Incorporating Environmental Justice and Equity Principles: A Toolkit for Airports (2024)
Chapter: 1 Introduction to the Toolkit
CHAPTER 1
Introduction to the Toolkit
1.1 Significance and Purpose of the Toolkit
In recent years, the topics of social and racial equity have become prominent in public discourse and elevated as a priority within the transportation industry, particularly after the civic response to the murder of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, by a group of Minneapolis, Minnesota, police officers in 2020. To operationalize social and racial equity from a stated priority into corrective or reparative actions first requires that transportation practitioners develop an appreciation and understanding of the ways that existing systems, development practices, and planning processes perpetuate harm to oppressed people and communities.
Airports, as economic hubs in their communities, have the potential to improve equitable outcomes and provide opportunities for underserved and oppressed populations. Airports influence regional and local economic systems through economic development and direct and indirect employment via contracts with local businesses, tourism, and cargo transport (ACRP, n.d.). However, airports, as transportation centers, are also sites of industrial pollution with operations that can expose residents and workers to harmful environmental hazards. A variety of government legislation and funding mechanisms have been introduced to regulate, avoid, minimize, mitigate, and/or disclose certain hazards and harms to the public. However, systemic inequities persist in demographic and geographic patterns of hazard exposure, access to health resources, and health outcomes. To be part of the solution that disrupts and dismantles these harms, airports can improve their planning and decision-making practices to prioritize environmental justice and equity.
The pursuit of just and equitable outcomes requires understanding an individual airport’s range of decision-making processes as well as local community histories, needs, and aspirations. Airport size, service type, location, ownership, leadership and organizational structure, and many other factors shape airport decision-making processes. Opportunities to incorporate equity and environmental justice exist at every organizational level of airport decision-making, including local jurisdictions, governing bodies, oversight commissions, executive teams, department leads, and individual staff. Equity and environmental justice need not be solely the duty of one branch of the airport organization; it can and ought to be incorporated across departments, subject matters, and airport functions.
This Toolkit provides resources for airport practitioners to review and amend their decision-making and planning processes using an equity lens. The Toolkit emphasizes the value of both principles and data. Principles are the guiding concepts and worldviews that inform the moral and ethical ambition for environmental justice and equity. Data represents the information that we can collect and analyze to describe the proximity to achieving environmentally just and socially equitable outcomes. Data can take the form of structured datasets of rows and columns
of numeric information; compilations of quotes from community members; and work products derived from deep, collaborative community engagement. Collectively, the resources in the Toolkit enable airports to assess and respond to inequitable outcomes for the betterment of airport passengers, the airport workforce, and the airport-adjacent communities whose environments are shaped by airport planning, development, and operations. The Toolkit seeks to enhance how planning, development, economic, and operational decisions can positively affect the financial, health, and social well-being of airport stakeholders and neighboring communities.
1.2 Audiences
The primary audiences for the Toolkit include airport governing bodies, leadership, management, staff, and related airport practitioners. Communities surrounding airports, community-based advocacy organizations, planning agencies, business partners, and other external stakeholders may also benefit from resources provided within this Toolkit and accompanying research products. Stakeholder roles and their potential interest in and use of the research products are described herein.
1.2.1 Airport Governing Bodies
Public entities (such as federal, state, county, and municipal governments) or special-purpose entities (such as airport authorities and port authorities) own and operate public-use airports in the United States. Airport governing bodies set procedures and policies that govern airport organizations. They often are responsible for budgeting and resource allocation. They may also control an airport’s organizational structure and leadership selection. Airport governing bodies are encouraged to consider and acknowledge historical and present-day harms that may have been caused by their decision-making. Using an equity lens in their decision-making processes, leaders can reimagine the governance structures, organizational mission, and formal policies that led to the systemic inequities that exist today.
1.2.2 Airport Leadership and Management
Airport leaders, such as executive directors, chief executive officers, and executive leadership teams, are responsible for setting and accomplishing the overall mission and strategic objectives of the organization. The responsibilities and objectives of leadership roles depend on the organization type and governance structure. Airport leadership roles are public-facing roles, and often these individuals represent the airport in public forums and communications. Leadership and senior management support for equity and justice initiatives helps build an organizational culture that fosters equity ideals. A top-down approach to institutionalizing equity allows existing institutional systems and processes to be interrogated and reimagined. A clear mission and accompanying strategic plan will drive organizational change and shape accountability systems for completing the work.
1.2.3 Airport Staff
Airport staff refers to individuals employed at the airport who work in various roles to ensure the effective functioning of airport operations and the airport’s ability to provide safe, secure service to passengers and tenants. Staff play an important role in safety, security, environmental considerations, planning, and customer satisfaction, among many other functions. Airport departments and staff can improve equitable outcomes through their responsibilities and work at the airport by utilizing an equity lens. Staff could benefit from understanding the lived experiences
of their peers and travelers through an airport, including those groups that have historically been racialized and othered.
1.2.4 Airport Practitioners
This term is used throughout the Toolkit to refer generally to professionals who work in the aviation field, with a specific focus on work at airports. It encompasses both airport staff and professionals who work in aviation and airport-adjacent fields such as consultants, engineers, architects, planners, researchers, biologists, archaeologists, and other project teams that work with airports via contracts, industry or trade associations, or other professional forums. Airport practitioners need to consider how equity and environmental justice can be incorporated into their work with airports through planning, construction, environmental, outreach, and other projects to improve equitable outcomes associated with their work.
1.2.5 Airport-Adjacent Communities
Airport-adjacent communities include residential areas and neighborhoods within geographic proximity to an airport. While these communities may benefit from easy access to the airport and its services, they may also be harmed by airport noise and other environmental impacts. Collaboration with their surrounding communities in an honest, transparent, and respectful manner allows airports to gather feedback on how their operations may affect the quality of life of the people in those areas. Equitable community engagement involves actively seeking and incorporating the community’s input, feedback, and concerns into decision-making processes, with the ultimate goal of ensuring that the community’s needs and priorities are reflected in the organization’s plans and initiatives.
1.2.6 Airport Business Partners
Airports work closely with their tenants, including but not limited to airlines, concessionaires, and fixed-base operators. Airports often utilize external contractors to provide goods and services, which may include but are not limited to janitorial services, waste hauling services, construction services, building materials, and food services. Airport tenants can use the Toolkit to consider equity and environmental justice outcomes within their operations and support the airport’s initiatives. As partners at the airport, it is crucial they work toward similar equity goals.
1.2.7 Other External Stakeholders
Airports interact with many external stakeholders, including but not limited to elected officials, local jurisdictions, community-based advocacy organizations, land use and transportation planning agencies, and chambers of commerce. External airport stakeholders can serve as partners to airports when incorporating equity and environmental justice into their systems, policies, planning, and operations. As economic hubs of their communities, airports influence other external stakeholders and can use this influence to advance equitable outcomes.
1.3 Toolkit Organization
The Toolkit includes an outline at the end of each chapter to highlight where the chapter is situated in relation to other content in the Toolkit. The navigation pane intends to aid audience comprehension and wayfinding throughout the document.
Chapter 2, Primer, covers the structural origins of inequity as experienced in the United States. The chapter offers a review of the core histories and foundational concepts from equity
and environmental justice. Some examples include group-based othering, settler colonialism, economic systems of racial capitalism, and systemic oppression. It also presents information on equity concepts in the transportation context and various approaches to transportation justice.
Chapter 3, Equity in Action: How-To Modules, includes four modules that provide actionable resources for airports to self-assess equity practice (Module 1), seek meaningful stakeholder and community engagement (Module 2), use spatial data, methods, and tools (Module 3), and embed and institutionalize equity (Module 4). Each module describes existing tools and practices that can be deployed across the airport organization to amend decision-making practices.
Chapter 4, Case Studies Overview, provides a summary of 10 case studies that demonstrate how equity and environmental justice principles, considerations, and/or data were incorporated into decision-making processes. The complete case studies feature a diverse range of airport owners and provide readers with examples of the characteristics, change agents, and challenges associated with equity-centered decision-making processes. They can be found in their entirety on the National Academies Press website by searching on ACRP Research Report 265.
References are provided, cited by each section in the Toolkit.
The List of Resources provides resources organized by Toolkit section. These resources are offered to provide additional background, context, tools, and frameworks for incorporating equity and environmental justice data and principles into airport decision-making. Readers can access these tools for additional information.
A Glossary of Terms offers definitions of specific terms, concepts, and principles intended to help guide and define equity work at airports.
The Appendix provides a series of one-page, topical summary tables that describe the browser-based mapping tools that can be used to evaluate environmental justice and equity. The Appendix is intended as a snapshot of a sampling of tools that may be useful to airport practitioners. Readers are encouraged to reference the websites that host the tools for the most up-to-date and comprehensive information related to the tools. The Appendix is available by searching for ACRP Research Report 265 on the National Academies Press website (nap.nationalacademies.org).
1.4 Research Approach and Resulting Products
The Toolkit and its associated ACRP Web-Only Document 60: Structural Racism and Inequity in the U.S. Aviation Industry: Foundations and Implications were developed in an iterative process through feedback from the ACRP project panel, research team advisors, and research team expertise. The research team represents varied perspectives, including transportation planning and environmental consultants, former airport staff, and academics. The research team conducted a literature review of a broad range of existing publications from a variety of sources, including academia, industry, government, and communities. The research team aimed to compile the existing body of knowledge about environmental justice and equity from other sectors and then present these existing concepts, terms, and frameworks in the airport context.
ACRP Web-Only Document 60: Structural Racism and Inequity in the U.S. Aviation Industry: Foundations and Implications (referred to throughout this Toolkit as the ACRP Web-Only Document 60), was informed by the literature review and represents themes that emerged from the research. As a transportation mode with characteristics and purposes distinct from many surface transportation systems, aviation requires its own intentional exploration of past practices and present-day inequities. ACRP Web-Only Document 60 offers lenses through which to view ongoing inequities and experiences and illustrates how the origins of inequity continue to affect air transportation systems, infrastructure, and services today. It includes specific learning objectives in each chapter to guide airport practitioners to reflect on the range of systemic inequalities
that exist and consider ways to examine current practices within their industry, their organization, or their specific role to prevent future harm. Chapter 2 of this Toolkit provides a condensed primer of the detailed material contained in the ACRP Web-Only Document 60.
Chapter 3 of this Toolkit, Equity in Action: How-To Modules, provides background information and actionable tools for incorporating environmental justice and equity principles and data into airport organizational structures and everyday work. The research team organized Chapter 3 into modules to acknowledge the reality that airports of varying sizes and types have varying levels of staff capacity and resource availability to conduct this work. The modules were developed to function either independently or as a successive framework for considering various aspects of environmental justice and equity more holistically in the airport context. It enables practitioners to identify and focus on the resources most applicable to their role and work.
Chapter 4 of the Toolkit is an overview of the case studies, which provide relevant examples for airports to incorporate equity into their decision-making processes. They were developed via desktop research, primary research, and interviews with airport staff and other stakeholders.
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