Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Operationalizing climate justice in the implementation of Boston’s Building Performance Standard

  • Article
  • Published:

From Nature Cities

View current issue Submit your manuscript

Abstract

Cities are moving toward the implementation of more just urban climate actions, but the politics and processes of operationalizing climate justice in practice remain understudied. Here we examine the implementation of climate justice through Boston’s Building Emissions Reduction and Disclosure Ordinance (BERDO), a landmark Building Performance Standard that reflects a transformative shift towards carbon neutrality in cities. We utilize a rich mixed-methods research design that is rooted in 5 months of participant observation within the City of Boston’s Environment Department, 20 expert interviews and a systematic content analysis of hundreds of policy documents. We find that implementing BERDO entails political contestation over differing conceptions of resistance and power relations around climate justice. Justice becomes subject to scope and scale discrepancies, the processes of bureaucratization and even weaponization. In documenting these tensions, we provide insights into the complex challenges that cities may face as they begin to operationalize climate justice on the ground.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1: BERDO rule-making process and key actors.
Fig. 2: Perceptions of CAG process.
Fig. 3: Justice contestations in the rule-making process of BERDO.
Fig. 4: Examples of the impact of justice contestations in rule-making.

Similar content being viewed by others

Explore related subjects

Discover the latest articles, news and stories from top researchers in related subjects.

Data availability

Participant observation, interview transcripts and analysed data are not publicly available because they contain information that would compromise the research participants’ confidentiality and undermine the process of informed consent.

Code availability

No custom algorithms or code were used in the collection or analysis of the data. All data were analysed using NVivo 20 software.

References

  1. Hughes, S. & Hoffmann, M. Just urban transitions: toward a research agenda. Wiley Interdiscip. Rev. Clim. Change 11, e640 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Bulkeley, H. Climate changed urban futures: environmental politics in the Anthropocene city. Environ. Polit. 30, 266–284 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Sovacool, B. K. & Brown, M. A. Twelve metropolitan carbon footprints: a preliminary comparative global assessment. Energy Policy 38, 4856–4869 (2010).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Stehle, T., Hickmann, M. L. & Höhne, C. Urban climate politics in emerging economies: a multi-level governance perspective. Urbanisation 7, 9–25 (2022).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Hsu, A., Höhne, N., Kuramochi, T., Vilariño, V. & Sovacool, B. K. Beyond states: harnessing sub-national actors for the deep decarbonisation of cities, regions, and businesses. Energy Res. Soc. Sci. 70, 101738 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Bulkeley, H. Cities and the governing of climate change. Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour. 35, 229–253 (2010).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Diezmartínez, C. V. & Short Gianotti, A. G. US cities increasingly integrate justice into climate planning and create policy tools for climate justice. Nat. Commun. 13, 5763 (2022).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Cannon, C., Chu, E., Natekal, A. & Waaland, G. Translating and embedding equity-thinking into climate adaptation: an analysis of US cities. Reg. Environ. Change 23, 30 (2023).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Caggiano, H., Kocakuşak, D., Kumar, P. & Tier, M. O. U.S. cities’ integration and evaluation of equity considerations into climate action plans. npj Urban Sustain. 3, 50 (2023).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Bulkeley, H. & Betsill, M. Rethinking sustainable cities: multilevel governance and the ‘urban’ politics of climate change. Environ. Polit. 14, 42–63 (2005).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. van der Heijden, J. When opportunity backfires: exploring the implementation of urban climate governance alternatives in three major US cities. Policy Soc. 40, 116–135 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Keskitalo, E. H. C., Juhola, S., Baron, N., Fyhn, H. & Klein, J. Implementing local climate change adaptation and mitigation actions: the role of various policy instruments in a multi-level governance context. Climate 4, 7 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Woodruff, S. C. & Stults, M. Numerous strategies but limited implementation guidance in US local adaptation plans. Nat. Clim. Change 6, 796–802 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Westman, L. & Castán Broto, V. Transcending existing paradigms: the quest for justice in urban climate change planning. Local Environ. 26, 536–541 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Hughes, S. The politics of urban climate change policy: toward a research agenda. Urban Aff. Rev. 53, 362–380 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Ryan, D. From commitment to action: a literature review on climate policy implementation at city level. Clim. Change 131, 519–529 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Laurian, L. & Crawford, J. Organizational factors of environmental sustainability implementation: an empirical analysis of US cities and counties. J. Environ. Policy Plan. 18, 482–506 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Malloy, J. T. & Ashcraft, C. M. A framework for implementing socially just climate adaptation. Clim. Change 160, 1–14 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Eisenack, K. et al. Explaining and overcoming barriers to climate change adaptation. Nat. Clim. Change 4, 867–872 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Fünfgeld, H., Fila, D. & Dahlmann, H. Upscaling climate change adaptation in small- and medium-sized municipalities: current barriers and future potentials. Curr. Opin. Environ. Sustain. 61, 101263 (2023).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Burley Farr, K., Song, K., Yeo, Z. Y., Johnson, E. & Hsu, A. Cities and regions tackle climate change mitigation but often focus on less effective solutions. Commun. Earth Environ. 4, 439 (2023).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Sovacool, B. K. Who are the victims of low-carbon transitions? Towards a political ecology of climate change mitigation. Energy Res. Soc. Sci. 73, 101916 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Carley, S. & Konisky, D. M. The justice and equity implications of the clean energy transition. Nat. Energy 5, 569–577 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Anguelovski, I. et al. Equity impacts of urban land use planning for climate adaptation: critical perspectives from the global north and south. J. Plan. Educ. Res. 36, 333–348 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Hardy, R. D., Milligan, R. A. & Heynen, N. Racial coastal formation: the environmental injustice of colorblind adaptation planning for sea-level rise. Geoforum 87, 62–72 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Bulkeley, H., Carmin, J. A., Castán Broto, V., Edwards, G. A. S. & Fuller, S. Climate justice and global cities: mapping the emerging discourses. Global Environ. Change 23, 914–925 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Biesbroek, R. et al. Opening up the black box of adaptation decision-making. Nat. Clim. Change 5, 493–494 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Luque-Ayala, A., Bulkeley, H. & Marvin, S. in Rethinking Urban Transitions: Politics in the Low Carbon City (eds Luque-Ayala, A. et al.) 13–36 (Routledge, 2018); https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315164779-2

  29. Salimifard, P. et al. Climate policy impacts on building energy use, emissions, and health: New York City local law 97. Energy 238, 121879 (2022).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. Walter, T. & Mathew, P. GHG policy impacts for Seattle’s buildings: targets, timing, and scope. Build. Cities 2, 283–301 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. 2022 Global Status Report for Buildings and Construction: Towards a Zero‑emission, Efficient and Resilient Buildings and Construction Sector (United Nations Environment Program, 2022).

  32. Sethi, M., Lamb, W., Minx, J. & Creutzig, F. Climate change mitigation in cities: a systematic scoping of case studies. Environ. Res. Lett. 15, 093008 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. Global Status Report for Buildings and Construction – Beyond Foundations: Mainstreaming Sustainable Solutions to Cut Emissions From the Buildings Sector (United Nations Environment Programme, 2024); https://doi.org/10.59117/20.500.11822/45095

  34. City of Boston Office of Housing Boston Housing Conditions & Real Estate Trends Report (City of Boston Planning Department, 2022); https://www.bostonplans.org/getattachment/066b23c5-cab9-4731-a338-f6e57e3ef55f

  35. Kennedy, A. et al. The Greater Boston Housing Report Card 2023: With a Special Analysis of Community Land Trusts (The Boston Foundation, 2023); https://www.tbf.org/-/media/tbf/reports-and-covers/2023/gbhrc2023-full-report.pdf

  36. Anguelovski, I. et al. Green gentrification in European and North American cities. Nat. Commun. 13, 3816 (2022).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  37. Planas-Carbonell, A., Anguelovski, I., Oscilowicz, E., Pérez-del-Pulgar, C. & Shokry, G. From greening the climate-adaptive city to green climate gentrification? Civic perceptions of short-lived benefits and exclusionary protection in Boston, Philadelphia, Amsterdam and Barcelona. Urban Clim. 48, 101295 (2023).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  38. 2020 Environmental Justice Populations (Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 2022); https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/download.massgis.digital.mass.gov/shapefiles/census2020/EJ%202020%20updated%20municipal%20statistics%20Nov%202022.pdf

  39. Bulkeley, H., Edwards, G. A. S. & Fuller, S. Contesting climate justice in the city: examining politics and practice in urban climate change experiments. Global Environ. Change 25, 31–40 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  40. Cox, S. in Urban Climate Justice: Theory, Praxis, Resistance (eds Rice, J. L. et al.) 205–219 (Univ. Georgia Press, 2023).

  41. Scott, J. C. Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (Yale Univ. Press, 1998).

  42. Ranganathan, M. & Bratman, E. From urban resilience to abolitionist climate justice in Washington, DC. Antipode 53, 115–137 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  43. See, J., Fuentes, A. S., Porio, E. & Wilmsen, B. Conceptualising and enacting pathways to transformative climate justice: examples from the Philippines. Local Environ. https://doi.org/10.1080/13549839.2024.2353040 (2024).

  44. Scoones, I. et al. Transformations to sustainability: combining structural, systemic and enabling approaches. Curr. Opin. Environ. Sustain. 42, 65–75 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  45. Hernandez, J. California environmental quality act lawsuits and California’s housing crisis. Hastings Environ. Law J. 24, 21–71 (2018).

    Google Scholar 

  46. Bacchiocchi, E., Sant, I. & Bates, A. Energy justice and the co-opting of indigenous narratives in U.S. offshore wind development. Renew. Energy Focus 41, 133–142 (2022).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  47. Pellow, D. N. Garbage Wars: The Struggle for Environmental Justice in Chicago (MIT Press, 2002).

  48. Diezmartínez, C. V. & Short Gianotti, A. G. Municipal finance shapes urban climate action and justice. Nat. Clim. Change 14, 247–252 (2024).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  49. Schlosberg, D. & Collins, L. B. From environmental to climate justice: climate change and the discourse of environmental justice. Wiley Interdiscip. Rev. Clim. Change 5, 359–374 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  50. Bullard, R. D. & Wright, B. (eds) Race, Place, and Environmental Justice After Hurricane Katrina: Struggles to Reclaim, Rebuild, and Revitalize New Orleans and the Gulf Coast (Taylor & Francis, 2009).

  51. Rice, J. L., Levenda, A. & Long, J. in Urban Climate Justice: Theory, Praxis, Resistance (eds Rice, J. L. et al.) 1–26 (Univ. Georgia Press, 2023).

  52. Whyte, K. Too late for indigenous climate justice: ecological and relational tipping points. Wiley Interdiscip. Rev. Clim. Change 11, e603 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  53. Rice, J. L., Long, J. & Levenda, A. Against climate apartheid: confronting the persistent legacies of expendability for climate justice. Environ. Plan. E https://doi.org/10.1177/2514848621999286 (2021).

  54. Sultana, F. Critical climate justice. Geogr. J. https://doi.org/10.1111/geoj.12417 (2021).

  55. Rice, J. L., Cohen, D. A., Long, J. & Jurjevich, J. R. Contradictions of the climate-friendly city: new perspectives on eco-gentrification and housing justice. Int. J. Urban Reg. Res. 44, 145–165 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  56. Shi, L. et al. Roadmap towards justice in urban climate adaptation research. Nat. Clim. Change 6, 131–137 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  57. Agyeman, J., Schlosberg, D., Craven, L. & Matthews, C. Trends and directions in environmental justice: from inequity to everyday life, community, and just sustainabilities. Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour. 41, 321–340 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  58. Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States: A National Report on the Racial and Socio-Economic Characteristics of Communities with Hazardous Waste Sites (United Church of Christ, Commission for Racial Justice, 1987).

  59. Bullard, R. Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class, and Environmental Quality (Westview Press, 1990).

  60. Taylor, D. E. Race, Class, Gender and American Environmentalism (Diane Publishing Co., 2002).

  61. Pulido, L. Rethinking environmental racism: white privilege and urban development in Southern California. Ann. Assoc. Am. Geogr. 90, 12–40 (2000).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  62. Pulido, L. A critical review of the methodology of environmental racism research. Antipode 28, 142–159 (1996).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  63. Maung, R. & Pellow, D. N. in Handbook of Environmental Sociology (eds Schaefer Caniglia, B. et al.) 35–52 (Springer, 2021); https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77712-8_3

  64. Mohai, P., Pellow, D. & Roberts, J. T. Environmental justice. Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour. 34, 405–430 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  65. Walker, G. Beyond distribution and proximity: exploring the multiple spatialities of environmental justice. Antipode 41, 614–636 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  66. Hughes, S., Giest, S. & Tozer, L. Accountability and data-driven urban climate governance. Nat. Clim. Change 10, 1085–1090 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  67. Hughes, S. Principles, drivers, and policy tools for just climate change adaptation in legacy cities. Environ. Sci. Policy 111, 35–41 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  68. McCauley, D. & Heffron, R. Just transition: integrating climate, energy and environmental justice. Energy Policy 119, 1–7 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  69. Short Gianotti, A. G., Getson, J. M., Hutyra, L. R. & Kittredge, D. B. Defining urban, suburban, and rural: a method to link perceptual definitions with geospatial measures of urbanization in central and eastern Massachusetts. Urban Ecosyst. 19, 823–833 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  70. Rosenbaum, W. A. Environmental Politics and Policy (Sage Publications, 2020).

  71. Rinfret, S. R. Frames of influence: U.S. environmental rulemaking case studies: frames of influence. Rev. Policy Res. 28, 231–246 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  72. Kerwin, C. M. & Furlong, S. R. Rulemaking: How Government Agencies Write Law and Make Policy (Sage Publications, 2019).

  73. Baxter, J. & Eyles, J. Evaluating qualitative research in social geography: establishing ‘rigour’ in interview analysis. Trans. Inst. Br. Geogr. 22, 505–525 (1997).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  74. Wood, A. Tracing policy movements: methods for studying learning and policy circulation. Environ. Plan. A 48, 391–406 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  75. Secor, A. J. in Research Methods in Geography: A Critical Introduction (eds Jones, J. P. III & Gomez, B.) 194–205 (Wiley, 2010).

Download references

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to all of the city officials and community leaders who generously shared their time, knowledge and experiences for this research. This work was supported by a Boston Area Research Initiative Seed Grant (C.V.D.), a Fellowship by the Switzer Foundation (C.V.D.) and the National Science Foundation NSF-2314889 (A.G.S.G.) and NSF-1735087 (C.V.D.).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth and Environment, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA

    Claudia V. Diezmartínez, Benjamin K. Sovacool & Anne G. Short Gianotti

Authors
  1. Claudia V. Diezmartínez
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Benjamin K. Sovacool
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Anne G. Short Gianotti
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

C.V.D. and A.G.S.G. conceptualized the work. C.V.D., B.K.S. and A.G.S.G. carried out the methodology and interpretation of the results. C.V.D. collected and analysed the data in addition to visualization. The original draft was written by C.V.D., and B.K.S. and A.G.S.G. reviewed and edited the paper. Funding acquisition was by C.V.D. and A.G.S.G. Project supervision was by A.G.S.G. (lead) and B.K.S. (supporting).

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Claudia V. Diezmartínez.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

C.V.D. continues to be an employee of the City of Boston’s Environment Department. The co-authors declare no competing interests.

Peer review

Peer review information

Nature Cities thanks Juan Palacios, Tanesha Thomas and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

Additional information

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Appendices A–D.

Reporting Summary

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Diezmartínez, C.V., Sovacool, B.K. & Short Gianotti, A.G. Operationalizing climate justice in the implementation of Boston’s Building Performance Standard. Nat Cities (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44284-024-00121-w

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s44284-024-00121-w

  • Springer Nature America, Inc.

This article is cited by

Search

Navigation