Policy Commitments for Social Equity

Addressing social equity issues may require measures that compensate for historical disadvantages of marginalized or vulnerable groups.

To this end, green policies can include equity goals and policy commitments that are:

• Transparent: Equity goals that clearly designed to communicate the objectives, costs, and benefits of the policies or programs to all stakeholders, including local communities.
• Inclusive: Equity goals that promote equitable sharing of costs and benefits and seek to engage with communities in the planning and implementation processes.
• Evidence-based: Equity goals that target specific needs of communities and can be informed by gender and social assessments, and include tracking whether the policies or programs meet those needs. (C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, 2019a, “Equitable Impacts”; C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, 2019b, “Inclusive Community Engagement”; C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, 2019c, “Roadmap for Inclusive Planning”)

The C40 Climate Action Planning Resource Centre provides additional resources and check-lists on designing equitable and inclusive policies.

According to the National Recreation and Park Association of the United States, only 40% of U.S. park and recreation agencies have a formal inclusion policy or goal. Portland, Oregon’s Urban Forest Management Plan 2003 explicitly includes spatial equity as one of its key goals and recognizes that “The urban forestry is unevenly distributed. Economically disadvantaged neighborhoods often have fewer trees than more wealthy areas.”