In mainstream discourse, the “Green New Deal” (GND) commonly refers to the fourteen-page federal resolution put forth by Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey in 2019 to address the worsening climate crisis. While federal action is necessary and important, many cities are now utilizing this GND framework as a blueprint to combat climate change and systemic urban injustices at a local level through community building and democratic decision making. Because people know what’s best for their community, GND efforts on a smaller scale can actually be more effective and impactful. These community-oriented actions are propelled by what residents need and want to realize the kind of inspiring communities people actually want to live in. The Green New Deal For Boston Report, produced by the Center and authored by Executive Director Nina Schlegel, outlines a climate action plan that is equitable, realistic, and above all, imperative. While this report outlines action areas specific to Boston, its policies and principles can be adapted to cities across the globe.
The Center’s Boston GND report is rooted in a set of seven foundational principles, all of which work together to form an intersectional, actionable framework for urban climate justice. Every city’s Green New Deal and every community’s recovery will have to be guided by principles determined in a local and democratic manner. Building a GND on fair and just principles is crucial to creating policies that work for local communities and bringing about transformative, systemic change.
We briefly summarize the seven principles in this article and explain their purposes and connections to each other. You can read the full report here.
1. People-Centered
People-centered policies prioritize the needs and wellbeing of the communities they impact. Such policies are localized, and consider both the short- and long-term effects on people of all groups and identities, but especially those historically and systemically marginalized. This focus inherently places the needs of the people above those of corporations and the private sector more generally — part of the larger “people before profit” principle that underpins the report. Especially during our pandemic recovery efforts, it is essential to prioritize rebuilding the health and resiliency of the people over profits for the few. This principle is the foundation for many others; for instance, being “democratic and participatory” is rooted in people-centered policy, and similarly, decommodification requires putting people over profit.
2. Democratic and Participatory
For a policy to be truly people-centered, it must not only prioritize people’s wellbeing in terms of outcomes, but also in terms of its processes: in other words, the policy itself must be informed by the people it affects. It must be responsive, democratic, and participatory. Residents and community stakeholders must not only have a say in what policies are proposed and passed, but be the instrumental actors in deciding what is prioritized, and how these policies will affect their community — simple democratic principles. For a policy to be participatory, it must ensure every one of us has the opportunity and ability to shape public discourse. This principle asserts that people know what is best for their communities; it facilitates a responsive government that not only allows, but ensures that all residents have the power to shape their city and livelihoods. This can be achieved by encouraging and breaking down barriers to voting, and by creating a more transparent and accessible government. Democratic and participatory practices build trust and engagement as residents gain more direct control over their neighborhoods, and realize their opinions matter.
3. Addressing Root Causes
To truly address the climate crisis, we must advance solutions that strike at its root causes, rather than temporary solutions that may solve short-term impacts, but do little in the long run. To do so, we have to examine the societal and political systems that incentivize harmful emissions and rampant exploitation, and promote structural changes to those systems. In addressing the root causes, we must also take into consideration the deeply intersectional nature of our existence, acknowledging not only root causes, but how those causes interact. Policies cannot truly be just unless the root causes of injustice are interrogated and addressed. Addressing root causes is integral to understanding the past and creating a just future.
4. Rights-Based
A rights-based GND is based on the belief that all people have the right to a healthy and dignified life. Similar to the people-centered principle, rights-based means prioritizing human rights, particularly those of the world’s most vulnerable and exploited populations, and placing them front and center. A rights-based GND prioritizes policy areas considered to be fundamental rights, rather than privileges — namely, affordable housing and utilities, reliable public transit, clean water, nutritious food, healthcare, worker protections, a rigorous education, social safety networks, community centers, and services, and an environmentally sustainable future. This rights-based approach fits into a basic “social contract” between citizens and the government: citizens agree to take part in society by upholding laws and performing their civic duties, while the government takes active steps to uphold basic human rights and ensure a sustainable collective future. A GND must be right-based to ensure that human rights are guaranteed through policy.
5. Decommodify Society and Nature
Commodification is the process of transforming essential goods and social services into objects to be bought and sold — a process integral to neoliberal capitalism. Rather than considering goods and services like housing and food to be fundamental rights, the private sector has commodified them to turn a profit. For example, citizens not only pay taxes to support public transportation systems, but also pay a fee when using them — turning this essential service into a market good. Commodification always privileges the pursuit of profits over democratic planning and allocation of resources according to human needs.
The inverse of this damaging practice is decommodification, which treats essential goods and services as fundamental rights, rather than market goods. By eliminating market pressures on public services, they can be decommodified, which restores the primary purpose of these public services: to serve the public who pays for them. Decommodification means making sure public services work for the community and that people are considered over profit when providing essential needs. More generally, this principle is about ending exploitative practices while promoting public ownership, and is a necessary step in transforming our unsustainable economic systems and building long-term resilience.
6. Social and Ecological Resilience
Social and ecological resilience are the long-term goals of the GND. Our current infrastructure and institutions are not built to withstand the changing climate, and in some cases, only exacerbate its worst impacts. Instead, we must build resilience — the ability to recover from sudden shocks or longer-term stresses. Ecological resilience involves reintroducing nature, species diversity and wilderness into our neighborhoods and using nature as an ally in protecting communities from the most extreme impacts of climate change, from flooding to heat islands. As we build resilient infrastructure, we also have an opportunity to reimagine how cities operate and how they prepare residents for a changing future. Given the reality of our status quo, with devastating floods and record-breaking heat waves, investing in climate-resilient infrastructure is not only an investment in our future, but also necessary for our survival today.
Resilience is rooted in a people-centered mentality — it considers what infrastructure populations will need in the coming years. Social resilience similarly aims to promote efficient recovery from disaster, yet, focuses on people rather than infrastructure, building up social safety nets and providing resources to the most vulnerable populations who are then able to adapt to extreme climate shocks and environmental stresses.
7. Justice-oriented
A justice-oriented GND goes beyond ensuring policies are equitable. While equity means achieving fair outcomes for all, justice is about more than simply fair distribution — it requires actively breaking down structures and institutions that continue to uphold inequality. A justice-oriented GND must tackle urban issues from a multitude of angles and perspectives, and in doing so consider different manifestations of justice. For example, the policies should draw from distributive, participatory, reparative, and transformative justice principles — each is slightly different, but when taken together, they acknowledge and repair injustices done to historically marginalized communities, and inform structural change. As we strive for transformative justice both in climate policy and beyond, we can reexamine the damaging structures and institutions that define our status quo, and take active steps to rebuild communities so that they support us all.
These seven principles work together to create an effective GND that prioritizes the needs of people over profit, sets up realistic long-term solutions, and creates a climate-just future for everyone. All seven are essential when designing policy, and should be a reminder to policy-makers not to consider policies in silos, but instead consider their intersections and ripple effects. The climate crisis is upon us and worsening by the day, but policy can deliver transformative, lasting solutions — so long as it is based on principles that demand we honestly reflect on the past and ensure the flourishing of historically oppressed communities, as well as the broader public, for generations to come.
Want to learn more about these principles or explore specific policy suggestions? Check out the full report here.
