Combatting Environmental Impact
SCSJ’s Environmental Justice program supports communities — especially those that are economically and politically disadvantaged, as well as communities of color — as they fight against environmental injustice. This work is urgent because intensifying climate impacts are making existing inequalities worse and leaving marginalized communities most vulnerable to harmful development and industrial pollution.
OUR WORK
Across the South, environmental injustice is pervasive and deeply rooted in history: discriminatory policies like redlining and unfair land use decisions placed polluting industries in these same communities, causing long-lasting harm.
Environmental Justice Work
SCSJ takes a unique community-based lawyering approach to environmental justice, recognizing that communities are the true leaders and experts in their own needs. Instead of imposing outside agendas, we provide long-term support that responds to community goals. Using our legal, research, communications, and advocacy skills, we help communities across the South address systemic injustices and affect decisions relating to their health and environment, focusing where we can make the greatest difference.
Polluting and natural resource extraction industries, like mines and quarries, are often placed in low-income neighborhoods and communities of color, creating overlapping environmental and economic injustices with detrimental health impacts. We work to protect and improve community health by fighting against contamination and addressing long-term pollution from landfills, as well as water and air pollution.
Utility rates often operate as a regressive tax on low-income ratepayers who are also likely to suffer health complications from fossil fuel plants. We work to advance energy equity by making sure energy plans, development projects, and utility rate decisions consider environmental justice issues and the hidden costs imposed on impacted communities.
Modern zoning policies often unfairly harm low-income communities and communities of color, carrying forward the effects of redlining and other past discriminatory practices. We work to promote equitable zoning practices and challenge land use decisions that worsen inequalities.
The same communities burdened by harmful zoning and pollution are often the most at risk from extreme weather made worse by climate change. We work to build climate resilience by promoting policies that help communities adapt and by pushing back against false climate solutions.
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SCSJ Remains Committed to Environmental and Climate Justice
Read our statement on recent executive orders.
Core Strategies
Community legal education strengthens organizing and collective action by giving impacted communities the tools they need for ongoing self-advocacy. Legal guides and toolkits help simplify complex legal systems, building community power and improving access to decision-making. Along with our legal expertise, SCSJ further supports advocacy by providing research and communications resources that help connect and amplify community voices.
We provide strategic guidance and advice to community members, advocacy partners, and decision-makers. For communities and advocacy partners, this support is tailored to their specific challenges and often involves working with city officials, industry, and government agencies to improve environmental justice outcomes — ideally without needing to go to court. For decision-makers, we offer counsel on how to meaningfully consider environmental justice concerns and input from impacted communities in policy decisions.
Litigation is a necessary and powerful tool to enforce justice, advance equity, and empower communities. While it is not always the right approach, legal action can achieve the best outcome, create momentum for future advocacy, and set precedents that reach beyond environmental justice. SCSJ helps fill a critical gap by offering the expertise and ability needed to provide rapid-response litigation when communities need it most.
Environmental Justice Cases
Environmental Justice News
Person County Residents Fight to Be Heard on Industrial Rezoning
ROUGEMONT, N.C. (Sept. 8, 2025) — Person County residents, with the help of Southern Coalition for Social Justice (SCSJ), continue fighting against a controversial rezoning decision made in favor of the proposed Moriah Energy Center (MEC) — which remains an environmental concern. SCSJ filed a brief Monday with the North Carolina Court of Appeals requesting…
Read More Person County Residents Fight to Be Heard on Industrial Rezoning
SCSJ, Partners Push for Changes to Alcoa Business Park Permit Renewal
DURHAM, N.C. (Sept. 5, 2025) — Southern Coalition for Social Justice (SCSJ), the Duke Environmental Law and Policy Clinic (ELPC), and the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) submitted a joint public comment letter to the N.C. Division of Water Resources, urging stronger protections in the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit renewal for the…
Read More SCSJ, Partners Push for Changes to Alcoa Business Park Permit Renewal