Empowering a more just and sustainable world requires interdisciplinary coalition-building and collaborative action. The University of Michigan is pursuing multidisciplinary approaches and initiatives built around social justice to ensure that work strengthens and supports Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) and all communities. No outcome is a true solution unless everybody benefits.
U-M was the first university to offer Environmental Justice as an academic field of study in the U.S., and remains on the forefront of educating leaders who make real impacts across the spectrum of EJ challenges. In partnership with communities throughout the region and world, U-M experts, from a wide range of disciplines, are pursuing inclusive, responsive, and equitable solutions to real-world problems. Some of our key initiatives in environmental justice include: Poverty Solutions, the Urban Energy Justice Lab, the Urban Collaboratory, the Center for Sustainable Systems, the Center for Local, State and Urban Policy, and the Sustainable Food Systems Initiative.
Dominic Bednar, a PhD candidate in the U-M School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS), was selected for a Fulbright Award to travel to Santiago, Chile, where he will study energy efficiency, energy poverty, and firewood use among residential areas.
Some Detroiters spend up to 30% of their monthly income on home energy bills, a sky-high rate that places the city among the Top 10 nationally in a category that researchers call household energy burden. The COVID-19 pandemic has only worsened the situation, adding financial challenges that make it increasingly difficult for many low- and moderate-income residents to pay their utility bills.
A community-based research project aims to provide policymakers, philanthropic organizations, nonprofits and other service providers with clear guidance on how Detroiters define economic well-being and what strategies they think will work best to increase economic mobility, which is the ability to improve one’s economic status.
Despite the initial moratoria on evictions, foreclosures and utility shut-offs under Michigan’s state of emergency, 11 percent of households say they have experienced a utility shut-off or housing hardship since the pandemic started.
Concurrent failures of federal drinking water standards and Michigan’s emergency manager law reinforced and magnified each other, leading to the Flint water crisis, according to Sara Hughes, an assistant professor at U-M's School for Environment and Sustainability.
Households that are unable to meet their energy needs—such as heating, cooling, and electric—are known as “energy poor.” But despite the prevalence of energy poor households in the U.S, energy poverty is not recognized as a distinct problem on the federal level. This results in limited responses—and little assistance—to households in need.
