First Steps: Climate-Thinking for Environmental Justice

by Kelly Smith, MS, MSc

     The climate crisis is no longer a future threat, but instead a rapidly growing reality with dramatic impacts on social workers and the historical aims of the discipline. Many social workers already deal with myriad repercussions of environmental injustice or want to otherwise help mitigate the catastrophic consequences of the climate crisis but may not know where to begin. 

     Climate-thinking offers an opportunity to reframe and realign the inherent ethical values of social work with necessary efforts to face the multifaceted effects of climate change. Social workers can adopt climate-thinking as a means of weighing the positive, neutral, or negative environmental consequences across their personal and professional decisions. Such environmentally-minded decision-making can simultaneously produce beneficial repercussions and impacts on other historically recognized issues, for instance, by improving child welfare, equitable access to healthy foods, or ensuring safe housing. 

     Meeting the social, emotional, and physical needs, especially among marginalized or otherwise vulnerable individuals and communities, are vital post-disaster services social workers readily engage in.  However, because of time and resource constraints outside of disaster contexts, social workers often believe it will prove difficult to incorporate climate-thinking into their work. When we refrain from embedding climate-thinking into practice, we miss opportunities to lead by example and advance social and environmental justice. 

     Social workers are known for digging into complex problems to foster more equitable solutions. Collectively, with climate-thinking interventions, we can further interrupt the current cycles of inequality, poverty, and environmental degradation and reframe this era of crisis as one ripe with incredible opportunity to realign social work values across societal systems. The early stages of climate-thinking encourage social workers to evaluate personal habits, begin climate conversations with clients, assess individual client circumstances, and reconsider practice routines through a climate-thinking lens to ensure their alignment with the inherent goals of environmental justice. 

     When possible, some initial climate-thinking ideas may include:

• considering transportation alternatives, such as walking or biking
• preparing meals that include more sustainably-grown produce with fewer meats and processed foods that have higher carbon footprints and negative health implications
• advocating for the availability and accessibility of healthier foods
• consistently choosing reusable over disposable options 
• purchasing sustainable energy alternatives after verifying their legitimacy through Green-e, an independent watchdog for green energy projects
• becoming more politically active at the local, national, and global levels on behalf of environmental justice
• speaking to others about climate concerns and climate-thinking experiences

     Together, social workers can build awareness and create new norms wherein we continually consider the environmental justice and climate impacts of our personal and professional choices. There are certainly many other ways for social workers to engage in climate-thinking.  I encourage you to investigate your practice, share your expertise or questions, and join the movement to recognize that #ClimateWorkIsSocialWork.

Kelly Smith is a doctoral candidate in social work at the University of Southern California and a member of the Council on Social Work Education’s Environmental Justice Curricular Guide Task Force.