Environmental Justice

Environmental Justice Committee

(The UUSS Interfaith Earth Justice re-organized into the Environmental Justice Committee.)

Environmental Racism is historic and current systemic racism that has resulted in the disproportionate impact of environmental hazards on people of color.

Environmental Justice: The movement to address environmental racism and injustice by empowering impacted residents to demand policy changes to restore the health and safety of their communities.

“You can’t have climate change without sacrifice zones, and you can’t have sacrifice zones without disposable people, and you can’t have disposable people without racism.” – Hop Hopkins

In 2017, UUSS partnered with Sacramento Area Congregations Together (Sacramento ACT) to establish the Sacramento ACT Environmental Justice Committee. The first meeting of this committee was September 19, 2017.

Sacramento ACT empowers ordinary people to identify and change the conditions that create economic and racial injustice.

www.sacact.org

Our goal is to help build a healthy thriving community in West Arden Arcade that can be replicated in other EJ Communities.

EJ Committee activities:

Surveys/canvassing/building relationships/LISTENING to community,
removing barriers to impacted community participation in decisions that affect them,
being good accomplices for justice by using our members’ time and expertise in environmental and regulatory issues,
affecting policy and
working to dismantle systemic racism and injustice to create healthy communities for all.

West Arden Arcade Environmental Justice Community

To date, our focus has been on the Sacramento County-designated Environmental Justice Community of West Arden Arcade. This area was designated to be an EJ area pursuant to SB 1000 which required local governments to designate areas where environmental hazards and conditions that make people more vulnerable to these hazards were making people sick. In 2018, County designated four EJ areas: West Arden Arcade, South Sacramento, North Highlands, and Vineyard.

Why did our committee focus on West Arden Arcade? This community has some of the highest rates of environmental illness in the County AND State. In addition, UUSS is located at the southern edge of this community.

Please contact us at if you have questions or ideas.

We’d love to have you join us!

In 2020, a new Sacramento ACT “Climate Change Committee” was born out of our Environmental Justice Committee. If you are interested in finding out more about this new committee, please contact Gabby Trejo at