April 13-14, 2026

The Center for Environmental Justice at CSU, together with our global partners, announces and welcomes you to join us for an extraordinary gathering to continue the dialogue and inspire action on environmental justice.

This hybrid gathering relaunches the series of conferences on environmental justice (EJ) that was envisioned by various EJ centers back in 2017 but interrupted by the pandemic. We aim to deepen connections amongst EJ scholars, advocates, and practitioners across South and North, East and West, across different political and theoretical traditions and substantive interests. 

CONFERENCE THEMES

The Many Meanings of Environmental Justice 

How do various political standpoints, cultures, communities, and disciplines understand environmental (in)justice during this planetary age? How has the practice and study of EJ changed as it has become globalized? How has research and practice from the Global South and hitherto marginalized social forces contested and enriched EJ?  How can we distinguish between approaches that include all affected and those that include some while excluding others? Recognizing that there are many imaginaries of justice, how can we investigate and compare narratives and stories, theories, and practices of environmental (in)justice, at a time when hopeful and effective visions of EJ are essential? Where will the joy and hope that will allow us to transcend the challenges to EJ emerge? 

Environmental Justice and Democracy 

Persistent inequalities and growing authoritarianism, coupled with geopolitical competition, affect the study and practice of EJ and democracy everywhere. What are the relations between environmental justice and democracy? How can we address the contradictory role of the state as both an obstacle to and as a means for advancing democracy and EJ? How can EJ and civic capacity reinforce one another? How can we envision and craft strategies that address both the causes and the symptoms of ecosocial injustices and undemocratic practices? What kinds of research and practice cultivate the communities, organizations, networks, movements, and narratives essential to nurturing hopeful spaces of ecosocially just and democratic thought and practice? 

Just Transitions in a Planetary Age 

Despite current challenges, the pursuit of justice is both necessary and ongoing. What strategies will enable transformative just transitions across all human activities and global divisions of labor, while taking humanity and nature into account? How can EJ for all beings, at all scales, contribute to building more intersectional, socially, and ecologically equitable and democratic worlds? What kinds of new epistemologies and ontologies can reveal such worlds and visions in this planetary age while preempting authoritarian ones?  What types of institutions and strategies are required to sustain a politics of hope for a thriving planet?