Section 1. Introduction to the Community Guide and Cumulative Impacts
Section 2. Cumulative Impacts Basics
Section 3. Defining, Quantifying, and Mapping Cumulative Impacts
Section 4. Cumulative Impacts Laws and Regulations
Section 5. Organizing in your community
Section 6. Appendix: An Introduction to the Science and Terminology of Cumulative Impacts
Across the United States, health and environmental policies do too little to protect people and communities from harmful chemicals and pollution in the real world. One key reason is that the nation’s environmental laws and rules consider each chemical or facility in isolation, but no one is exposed to one chemical at a time from one source at a time. The real world exposes all of us to a multitude of harmful chemicals and through a number of pathways—from products we use in our homes and workplaces, to facilities in our neighborhoods that actively pollute the air and water, to legacy pollution that has accumulated in our community’s water, soil, and food chains. Those exposures combine with health stressors that systemic racism and unjust public policies often intensify: barriers to getting good food, existing health conditions, and poor access to health care. This all adds up to harm people and communities.
The Guide is a resource to help community, statewide, and national organizing, research, and campaigns drive changes that protect us from cumulative chemical and pollution harms—especially in disproportionately impacted and overburdened communities. You can use its overview of proven strategies and tools to organize your community. You can learn from trailblazing grassroots community advocates across the United States as you introduce and advance local policies on cumulative impacts. Understanding cumulative impacts as both a concept and a policy strategy will strengthen your capacity to take action in your community or state.
October 16, 2024
On October 16, 2024, Coming Clean and the Union of Concerned Scientists published The Community Guide to Cumulative Impacts, a resource to drive policy changes at the state and local level to protect overburdened communities from cumulative chemical and pollution harms. The Guide is available in English and Spanish. The Guide was co-developed with over eight local organizations across the country, including Los Jardines Institute, Clean + Healthy, and COPAL (Communidades Organizando el Poder y la Acción Latina), that have long advocated for holistic policies that can reduce stressors on community health. The Guide defines cumulative impacts as “the combined chemical and non-chemical stressors on a community’s health, well-being, and quality of life.” It compares various metrics and mapping tools that can help environmental justice communities show policymakers that their community is experiencing multiple, reinforcing health stressors, such as proximity to many highly polluting facilities releasing multiple chemicals, lack of access to affordable healthcare and housing, and language barriers.
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October 16, 2024
Over 125 organizations in the Coming Clean network agree that reducing cumulative impacts on environmental justice communities is one of our collective policy goals, as outlined in the Louisville Charter for Safer Chemicals. We know that environmental justice communities are not exposed to only one polluting facility or one health-harming pollutant at a time. When reviewing permits for polluting facilities, regulators should have to take into account the combined harm of existing industry on community health, and should have the authority to deny permit applications from facilities that add to disproportionate pollution burdens and existing health stressors. Passing cumulative impacts legislation at the state and local level is one promising way to make this possible. In 2021, Coming Clean released a policy brief by Drs. Nicky Sheats and Ana Baptista on state cumulative impacts legislation that passed in New Jersey, which we hoped would serve as a model for other states and cities. Since then, New York, Minnesota, Massachusetts and Connecticut have also passed cumulative impacts laws. Cities and counties are also pursuing creative ways to assess and reduce cumulative impacts, while involving impacted community members in decision making. Could your state or city be next? Read our Community Guide to Cumulative Impacts!
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