Prospective diagnosis: Social-ecological inequalities in green infrastructures, housing, and mobility in the Brussels-Capital Region

This report introduces the main results from the first phase of the COGITO project, a prospective research project that explores scenarios for a just transition to carbon neutrality and climate resilience in the Brussels Capital region (BCR) at horizon 2050. More specifically, it presents the prospective diagnosis of social-ecological inequalities in the BCR in the three interlinked domains considered as part of COGITO: green infrastructure, housing and mobility. The main objective of such diagnosis is to “understand, in a systemic and dynamic way, the present and past evolutions both of the system itself and of its environment” (Goux-Baudiment 2013, p. 16, personal translation). This work is based on an original social-ecological justice framework that combines perspectives of the (social-)environmental and the ecological justice models. It considers five types of social-ecological inequalities in relation with intergenerational, intragenerational and interspecies justice: 1) the unequal contribution to environmental degradation, 2) the unequal distribution of environmental goods and burdens, 3) the unequal impacts of environmental policies, 4) the unequal participation in environmental policy- and decision-making processes, and 5) the unequal recognition of the needs of vulnerable/vulnerabilized groups.The prospective diagnosis has involved the development of a retrospective analysis of social-ecological inequalities in the BCR based on documentary research, exploratory interviews, and thematic workshops. In this context, the past evolution and current state of social-ecological inequalities in green infrastructure, housing and mobility in the region, as well as the factors that have influenced these inequalities has been explored. This analysis has highlighted the complex and multidimensional nature of social-ecological inequalities in these different domains, alongside their many interrelated influencing factors.