IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jscscx/v9y2020i6p100-d369822.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Procedural Environmental Injustice in ‘Europe’s Greenest City’: A Case Study into the Felling of Sheffield’s Street Trees

Author

Listed:
  • James Heydon

    (School of Sociology and Social Policy, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK)

Abstract

With around two million trees within its boundaries, the city of Sheffield, England, is known as the ‘greenest city in Europe’. Of these, 36,000 are ‘street trees’, defined as those planted on pavements and other public rights of way. As of 2012, however, a private contractor was awarded a £2.2 billion contract by Sheffield City Council to upgrade the city’s roads over a 25-year period. This required the felling of over 6000 street trees by the end of August 2017. By 2015, this had sparked such widespread public opposition that the felling programme missed its 2017 deadline. For protesters, the central point of contention was and continues to be the seemingly indiscriminate felling of healthy trees. This article examines the specific forms of harm precipitating local public involvement in such opposition. In doing so, it explains the substantive injustices associated with the felling of street trees before focusing on the underpinning forms of procedural environmental injustice that have allowed for their ongoing production. This contributes to wider green criminological literature by demonstrating how public participation in decision-making is crucial for the attainment of environmental justice.

Suggested Citation

  • James Heydon, 2020. "Procedural Environmental Injustice in ‘Europe’s Greenest City’: A Case Study into the Felling of Sheffield’s Street Trees," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 9(6), pages 1-20, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:9:y:2020:i:6:p:100-:d:369822
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/9/6/100/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/9/6/100/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pascual Berrone & Andrea Fosfuri & Liliana Gelabert, 2017. "Does Greenwashing Pay Off? Understanding the Relationship Between Environmental Actions and Environmental Legitimacy," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 144(2), pages 363-379, August.
    2. Joshua C. Gellers & Chris Jeffords, 2018. "Toward Environmental Democracy? Procedural Environmental Rights and Environmental Justice," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 18(1), pages 99-121, February.
    3. Colleen George & Maureen G. Reed, 2017. "Revealing inadvertent elitism in stakeholder models of environmental governance: assessing procedural justice in sustainability organizations," Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 60(1), pages 158-177, January.
    4. van den Berg, Agnes E. & Maas, Jolanda & Verheij, Robert A. & Groenewegen, Peter P., 2010. "Green space as a buffer between stressful life events and health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(8), pages 1203-1210, April.
    5. repec:eme:aaaj00:09513570310482318 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Tritter, Jonathan Quetzal & McCallum, Alison, 2006. "The snakes and ladders of user involvement: Moving beyond Arnstein," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 156-168, April.
    7. Christian Hunold & Iris Marion Young, 1998. "Justice, Democracy, and Hazardous Siting," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 46(1), pages 82-95, March.
    8. Susan Newberry & June Pallot, 2003. "Fiscal (ir)responsibility: privileging PPPs in New Zealand," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 16(3), pages 467-492, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Contreras-Pacheco, Orlando E. & Claasen, Cyrlene, 2017. "Fuzzy reporting as a way for a company to greenwash: perspectives from the Colombian reality," MPRA Paper 85472, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Shi, Daqian & Lu, Shan & Fang, Ziwei, 2024. "The effect of executive green human capital on greenwashing," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    3. Zhang, Dongyang, 2023. "Does green finance really inhibit extreme hypocritical ESG risk? A greenwashing perspective exploration," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    4. Kay Fretwell & Alison Greig, 2019. "Towards a Better Understanding of the Relationship between Individual’s Self-Reported Connection to Nature, Personal Well-Being and Environmental Awareness," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-21, March.
    5. Wei Li & Weining Li & Veikko Seppänen & Timo Koivumäki, 2022. "How and when does perceived greenwashing affect employees' job performance? Evidence from China," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 29(5), pages 1722-1735, September.
    6. Anne Stafford & Basilio Acerete & Pam Stapleton, 2010. "Making concessions: Political, commercial and regulatory tensions in accounting for European roads PPPs," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(5), pages 473-493.
    7. Dong, Ciwei & Huang, Qianzhi & Pan, Yuqing & Ng, Chi To & Liu, Renjun, 2023. "Logistics outsourcing: Effects of greenwashing and blockchain technology," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 170(C).
    8. Dante I. Leyva-de la Hiz & J. Alberto Aragon-Correa & Andrew G. Earle, 2022. "Innovating for Good in Opportunistic Contexts: The Case for Firms’ Environmental Divergence," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 176(4), pages 705-721, April.
    9. Somajita Paul & Harini Nagendra, 2017. "Factors Influencing Perceptions and Use of Urban Nature: Surveys of Park Visitors in Delhi," Land, MDPI, vol. 6(2), pages 1-23, April.
    10. Dobiášová, Karolína & Kotherová, Zuzana & Numerato, Dino, 2021. "Institutional reforms to strengthen patient and public involvement in the Czech Republic since 2014," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 125(5), pages 582-586.
    11. Anne Seneca Terkelsen & Christian Tolstrup Wester & Gabriel Gulis & Jørgen Jespersen & Pernille Tanggaard Andersen, 2022. "Co-Creation and Co-Production of Health Promoting Activities Addressing Older People—A Scoping Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(20), pages 1-20, October.
    12. Richard Peter Bailey & Suria Angit, 2022. "Conceptualising Inclusion and Participation in the Promotion of Healthy Lifestyles," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(16), pages 1-14, August.
    13. Eugene Kang & Nguyen Bao Lam, 2023. "The impact of environmental disclosure on initial public offering underpricing: Sustainable development in Singapore," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(1), pages 119-133, January.
    14. Antonios Kolimenakis & Alexandra D. Solomou & Nikolaos Proutsos & Evangelia V. Avramidou & Evangelia Korakaki & Georgios Karetsos & Georgios Maroulis & Eleftherios Papagiannis & Konstantinia Tsagkari, 2021. "The Socioeconomic Welfare of Urban Green Areas and Parks; A Literature Review of Available Evidence," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(14), pages 1-26, July.
    15. Birindelli, Giuliana & Chiappini, Helen & Jalal, Raja Nabeel-Ud-Din, 2024. "Greenwashing, bank financial performance and the moderating role of gender diversity," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    16. Wang, Yuxi & Hu, Fangjia & Wang, Yunyun, 2024. "Analyst coverage and greenwashing: Evidence from Chinese A-Share listed corporations," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    17. Irina Iulia Năstase & Ileana Pătru-Stupariu & Felix Kienast, 2019. "Landscape Preferences and Distance Decay Analysis for Mapping the Recreational Potential of an Urban Area," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(13), pages 1-19, July.
    18. Frederik Dahlmann & Layla Branicki & Stephen Brammer, 2019. "Managing Carbon Aspirations: The Influence of Corporate Climate Change Targets on Environmental Performance," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 158(1), pages 1-24, August.
    19. Mehdi Rezaei & Doohwan Kim & Ahad Alizadeh & Ladan Rokni, 2021. "Evaluating the Mental-Health Positive Impacts of Agritourism; A Case Study from South Korea," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(16), pages 1-16, August.
    20. Anand Chand & Suwastika Naidu, 2017. "Health Care Service Quality and Availability of Skilled Health Workforce: A Panel Data Modelling of the UK, USA and Israel," Modern Applied Science, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 11(10), pages 152-152, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:9:y:2020:i:6:p:100-:d:369822. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.