Climate Justice Partnership
The Climate Justice Partnerships (CJP) project is a joint effort between the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) Sustainability unit, part of the Office of Planning, Sustainability and Project Management (PSPM), and our long-term community partners Urban Growers Collective.
UIC Sustainability developed the Climate Action Implementation Plan (CAIP) in 2018; a refined cost-effective portfolio of strategies to achieve the mid-term goals of the UIC Climate Commitments by 2028. One of the strategies, climate resilience, highlights the need for community engagement to ensure equity in the advancement of the UIC CAIP solutions. This project continuously seeks to address institutional barriers and extractive practices that hinder the development of equitable community-university partnerships to advance climate and/or environmental justice.
Outcomes from our 2021-2022 project, Accelerating University-Community Partnerships for Climate Justice, included the Climate Justice Assets Map and a report of best practices, guided by community feedback. Outcomes from our 2022-2023 project, Fostering Equitable Community-University Partnerships for Environmental Justice, include a framework for collaboratively selecting environmental justice and health indicators, and a tool that identifies significant EJ and health indicators to measure the community impact of a project. The ChicAgo Center for Health and EnvironmenT (CACHET), recognizes and addresses the disparities that exist in environmental health by working with communities most impacted by these injustices. The CJP project addresses challenges faced by community partners concerns when working with a public, research university, and identifies pathways to streamline interactions between campus and community to accelerate climate and/or environmental justice.
Climate Justice Assets
An asset map of existing University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) & community resources in Chicago for climate and environmental justice
Environmental Justice & Health Indicators
Mapping and using the metric framework to address the institutional barriers in BIPOC neighborhoods.
The Accelerating University-Community Partnerships for Climate Justice
Report of Best Practices
