Open AccessSustainability, human rights, and environmental justice
Author(s) -
Catherine Hawkins
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
critical social work
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1543-9372
DOI - 10.22329/csw.v11i3.5833
Subject(s) - sustainability , environmental ethics , action (physics) , human rights , economic justice , social sustainability , environmental justice , work (physics) , sociology , sustainable development , social justice , political science , public relations , perspective (graphical) , engineering ethics , law , law and economics , ecology , engineering , mechanical engineering , philosophy , physics , quantum mechanics , artificial intelligence , computer science , biology
Social work has a long-standing tradition of emphasizing the interaction of people and their environment, although this systems perspective has focused almost exclusively on the importance of social relationships. There is an emerging emphasis within the profession regarding the need to pay more attention to the critical role of the physical environment. The last fifty years has seen a growing global ecological movement, and the profession is joining the call to action for sustainability. Social work must extend this mission to include environmental justice, the human right to live in a clean, safe, and healthy environment. The world’s most poor, vulnerable, and oppressed people often live in the most degraded environments and have no control over resources. The important connections between social work, sustainability, human rights, and environmental justice in our contemporary world need to be more clearly articulated in the scholarly literature. An understanding of these separate but closely linked concepts is necessary for the profession to effectively pursue the goal of making the world a more just, humane, and sustainable home for all life.