Landmark Reports, Explained

In 1982, residents of Warren County, North Carolina, lay down in the road to stop trucks carrying soil contaminated with PCBs to a new landfill in a mostly Black county. More than 500 people were arrested. The protest failed to stop the landfill, but it raised a question that researchers then set out to answer: was Warren County an exception or part of a pattern? The reports on this page are the answers that followed, along with later studies of who works in environmental organizations and who lives near nature. For each one we explain who produced it, what it found, and why it still matters.

At a glance

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Toxic Wastes and Race

Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States (1987)

Who. The United Church of Christ's Commission for Racial Justice, then led by Benjamin F. Chavis Jr., with research directed by Charles Lee.

What it found. This was the first national study to test whether the location of hazardous waste sites was linked to race. A smaller 1983 study by the U.S. General Accounting Office had looked at eight Southern states and found that most of the landfills it examined sat in predominantly Black communities. The 1987 report went national and found that race was the most significant of the variables it tested in predicting where commercial hazardous waste facilities were located, more so than income. It also estimated that three in five Black and Hispanic Americans lived in communities with uncontrolled toxic waste sites.

Why it matters. It turned local complaints into national evidence. It gave organizers a number to put in front of officials, and it made "environmental racism" part of the public vocabulary. Nearly every later study of environmental inequality builds on its approach.

Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty (2007)

Who. Robert D. Bullard, Paul Mohai, Robin Saha and Beverly Wright, for the United Church of Christ.

What it found. Using better methods that measured actual distance from each facility rather than relying on ZIP codes, the authors found that people of color made up 56 percent of residents in neighborhoods within about 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) of commercial hazardous waste facilities, compared with 30 percent in neighborhoods farther away. Disparities appeared in nearly every region of the country.

Why it matters. It showed that twenty years of awareness had not closed the gap, and it modeled how to update a landmark study with stronger methods. It is still one of the most cited sources on the subject.

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Movement documents

Principles of Environmental Justice (1991)

Who. Delegates to the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, held in Washington, DC, in October 1991.

What it says. Seventeen principles covering the right to be free from environmental harm, the right to participate as equal partners in decisions, the rights of workers, the sovereignty of Indigenous peoples, and responsibilities toward future generations. It is a statement of values, not a study, and it is short enough to read in a few minutes.

Why it matters. It defined environmental justice in the movement's own words rather than in the language of government agencies or national environmental groups. Many environmental justice groups still point to it as their founding statement.

Summit 2005: Diverse Partners for Environmental Progress

Who. More than 90 leaders from environmental justice, public health, conservation, faith-based and community organizations who met in Wakefield, Virginia, in October 2005.

What it records. The summit's report describes an effort to build working relationships across racial and organizational lines and to repair past misunderstandings between grassroots environmental justice groups and mainstream conservation organizations. It led to regional follow-up meetings and a second summit in 2007.

Why it matters. It is a rare record of a deliberate attempt to bring the two wings of the movement together. Our explainer on the 2005 summit covers it in detail.

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Inside the organizations

Diversity and the Future of the U.S. Environmental Movement (2007)

Who. A collection of essays published by the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies and edited by Emily Enderle.

What it found. The contributors, a mix of practitioners and scholars, describe a movement that had talked about diversity for years with little to show for it, and they offer reasons and remedies from their own experience. Felicia Marcus's essay, written while she was a senior executive at The Trust for Public Land, is one of the most candid.

Why it matters. It captures the state of the conversation just before hard numbers became available, and many of its diagnoses were later confirmed. Read our explainer on the Marcus essay.

The State of Diversity in Environmental Organizations (2014)

Who. Sociologist Dorceta E. Taylor, then at the University of Michigan, for Green 2.0.

What it found. Taylor surveyed 293 institutions: 191 conservation and preservation organizations, 74 government environmental agencies and 28 environmental grantmaking foundations. People of color held no more than about 16 percent of board and staff positions across these institutions, even though they made up more than a third of the U.S. population. She called this the "green ceiling." Women had made gains, but mostly white women, and the top jobs were still held mostly by white men. The report also found that many organizations did not track diversity data or have concrete plans to change.

Why it matters. It gave the field a baseline and a name for the problem. It also set the stage for Green 2.0's push for public disclosure of staff and board demographics. Our brief on diversifying conservation draws on it.

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Access and climate

The Nature Gap (2020)

Who. The Center for American Progress and the Hispanic Access Foundation, using an analysis of how much natural land had been lost to development in each census tract.

What it found. Communities of color were about three times more likely than white communities to live in "nature-deprived" places, meaning areas where more of the natural land had been lost to roads, buildings and other development. Low-income communities were also far more likely to live in nature-deprived areas.

Why it matters. It linked conservation to everyday access. For land trusts and park agencies, it offers a way to decide where protecting land or creating a park would serve the people with the least nature nearby, rather than only where land is cheapest or most scenic.

Climate Change and Social Vulnerability in the United States (2021)

Who. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

What it found. The report looked at six types of climate impact, including extreme heat, air quality and flooding, and asked who lives in the places projected to be hit hardest. With 2°C of global warming, Black individuals were about 40 percent more likely than others to live where deaths from extreme temperatures are projected to rise most. Hispanic and Latino individuals were about 43 percent more likely to live where extreme heat is projected to cut the most working hours in weather-exposed jobs such as construction and agriculture.

Why it matters. It brought the logic of environmental justice into climate planning with federal data. It remains a useful reference for anyone doing local climate planning. Many federal environmental-justice programs were cut back in 2025, but the report's findings still stand as published.

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How to read a report

A few habits make any of these studies more useful.

• Find the denominator. "Sixteen percent" of what? Staff, boards, leadership, or all three? Which organizations were counted, and which declined to answer?
• Check the date of the data. A report published in 2014 may rely on data collected a year or two earlier. Communities and organizations change.
• Separate findings from recommendations. Most reports include both. The findings rest on evidence; the recommendations are the authors' judgment.
• Look for the method. How was a "community" defined: by ZIP code, census tract or distance? The 2007 update to Toxic Wastes and Race found larger disparities partly because it measured more precisely.
• Ask who paid and who was asked. Funding and survey response rates do not invalidate a study, but they help you weigh it.
• Read past the summary. Executive summaries are written to be quoted. The caveats are usually in the methods section.

For the books behind these reports, see our resources page.