Sustainability’s forgotten third E: what influences local government actions on social equity?

Liao, Lu; Warner, Mildred E.; Homsy, George C.

doi:10.1080/13549839.2019.1683725

Cited by 35 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…The current (and perhaps in part unintended) governance model is characterised by a shared governance (Ness & Haugland, 2005; Ostrom, 1990), where the local community is engaged in all the strategic processes of participatory control (Brown et al, 2006), collaborative service contracts (Tadelis, 2002) and equity cost (Liao, Warner, & Homsy, 2019). In fact, for the first time, socially oriented price‐setting may not impact financial balance.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Corporate governance and sustainability in water utilities. The effects of decorporatisation in the city of Naples, Italy

et al. 2020

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The recent economic literature has largely investigated sustainability in the provision of public utilities, highlighting the role of governance models in the determination of economic results. Little attention however has been devoted to the social and environmental dimensions of sustainability. In Italy, a long‐lasting debate on governance structures in the water sector has been fuelled by scholars and policymakers for more than 30 years, whereas the first (and unique) experiment involving the return of full public management in water provision is taking place in the city of Naples. The present work analyses this peculiar case study, aiming to assess the effects of a major governance shift that occurred in the early 2010s—that is, decorporatisation—in terms of economic, social and environmental sustainability. We resort to a bundle of qualitative and quantitative techniques to address the research question and our exploratory results suggest that decorporatisation was overall beneficial: Although little changed in terms of economic sustainability, the social and environmental dimensions benefitted from the shift in governance.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Corporate governance and sustainability in water utilities. The effects of decorporatisation in the city of Naples, Italy

et al. 2020

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“…What might explain this? Research on sustainability policies, in general, finds that governments with publicly owned utilities are more likely to implement both social equity and environmental policies (Liao et al, 2019). Research on the impact of government ownership of electric utilities finds local governments with municipal-owned power companies were more likely to implement sustainability actions in the community for two main reasons (Homsy, 2016).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does public ownership of utilities matter for local government water policies?

Homsy

Warner

2020

Utilities Policy

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What differentiates local governments that implement water policies on equity and the environment? Analyzing a 2015 national survey of 1,897 U.S. municipalities, we find municipalities that own their water utilities are more likely to report policies to protect low-income residents from disconnection and implement water resource management. Respondents from 8% of municipalities report protecting residents from disconnection. State economic regulation of municipally owned utilities and Democrat-majority municipal governments are positively associated with local policies to protect low-income households from shutoffs but bear no association with resource management. Both municipal ownership of utilities and state economic regulation may play a role in meeting certain local water policy goals.

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“…Third, Liao, Warner, and Homsy, (2019) [71] examined a 2015 survey with almost 1900 cities and counties across the United States and found that only 26% of local governments report prioritizing social equity in their sustainability policy. In their study they used distributional justice as a framework to connect social equity policy, and a procedural justice to determine how communities were being engaged.…”

Section: Justice In Sustainable Development and Planningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing the Integration of Environmental Justice and Sustainability in Practice: A Review of the Literature

Clark

Miles

2021

Sustainability

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The environmental justice (EJ) movement has been a key factor in the United States’ struggle to provide a healthy environment for all to thrive. The origins of the movement date as far back as the 1960’s, led primarily by people of color and low economic status communities living in America’s most polluted environments. More recently, the just sustainability movement calls for the inclusion of EJ considerations, including social justice, equity, and human rights, into sustainability science and initiatives. Whereas previous work has elucidated synergies between both concepts, this paper provides a literature review of studies that apply the concepts of EJ and sustainability in the US to inform ways in which the concepts are merging (or not) for practical applications. The primary objectives of this review are (1) to identify the common themes in which EJ and sustainability are applied, (2) to qualitatively assess the progression of the integration of these important movements in practical applications, and (3) to inform research gaps that exist in this area. In general, we find that despite the increasing conceptual emphasis on the need to integrate these important concepts, the reviewed scholarship reveals that in practice, the integration of EJ and sustainability remains piecemeal.

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Sustainability’s forgotten third E: what influences local government actions on social equity?

Cited by 35 publications

References 47 publications

Corporate governance and sustainability in water utilities. The effects of decorporatisation in the city of Naples, Italy

Corporate governance and sustainability in water utilities. The effects of decorporatisation in the city of Naples, Italy

Does public ownership of utilities matter for local government water policies?

Assessing the Integration of Environmental Justice and Sustainability in Practice: A Review of the Literature

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