Environmental Justice | Green New Deal Co-op

The Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EOEA) in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts states that “Environmental Justice (EJ) is based on the principle that all people have a right to be protected from environmental pollution and to live in and enjoy a clean and healthful environment. EJ is the equal protection and meaningful involvement of all people with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies and the equitable distribution of environmental benefits.”

It is this principle that motivates and guides our project. Multiple studies commissioned by the EOEA have demonstrated that “low income and minority communities have historically been and continue to be disproportionately affected by environmental degradation and denied equal access to environmental benefits.” A Northeastern University study of the dispersion of ecological burden of communities in the Commonwealth found that Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan, and Hyde Park placed in the lowest quartile among 362 communities in the State Environmental Ranking . The same report concluded that individuals living in communities of color are twenty times more likely to be exposed to high cumulative environmental hazards.

The GDIC will improve the environmental conditions of the community in the following concrete ways:

The Center will complement the Nature Center by maintaining an expanded open, inviting, and well-maintained green space in an area that has experienced a significant increase in housing construction and development activity. The World Health Organization describes green spaces as “fundamental to urban centers in that they provide refuge from noise, produce oxygen, filter out harmful air pollution, including airborne particulate matter, and moderate temperatures.”
The Center will contribute to meaningful reductions in carbon emissions by closing the food loop: from agricultural food production, to food manufacturing, to the anaerobic digestion of food waste along with the utilization of the residual heat and energy, while delivering healthy, fresh, and locally grown food. The food loop will operate as follows:
- Mattapan Harvest Greenhouses will operate 46,000 square feet of hydroponic greenhouse space and will produce different varieties of lettuce and small vegetables year-long that will supply both the colocated food manufacturing business, City Fresh Food, and the neighboring grocery stores, therefore providing healthy and fresh produce to the community and reducing the carbon footprint of that food.
- City Fresh Food is a Roxbury-based business that is on a mission to make our community healthier by delivering fresh, wholesome meals to organizations throughout the Boston area, by educating and advocating for more nutritious food choices, and by building sustainable careers for its dedicated staff and local growers.
- CERO Cooperative provides business-to-business food waste diversion services and will receive the food waste from the colocated food businesses, from the community, and from its own collection services. The food waste will be processed in its on-site anaerobic digester to recover methane and to produce heat and electricity. The process will also produce compost to create solid and liquid plant nutrients for the greenhouses. The electricity generated by the anaerobic digester will supply a portion of the electricity needs of the entire Center.

The GDIC will also help the City of Boston meet its own Zero Waste initiative requirements. The 2019 update to the Boston Climate Action Plan highlighted the Zero Waste Boston initiative, which aims to divert at least 80 percent of the City’s waste from landfills and municipal solid waste combustors by 2035. The Zero Waste Boston strategies could reduce carbon emissions from waste disposal by 60 percent . CERO Cooperative, inspired to address climate and waste reduction goals, has diverted 12 million pounds of food waste to compost, which is then returned to support the agricultural food economy. For every ton of food waste composted with CERO, 0.71 tons of CO2e from landfilling emissions are avoided, and 0.24 tons of CO2e are returned to the soil via carbon sequestration.