Developing for Justice: Environmental Justice Screening Tools

ABSTRACT

Environmental justice is the idea that all people and communities have the right to live and thrive in safe, healthy environments with equal environmental protections and meaningful involvement in actions and decisions about their environment and health. Environmental justice screening tools can help identify which communities experience disproportionate shares of environmental, climate, or socioeconomic burdens. In this talk, we will share experiences and lessons learned in developing one such tool, the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool (CEJST), which was used to identify communities where investments from the Justice40 Initiative could address existing environmental injustices. We will also share how these tools are and can evolve outside of the federal context to be more community led through discovery research, grassroots engagement, and participatory design practices.

BIO

Kameron joined the Environmental Policy Innovation Center (EPIC) in February of 2025 after a tour in federal service at both the U.S. Digital Service, where she served as the Environmental Justice Team lead, and the White House Office of Environmental Justice at the Council on Environmental Quality, where she served as the Deputy Director for Environmental Justice Digital Services Delivery. In those roles, she worked to deliver on the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitments to deliver cleaner air, drinkable water, access to nature, and healthier environments for all Americans. Prior to the White House, Kameron worked as a design and research lead on Amazon’s Sustainability team where she designed ways to encourage people to make more sustainable choices when shopping online. She also spent more than a decade at Qualcomm Technologies where she worked on everything from the world’s first mobile app store to developing concepts for the future utilizing 5G technologies. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Vermont.