid actors is still under-explored. Informed by a three-pillar environmental justice framework comprising distributive, procedural, and recognition justice, we use content analysis to identify if and how these different pillars are presented on the websites and in the key publications of a sample of 53 ICIs. A majority of these ICIs include references to environmental justice and its different pillars in their description of their work. But environmental justice seems to be neither a central concern nor are the references very nuanced. Distributive justice receives the most attention, whereas aspects of procedural and recognition justice receive less attention. To better anchor environmental justice within global biodiversity and climate governance, we encourage ICIs to thoroughly integrate environmental justice in operational work and to integrate and establish ongoing dialogues with marginalised groups.