Mapping and Measuring Environmental Justice: A Case Study of Bioenergy Development in Michigan, USA

The Biden Administration's Justice40 Initiative states that 40% of federal investment in clean energy needs to benefit historically disadvantaged communities. This unprecedented policy has contributed to greater interest in how to measure environmental justice (EJ) and account for the disparate impacts that renewable energy development may have on different communities. This research uses spatial data to map and measure EJ in the context of bioenergy development. A geographic information system (GIS) database was developed to compare data from Michigan's MiEJScreen tool to the location of different types of wood energy technologies, including residential wood heating, commercial boilers, pellet manufacturing facilities, and biomass power stations. The results of statistical analyses using ArcGIS Pro found that as MiEJScreen values increased, the use of residential wood heat decreased. A hotspot analysis found that, in general, commercial boilers, pellet plants, and power stations were not clustered in areas with high MiEJScreen scores, although there were important exceptions. For all scales of wood energy technologies, rurality seemed to drive associations. Tools such as MiEJScreen can help to illuminate broader environmental and socioeconomic landscapes in which bioenergy technologies have been developed, but they may miss important nuances, particularly in rural communities. Implementing federal policies that aim at EJ requires accurate ways of mapping and measuring community dynamics and regional differences. This study uses the context of bioenergy development in Michigan to show how different analyses can be used, and some of the strengths and limitations of the existing tools and approaches.