Author(s): Bourban, Michel & Lenzi, Dominic
This deliverable provides a systematic review of the academic literature on the key topic areas of environmental ethics, environmental justice, climate ethics, climate justice, and research ethics and integrity. It analyses the conceptualisation of these key topic areas in the literature and identifies cross-cutting concepts that connect them.
A first finding is that there is a lack of conceptual clarity when it comes to the definition of the key topic areas. Most of the reviewed studies do not provide an explicit definition of environmental justice, environmental ethics, climate justice, climate ethics, and research ethics and integrity.
A second, related finding is that among the studies that do provide a definition, there is a high degree of conceptual fragmentation in the sense that there is no shared understanding of the key topic areas. The literature on environmental justice was the most unified, although in this case the majority of reviewed literature did not refer to any shared understanding of environmental justice.
A third finding is that among the environmental topics identified, the literature reveals an over-representation of studies focused upon climate change, at the expense of other environmental issues. Most notable here may be research on biodiversity conservation, which is often compared in importance and urgency with climate change. Given the European Commission’s commitments to the protection of biodiversity, this may signal a need for increased research funding on this topic.
A fourth finding is that energy technologies and geoengineering technologies also were over-represented topics in the reviewed literature, at the expense of other technology areas, such as biotechnologies and nanotechnologies. The prominence of this literature may reflect efforts by scholars working on the ethics and governance of geoengineering to establish anticipatory governance of research prior to any physical experimentation, due to the seriousness of concerns with ungoverned research.
A fifth finding is that there is very little literature that connects research ethics and integrity with environmental and climate ethics/justice. Importantly, this research gap was observed in both directions: not only the reviewed publications on research ethics and integrity have little to say about the environmental impact of research practices, but the reviewed publications on environmental and climate justice/ethics also have very little to say about standards of research ethics, with the notable exception of the literature on geoengineering.
A sixth finding is that there are two major categories of cross-cutting concepts. In the first category, we found nine concepts that cut across environmental justice and climate justice: distributive justice, procedural justice, recognition justice, intergenerational justice, restorative justice, energy justice, the polluter-pays principle, indigenous perspectives or traditions, and feminism. In the second category, we found five concepts that cut across environmental ethics/justice, climate ethics/justice and research ethics and integrity: responsibility, the precautionary principle, geoengineering, citizenship, and epistemic justice.
This review confirms the need to develop research ethics guidelines and framework on the environmental aspects of research activities as well as training material reflecting these guidelines for students and researchers.
This summary is related to D1.1. Mapping of Environmental and Climate Ethics in the Context of the Sustainable Transition