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 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 and Respect – Protect the most vulnerable people, and ensure that no group of people is disproportionately exposed to toxic chemical hazards.
Support Good, Healthy Jobs and a Sustainable Economy through green chemistry, pollution prevention, and innovation.
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, neurological impairment, reproductive harm, asthma 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 and 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.
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 this vision 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 health threats from exposure to toxic chemicals 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 that could result in their lives being shortened and their families being placed at risk. We are committed to working with organized and non-organized labor to finding solutions that protect the health of workers, insure their jobs are free from toxic exposures, and safeguard the communities in which their workplaces are located.
Green Economy
As we look to the future, we share a common value of opportunity for all New Yorkers to have access to good jobs through a robust, healthy economy that rewards green chemistry, innovation, and sustainable business practices.
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 toxicants. We value clean air, water, soil, and food.