Our Mission

The mission of Sowing Justice is to utilize Environmental Justice principles to increase civic engagement beyond voting with organizing tools and resources for healthy and safe communities.

We connect communities with resources and tools that empower engagement in local, state, and federal policies that foster healthy and safe communities where people live, learn, work, worship, and recreate. Improving civic engagement to ensure disenfranchised communities experiencing environmental injustice increases participation in the democratic polictical process as they organize.

We expand the coalition of environmental justice communities by providing engagement strategies and tools for implementing policies. Our resources and tools foster high information civilly engaged communities that seek transparency and accountability of decision-making processes.

Our vision is to use citizen science and voter registration to increase civic engagement to address environmental racism and injustice to increase advocacy to support policies that create a legacy of clean air, water, and soil right now and for generations to come.

Guiding Principles

Sowing Justice supports the Jemez Principles for Democratic Organizing and Environmental Justice Principles. We work to ensure that people closest to the pain of environmental racism and injustice are civically engaged to shape the solutions for clean air, water, and soil.

Environmental Justice is a human rights movement and a legal term to address environmental racism and injustice. Our approach to relation organizing is inclusive and guided by the Jemez Principles of Democratic Organizing and Environmental Justice Principles.

Legal Definition

Environmental justice (EJ) is the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations and policies. Fair treatment means no group of people should bear a disproportionate share of the negative environmental consequences resulting from industrial, governmental, and commercial operations or policies.

Meaningful involvement means:

People have an opportunity to participate in decisions about activities that may affect their environment and/or health;
The public's contribution can influence the regulatory agency's decision;
Community concerns will be considered in the decision-making process; and
Decision-makers will seek out and facilitate the involvement of those potentially affected.

Jemez Principles for Democratic Organizing

The Jemez Principles for Democratic Organizing were outlined and adopted at a coalition meeting in 1996 hosted by the Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice (SNEEJ), in Jemez, New Mexico. The meeting was designed to reach a common understanding between participants from different cultures, politics, and organizations.

Environmental Justice Principles

Delegates to the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit held on October 24-27, 1991, in Washington DC, drafted and adopted these 17 principles of Environmental Justice. Since then, the Principles have served as a defining document for the growing grassroots movement for environmental justice.