Publication

Owing to the underlying chemical nature of many environmental injustices, green chemistry can play a role in advancing environmental justice towards a more equitable future. Environmental injustices have exposed our current system of reliance on polluting and toxic chemicals and chemistries as untenable and one whose risks and burdens are disproportionately borne by those who are disadvantaged. Aiming for effective interventions to create system-wide change, green chemistry and adjacent approaches are powerful leverage points to deeply address environmental injustices by changing the very nature of the molecular (for example, chemical, material, energy) basis of our economy and our society, obviating the need to rely on procedural systems that can either serve to enable progress or reinforce the status quo.