About JustGreen

Our Principles
Our Values

Our Principles

A clean and safe environment is every person’s birthright. It is not a commodity to be distributed based on purchasing power, nor a privilege to be distributed based on political power. Safeguarding the natural environment is inseparable from promoting social justice. All people have a right to a world free of exposure to harmful chemicals in our air, water and food, where children grow up healthy with every opportunity to thrive. We seek to build a healthy economy that provides good jobs producing clean products and services.

Thousands of toxic and poorly tested chemicals are used in our homes, schools and work places and released into the environment. Each newborn baby now carries a body burden of toxic chemicals that increases over a lifetime. Scientific evidence raises concern about the link between exposure to toxic chemicals and high rates of some cancers, learning and developmental disabilities, infertility and other serious health problems.

This requires a new approach that favors the use of safer substitutes for harmful chemicals and processes. Our government, business, academic and health leaders should take the following actions to prevent harm:

· Act on Early Warnings – When there’s credible evidence of harm, take protective action even when the exact nature and magnitude of the harm is not fully understood.

· Value Justice & Respect – Ensure that no group of people is disproportionately exposed to toxic chemical hazards.

· Choose the Safest Alternatives – Use safer technologies, materials, chemicals and innovative new solutions whenever they are available, effective and affordable.

· Eliminate the Worst Hazards – Phase out chemicals and other hazards that are long lasting in the environment, build up in the food chain and our bodies, or are known to cause cancer, genetic damage, birth defects or serious environmental harm.

· Put Safety First – Require industry to prove the safety of chemicals rather than waiting for government and the public to prove harm.

· Inform & Involve the Public – Ensure transparent decision-making with meaningful public participation in all matters affecting public health.

· Honor our Right-To-Know – Fully disclose all toxic chemicals present in consumer products.

(Adapted with gratitude and appreciation from the Louisville Charter for Safer Chemicals, Alliance for a Clean and Healthy Maine , and the Center for the Applied Study of Economics & the Environment)

Our Values

The task of transforming the laws that govern how chemicals are regulated and or marketed in the great State of New York will test the cohesion of any movement. Rather than focusing only on the end results of transforming chemical policy or shifting market behavior, we the members of Just Green promise that through our work we will build a better movement for health and environmental justice in this state.

We believe that realizing the promise of building a better movement can only be achieved by us binding together through a shared set of values. These are:

Inclusion

We value diversity and aim to involve diverse populations in our work. The respective roles and input of our partners are acknowledged as equally crucial to the realization of our vision. We commit to including the languages and cultures of our partners in our work.

Environmental Justice

We acknowledge the disproportionate exposure of communities of color and low-income communities to environmental burdens and toxic hazards. Thus, we believe in environmental justice and community empowerment, and our work is committed to enhancing public participation, transparency, sustainability and precautionary principles, and self-determination.

Children’s Environmental Health

Children are particularly vulnerable to many health threats from the many toxins they are exposed to in the womb, in the home, at school and elsewhere. We are committed to protecting and promoting the health of New York State’s children, at all stages of development, as we seek to change how chemicals are regulated and marketed in this state.

Safe Workplaces

We recognize that workers have a right to be free from toxic exposures in the workplace, which could result in their lives being shortened and their families being placed at risk. We are committed to work with organized and non-organized labor to finding solutions that: protect the health of workers, insure that jobs are free from toxic exposures and safeguard the communities where their workplaces are located.

Opportunity

A promise that empowers our state and drives our collective. As we look to the future, we share a common value of opportunity for all New Yorkers to have access to good jobs in the greener, safer chemical industry.

Safe Communities

We share a vision that the people of every community in the 62 counties of this great state will be free from the health effects caused by exposure to harmful chemicals and other toxins.